Women's Herbal Retreat June 17 at Little City Farm - Registration OPEN!

Announcing!

WOMEN'S HERBAL RETREAT AT LITTLE CITY FARM - SAT JUNE 17.

Relax in a supportive small group learning environment.   Reconnect to the earth through relationship to healing plant allies.  Find inspiration through beauty, celebration & hands-on herbal remedy making during this retreat.

This one day retreat includes four hands-on workshops by local herbalists and holistic health practitioners.  Learn to make flower essences, how to add wild nutrient-dense foods into our meals, herbal-kitchen alchemy, and making healing remedies for summer skincare.

Also, we will be nourished throughout the retreat day with wholesome delicious teas, snacks & lunch foods inspired by herbal and wild foraged fare, time for journal writing and plant herbarium creation, sketching, and photography, and participate in a plant & food swap to end our day together.

Workshop facilitators:

• Heather Cain - Flower Essences & Plant Spirit Healing
  
• Jackie McMillan - How to Dress a Wild Salad
  
• Jassie Bhuee - Herbal Kitchen Alchemy
  
• Karin Kliewer - Healing Summer Skincare Remedies
  

Food catered by Seed of Life Foods and Little City Farm (including vegan and gluten-free, organic nutrient-dense foods).

More details to follow once you have registered.

Limited to 15 wonderful participants!

Cost: $152.55 (includes HST, lunch, snacks, recipes, hand-out notes, take-home samples from workshops, and more surprises!)
 
Payment required to reserve your spot.
Contact Karin at info@littlecityfarm.ca for any questions.

OR Register here online.

Infused water - easiest herbal summer drink!

Our new favourite drink, infused water!  So simple, so beautiful, so refreshing.  Perfect for summer drinks, to share at your next potluck dinner or outdoor summer feast.

Simple fill a clear bottle or mason jar with fresh cool filtered water.  Add some sliced fruit, a few fresh berries, or sliced cucumbers, top with a few sprigs of herbs and/or edible flowers.  Shake very gently.  Let infuse for at least 30 min.  Then enjoy.  Keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Combinations we love (use what berries & herbs are in season in your garden):

• grapefruit-mint
• orange-cucumber-mint
• basil-strawberry
• lime-rosemary
• raspberry-rose petal
• blackberry-fennel
• lemon-blueberry
• strawberry-mint 
• peach-lavender

Wild Plant Medicine Workshop 1 - focus on Nettle

I absolutely love nettle.  I think it's one of my favourite "wild" medicinals, with such a versatile range of applications and uses.   And since it is at it's peak right now, we offered our first workshop in the "wild plant medicine (in the city)" series on the topic of Nettle! 

Not only is it delicious, packed with nutrition (iron, calcium, vit A and C, 25% protein by weight), but healing to many aspects of our body (men, women, children, elders alike).  It is an alterative, working to bring our body back into healthy balance, meeting us where we need.  It helps stimulate all systems of elimination in the body, this removing toxins and wastes and realigning our bodies toward healthy wholeness.  It is helpful for allergies, arthritis, rheumatism, recovering from illness, beneficial for nursing mothers, and generally toning to both the male and female reproductive systems.  It does not have counter-indications with other herbs/medicines, and can be used freely and safely.  Primarily the leaves are used, harvested before they start to flower.  It can be tinctured, dried for tea or used fresh for tea and cooking (the drying, steaming or cooking removes the sting from the leaves).  See a few of our favourite nettle recipes below - taking our "medicine" as food is always a great way to go!

Nettle has a long history of co-habitation with humans.  Wherever old human settlements are in the northern boreal regions of the globe (Europe, Asia, North America) likely you will find nettle.  It is said that nettle has often been found growing over old burial grounds, bringing to mind that this special plant is protecting sacred ground - it's stinging properties mean that humans will not easily trample through a nettle patch.

Nettle is also beneficial for many species of animals - several kinds of butterfly larva only eat nettle, and also nettle is a useful food source for ground birds, reptiles and rodents in riparian areas.

