Wild Lettuce

So in my last post, I told you about my farm job.  

Y'ALL...

I come home most days, jump in the shower,

 take 4 Motrin, 2 Aleve, crank the heating pad to the "lava" setting and crash for several hours.

  

I am old.

I am out of shape.

I am basically falling apart.

Doug had been doing some research on medicinal herbs and came across wild lettuce.  

Now, that's WILD lettuce...NOT the devil's lettuce!

  Anyway, it turns out that it is an incredible natural pain reliever.  Doug bought a bottle of capsules of the dried herb and I've been taking them daily.  

I take them in conjunction with an OTC pain reliver and only at night and I have to admit that it does what it says!  It relaxes me and makes me a little sleepy.  On the nights I forget take it, I usually wake up several times due to pain.  I liked the effects so much that I purchased a package of seeds from Strictly Medicinal Seeds and grew out five plants this past fall.

There are about 50 varieties of wild lettuce and from what I've read, they all have about the same medicinal qualities.  I recently harvested the plants and dried them.  I think I'll make a tincture to last me through the winter and then re-sow the plants in the spring.

For me, it's a great substitution 

for so much OTC medication,

and I know my liver will thank me for that!

Check out some info on Wild Lettuce HERE.

Fire Cider

The end of summer begins the prep for cold and flu season.  My counter is currently filled with jars full of ferments for wellness, and the main one is FIRE CIDER.  Fire cider is full of health benefits from medicinal plants and herbs that are infused into raw apple cider vinegar and sweetened with raw honey.  A tablespoon a day will help support your immune system and overall health throughout the year but especially during cold and flu season.

Here's how I make it:

You'll need:

Organic apple cider vinegar with "the Mother"

Onion

Lemon

Garlic

Turmeric

Black Pepper

Ginger

Rosemary

Horseradish

Any Hot Pepper

Chop all ingredients and add to a glass jar.  Pour apple cider vinegar over and make sure the ingredients are submerged under the vinegar.  Loosely lid while fermenting so gasses can escape.  Place in a cool dark space and shake occasionally.

Let ferment for 2-6 weeks.

Strain into glass bottles for storage and sweeten to taste with raw honey.

Work up to taking a tablespoon a day, this is potent stuff, and increase to 2-3 tablespoons in the event of illness.

All of the ingredients have amazing health properties and really help to support a healthy immune system. If you can't find the ingredients listed above, you can always substitute dried OR any other medicinal plants you may find like elderberries, sage, oregano, lemon balm, lemon verbena, holy basil/tulsi, savory, catnip, etc.

Herbal vinegars like this should last a year at room temperature.

Preserving Herbs Part 1

  I have a dedicated garden box right outside my kitchen for herbs.  I use them in cooking almost daily and I prefer to use them fresh, 

but herbs don't grow in the winter 

so I've set about ways of preserving them to enjoy later in the year.

 My first project was an Italian herb blend.

I've been snipping loads of Genovese basil, parsley, rosemary, oregano, and thyme.

I dry them in my dehydrator, and in a couple of hours, they are brittle to the touch and ready for storage.  I chop piles of dried herbs into smaller pieces and store them in an airtight jar.

The herbs will last for months and we'll have 

a little taste of summer in the heart of winter!

Growing Medicine

Not only am I growing vegetables and flowers in my garden, I'm also growing MEDICINE. 

 

Medicinal herbs, that is.

My favorite by far is Holy Basil.

I've been drinking it in tea daily, but I want to make it into a tincture to last through the winter months when I can't grow basils.

Tinctures are liquid, highly concentrated herbal extracts made by soaking herbs in alcohol, vegetable glycerin, or oil.

To make Holy Basil tincture:

Rough chop enough Holy Basil to fill a jar 3/4 full.

Pour (at least 80 proof) vodka, gin, or brandy over the herb to cover.

Cap, label, and set in a dark/cool place 

for six to eight weeks.  

Shake mixture up every now and then.