So, don't think of this wonderful wild plant as just a "weed" - bring some nettle into your life, ethically harvesting* where it is growing along streams and shady moist riverbanks and wooded areas, or even planting a small patch in a contained area of your back woods/garden (be warned, nettle spreads rapidly by underground roots and rhizomes so do keep it contained by trenching the area or planting in a container).  Remember, it's called "stinging nettle" for a good reason - harvest with caution, wearing long sleeves, pants and gloves as it can cause severe contact dermatitis (red stinging itching welts) from the formic acid it releases into exposed skin through it's stinging hairs. 

* ethical wild harvesting - meaning to harvest carefully and respectfully, leaving no trace that you have been harvesting a wild plant (take no more than 1/4 of a patch, do not harvest entire plants, cover soil back to leave ground undisturbed, and leave healthy plants to go to seed and grow in the coming years)
* and when harvesting in the wild, be sure to know FOR SURE that you have properly identified the plant (use a good ID book with clear photos or sketches of plants in various times of season, or go with an experiences wild harvester who knows how to safely harvest and identify - there are some look-alike plants that can be toxic)

Here is an delicious example where nettle makes a creamy soup in place of any dark leafy green (spinach, chard, kale).  It was paired with sorrel in this lemony green soup above.

And in our workshop we made a nettle-based "medicinal" pesto - deep green, garlic-y, and delicious!

Nettle-Walnut Pesto (cheesy version)

8 cups nettle leaves (top 6 inches, removed from stalk)
2 cups other wild green edibles (we used dandelion and plantain leaves, but you could use traditional pesto garden herbs like basil or parlsey)
1 cup nuts (e.g. walnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts, almonds)
1 cup seeds (e.g. sunflower, pumpkin, hemp)
2 cups olive oil (more or less, to get consistency you want)
1 cup parmesan, grated
1/2 cup Asiago, grated
10 clove of garlic
3 tsp sea salt

Nettle-Seed Pesto (vegan version)

8 cups nettle leaves
2 cups other wild green edibles
2 cups seeds (e.g. pumpkin, sunflower, hemp or combination of these - add in nuts if you like in place of seeds)
1 cup nutritional yeast
1-2 cups olive oil (to get consistency you want)
10 cloves garlic
3 tsp sea salt

Method:
1) Blend greens with seeds and some oil in small batches in a food processor.
2) Then add cheese/nutritional yeast, garlic and sea salt and blend well.
3) Add more olive oil if necessary to get the consistency you want.  Do not thin with water as it will create a paste, not a thick pesto sauce.
4) Taste, adjust flavours - remember the pesto will mellow and blend flavours as it sits.
5) Scoop into jars and store in fridge (for about 2 weeks) or freezer for longer term.
6) Serve with crackers, zucchini chips, as a dip for fresh veggies, mixed into pasta, on bread, mixed into mayo for a delicious veggie burger experience, and so many other great uses for pesto! 

Coming up next month in the "wild plant medicine (in the city)" series: 
Plantain - and making healing oils, salves, and bug lotions with plantain

New at the homestead: Part 1 Baby Chicks

Spring brings many new things - and this spring we've added new baby chicks to the homestead again.   There are 4 cute little peeps currently housed in a large plastic bin with heat lamp in our living room!  Soon to move out to the greenhouse, and the eventually (when they are old enough to be outdoors with the other hens) we'll introduce them to our older girls in the hen yard.  These peeps are now a week old, and growing quickly.  The feather tips are sprouting and they are trying out their "flying" by darting around their enclosure and flapping their little wings.  We are using a great book called Fresh Eggs Daily: Raising Happy Healthy Chickens Naturally, (she also writes a great chicken blog) with loads of tips on getting the chicks off to a healthy start using herbs and other simple natural approaches to bedding, cleaning, an so on.  Our daughter and her friend made up a special chick herbal blend last week in preparation for the arrival of the peeps - using herbs like garlic, lavender, chamomile, chickweed, nettle in a dried mix to supplement the commercial chick food.  We've lined the bin with bran (which they can eat and does not cause complications for their digestive systems like straw bedding could at this age), and they sleep on a pile of old wool socks in the corner under the heat lamp. 