At the end of your six-ish weeks, strain out the plant matter and decant into dark glass 

dropper bottles.

Take 10-20 drops in a glass of water daily.

Holy Basil has compounds that alleviate anxiety and depression, increase mental clarity, help to decrease age related memory loss, and fight inflammation in the body.

All of that goodness and healing,

just growing right outside of my back porch!

Fire Cider ~ The Cure to What Ails You

Fire cider is a traditional folk medicine remedy to be used during the cold and flu season.  One look at the ingredients list and you'll know this apple cider based concoction is infused with all the most potent anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory compounds around!

We take it at the first sign of sickness or exposure to illness.  

It will definitely stop it in it's tracks, or at the very least, shorten the severity and duration of a cold or flu.  

It also acts as a wonderful stomach tonic for those nasty GI bugs!

This is serious stuff though, you cannot drink it straight. 

It's called FIRE CIDER for a reason! 

We usually take 1 TBS. twice daily (for adults) 

or 1 tsp. (for children) 

in V-8 Juice or sweetened apple juice.  

Up to 3-4 times daily if illness sets in.

How to make FIRE CIDER:

In a glass jar (I use a one gallon size), combine:

1 large cut or grated horseradish root

2 heads of garlic

5 habanero or jalapeno peppers

1 large white onion

1 large ginger root

6-8 pieces turmeric root

2 lemons

several sprigs of rosemary

1/2 cup raw honey 

Cover the chopped ingredients with a raw and unpasteurized apple cider vinegar.  Cover jar opening with cheesecloth or parchment paper secured with a rubber band.  Set on counter or other cool, dry place for a minimum of two weeks or up to a month. 
 Stir the cider a couple of times a week.
When done, strain out the solid ingredients, be sure to squeeze all the liquid out of the pulp, and store the remaining liquid in the fridge.

Take as needed for:

Cold and Flu

Chest congestion

Sinus congestion

Cough

Digestive Aid

Or use daily as an immune boosting tonic.

Wishing you health and wellness this holiday season!

The Creamer Garden ~ 6.13.17 (a.k.a. The Goji Edition)

Every year I try to grow something new and different in the Creamer Garden because, let's face it, zucchini gets boring after a while!  Last year, on a whim, I purchased a goji berry plant.

I thought it would be a pretty ornamental in the garden, but I really had no idea how to use the berries.  You never hear of a 'goji berry pie' or a 'goji berry cobbler'...and now I know why!

They really don't taste sweet like you'd think a berry would be.  They taste like a sweet bell pepper and are hollow inside except for several tiny seeds.  To me, they seem more closely related to peppers than berries.

These plants also spread and multiply like crazy!

I've had three more plants pop up in this same garden bed several feet from the original plant.  I thought I'd transplant the extras so I dug them up by the root and gave them a new home.  Despite lots of watering and TLC, it appeared that my transplants died.  I just left them where they were and I'll be darned if a week later they both sprouted new growth AND berries!

Even if you have a "brown thumb," 

you can grow goji berries!

I'm still not sure what to do with all these berries!

Right now I'm drying them and using them in salads, sauces, soups, and they make the most lovely tea (with a little lemon!).

I definitely want to incorporate them into our diets 

more and more due to their amazing super food properties.

If you're interested in growing your own goji berries, 

I got mine HERE.

Now if anyone has that recipe for goji berry pie....

The mint patch

If someone ever tells you, 

"Don't plant mint in your garden, it becomes invasive!"

Just listen to them.

I did not listen, and now my herb garden 

has turned into the mint patch.

After I pulled up as much as I could find, I covered the bare ground with cardboard and four inches of mulch.  The mint didn't care, it just burst right through the cardboard, around the edges of the garden box, and even into the grass 

(it smells awesome when we mow!).

I had to find something to do with all this mint!

So now you get to have a tutorial on making mint oil.

Start by picking a bunch of mint, only the best leaves, and give it a good wash and air dry.

Once the leaves are dry, really pack them tightly into a jar and crush with the end of a wooden spoon.  

This was my favorite part, it smells SO good!

Pour oil over the mint, stir again with the end of the wooden spoon to make sure the oil gets into all the crevices, and pour on more oil if needed.  I used a food grade grapeseed oil, but olive or sunflower oils would work just as well.

Put the tightly sealed jar in the sun for about two days then strain out the mint leaves through cheesecloth.  Give those leaves a good squeeze to extract all the "minty-ness" from them.  Now you can use the oil immediately, but because I have so much mint growing in the garden, I'm going to repeat the process with the same oil and fresh leaves.  Kind of a double strength oil!

Some uses for mint oil: 

 indigestion 

sinus and respiratory infections 

inflammation of the throat and mouth

headache

toothache

bacterial and viral infections 

muscle pain 

itchiness 

Mosquito repellent

and it's a wonderful scalp treatment for dandruff 

Preserving herbs

With herbs like cilantro, you either love it or hate it.

I LOVE it!

Especially in homemade salsa and pico de gallo.  

The problem is that cilantro is a cool weather herb, so by the time the tomatoes are ripe, cilantro has already gone to bolt and is on it's way out. I used to dry cilantro to use year round, but dried cilantro doesn't have the same bright flavor as fresh.  So I took to the internet to find a way to preserve this awesome herb.

I found that freezing in oil will help most herbs retain their vibrant flavor.  To preserve cilantro (or any other herb for that matter) Take about four cups of loose packed leaves  and stems and put them into your food processor.  Add the juice of one lemon (helps to retain the vibrant green color), 1 tsp. of sea salt, and 1/4 cup olive oil.

Pulse until smooth.  I froze this batch in one tablespoon portions which fit perfectly in my mini muffin tin.  After a couple of hours in the freezer, pop them out and store in ziplock bags in the freezer.

These will be delicious this summer used in homemade salsa, or on grilled fish and chicken!  So go plant some herbs, or stock up next time you're at the Farmer's Market.  This is the perfect way to enjoy fresh herbs all year long!

Tea thyme

Try as we might, we just didn't escape the cold season this year (although, it looks like we've dodged the flu, thus far). 

 We're all a sniffling, sneezing, coughing, hacking mess! 

 I was looking online for some herbal tea remedies for this brutal cough and found that the thyme still growing in my herbal garden would make an excellent tea.

It's as easy as chopping a tablespoon of fresh thyme 

and steeping it in a cup of hot water for five minutes.  

Add honey and lemon to taste.  

This healing tea should be consumed 4-5 times daily for relief of cough, bronchial congestion, and common cold and flu symptoms. 

This is a really delightful tea,

I'm already on my second cup of the day! 

Stevia 101

I've had stevia growing in my herb garden for two years now and I've never been really sure what to do with it.  When you chew the leaves, it is very sweet, but drop those leaves into tea and not so much!  Making a stevia extract can be quite labor intensive so I just bought the little packets of "Stevia in the Raw" to sweeten my tea.

Until now.

I recently read an article that told how they put stevia through a 40 step process to extract the sweetness from the leaf by relying on chemicals like acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, and isopropanol. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens (substances that cause cancer), and none of those ingredients sound like real food,

do they?

So after a little research, I found that drying and grinding dried leaves works just fine.  There's really no need for a fancy extraction process.

I picked some fresh stevia stems from the garden and put them in the dehydrator for about 4 hours.

I placed the dried leaves in a mortar and pestal (you can also use a spice grinder) and ground them into a fine powder.  The dried leaves or powder can be stored in an airtight container.

I used about a teaspoon and a half to sweeten my tea.  The powder does not dissolve into the tea like sugar or stevia extracts, so it looks kinda weird and leaves a residue on the inside of your cup.  It does sweeten my tea nicely though, and I'm very happy using it.

Stevia is an excellent sweetener for diabetics like me because it does not raise blood glucose levels.  Stevia leaves have also been shown to help with insulin resistance, lowering blood pressure, and can help combat certain types of cancer 

(you know, like the cancers caused by using processed stevia leaves!).

And yes, I know I'm putting homegrown, organic, natural goodness into a Sonic iced tea.
Don't judge me until  you try it,
it's DELICIOUS!

Getting ready for flu season

Instead of getting a flu shot this year, I am stocking the pantry with an arsenal of healing herbs and vitamins:

Mullein and garlic oil for earaches.

Dried mullein leaves for tea.  Mullein is great for respiratory problems such as bronchitis, colds, coughs, and sore throats. Mullein tea has anti-bacterial properties that can help to reduce inflammation and infection. It is also a natural expectorant that can expel excess mucus from the airways.

Honey and garlic are like antibiotics.  They carry multiple antiviral, antifungal, and antibiotic properties.

Elderberry syrup/tincture is an especially strong immune system booster!  We try to take it daily in a little juice.  Studies have shown that it is better at combating the flu than Tamiflu!

Astragalus root helps increase white blood cell count, stimulate growth of antibodies and elevate body’s resistance to bacteria and viruses.

And mega doses of vitamins C, D-3, and zinc round out our cold and flu arsenal.

I'll also be supplementing our diets with probiotics in the forms of kefir and apple cider vinegar.

We've done really well in past years using these remedies and I am hopeful that we'll be flu/cold free this season as well!

I'm in LOVE with Luffas!

Every year I try to grow something "different" in the garden. This year I tried my hand at growing Luffa...and I am in LOVE!

Luffa are technically gourds and can be eaten while young and tender.  They say they taste like squash.  I'm not in them for the food value, I want them for scrubbing.  Scrubbing dishes, cars, people, anything that cannot tolerate steel wool.  I also hope to include them in some handmade Christmas gifts this year.

Growing luffa is really easy but you must have two things, a long growing season and support.  I planted two seeds underneath a huge trellis that Kyle built for me.  They outgrew the trellis in a week and have now taken over the side of my house!  One thing that just happened to work out beautifully was planting sunflower seeds next to them.  As the mammoth sunflowers grew to the height of the roof, the luffa vines were just getting started.  By the time the sunflowers had thick, sturdy stalks the luffa found them and grew right to the top.

Now the sunflower is spent, head harvested for seeds, and the stalk remains a strong support for the new luffa growing.  Yeah, it looks like crap on the side of the house, but up close it's beautifully awesome!

They've even taken over my bathroom window.  But with at least six more growing in that spot, I'm not taking the vines down any time soon!

I recommend drying the luffa right on the vine.  The green skin becomes a dried up brown color and if you shake the fruit you can hear the seeds rattle inside.  Once thoroughly dried, they were very easy to peel.  

Our luffas are super soft and smell like freshly mown hay.  I know that we will be growing these for many seasons to come.

A new garden project!

Like I need another project while parenting five kids and working full time, but here it is, our medicinal herb garden!

I know it doesn't look like much right now, but that's changing this week! Doug and Kyle got some stones to define the garden and we laid down tons of wet newspapers to snuff out the grass. It all gets a big helping of soil and compost and soon I will be ready to plant.

In peat pots all over my laundry room are seedlings, LOTS of seedlings! Ever since discovering medicinal herbs three years ago, I have developed a "wish list" of plants that I want to grow. Unfortunately, that list keeps getting longer and longer!

Hopefully by mid summer that little plot on the side of our house will be filled with wonderful holistic remedies for our various ills. I can't wait to make tinctures, teas, poultice, and salves with:

Arnica, Motherwort, Evening Primrose, Mullein, All Heal, Feverfew, Boneset, Echinacea, Plantain, and Cowslip.

And if you're feeling a little under the weather and in need of healing, come have a glass of water kefir and some organic herbs with the
Crazy Herb Lady of Wharton!

(Hmmm...sounds like a great name for a new blog!)