Here are a few photos of the little peeps when they had just arrived - named by our almost 8 year old: Cloud, Cranberry, Cherry and Freckles.

Wild greens! Spring nettle quiche

Wild spring nettles are up!  Our patch in the woodland part of the yard is blooming well, and we were able to make some of our favourite nettle foods this weekend - nettle tea, nettle greens smoothie, and nettle quiche.  Nettle pairs well with so many foods, tasting a bit like a bitter dandelion or spinach.  Delicious with eggs and cheese (try our nettle-kopita recipe), but wonderful with honey in a strongly brewed herbal infusion.  It also makes a great addition to a herbal shampoo as it softens and conditions hair.

Nettle (Urtica dioica) also known as stinging nettle, is rich in iron and minerals.  Traditionally it has been used as a skin purifier, to aid rheumatism, help with allergies (hay fever), stimulate the digestive organs, to help promote milk production in nursing mothers, and so much more.

Keep in mind when harvesting that nettle stalks and stems are covered with tiny hairs that are very prickly and will sting the bare skin, thus the name "stinging" nettle.  For some foragers this is not an issue (you can gt used to the stinging over time) but as a new forager be mindful to harvest wearing gloves, long pants and closed shoes (not a great idea of walk with shorts or sandals into a tall nettle patch unless you don't mind the stinging), or very very carefully and slowly.  Once nettles are steamed, infused, or cooked the sting is completely gone.

Here is our recipe for nettle quiche:

Nettle Quiche
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk (dairy or non-dairy)
salt and pepper to taste
cheese of choice (e.g. feta, cheddar), about 1-2 cups
large handful washed fresh nettles, chopped
green onions and/or garlic greens
1 Tbsp butter, melted
one single-crust unbaked pie dough, arranged in pie pan

Whisk eggs and milk.
Add salt and pepper.
Put cheese, greens and other veggies into bottom of pie crust.
Pour egg-milk mixture on top of greens.
Pour butter onto the egg-mixture.
Bake at 400F for about 30 min.
Makes one large quiche.

Happy hens in spring - sprouts & herbs

Our hens are absolutely crazy for any shoots of greens they can find at this time of year!  And we are happy to let them nibble around the garden as they like since our salad greens are protected under plastic in the grow tunnel, and new seedlings are not yet planted out.  We have also been supplementing the hens winter feed with sprouted greens, such as alfalfa and red clover sprouts, left over stalks of pea shoots after we harvest the tops for our smoothies, and their favourite - wheatgrass.  We pull out the whole mat of wheatgrass after it's been growing for about 10 days, and lay the mat in the hen yard.  Sometimes we sprinkle buckwheat groats among the wheatgrass blades, and the hens just love to graze and find these treats.

Herbs for hens have been another learning opportunity.  Since we already grow, harvest and use so many medicinal herbs for our own family, we thought we would find useful herbs to provide health benefits for the hens.  We have been tying bundles of herbs (lavender, sage, lemon balm) to hang around the coop as a way to help repel fleas and mites, as well as chopping up herbs like lemon balm, mint and parsley into their nest box - this boosts their health, gives them something to nibble at, and keeps them happily laying.  It also helps keep the eggs clean (we try to clean the nest box daily, taking out old straw/bran and adding new material, plus new chopped herbs).  Herbs can be fresh or dried. 

Other great herbs to add to hens food to boost their health include:
~ garden herbs like: chopped up garlic (bulbs and greens); oregano, yarrow.
~ wild herbs like: nettles,  comfrey leaf, dandelion leaves, and chickweed. 
~ sprouted greens like: alfalfa, buckwheat greens, sunflower shoots, pea shoots.
~ edible medicinal flower petals like: calendula, marigold and rose.

Most of these greens are readily available - easily to grow in your garden, or wild harvest locally.  To prepare a longer term herbal feed mix, harvest the herbs and dry them fully.  Then blend and crush them, store in a glass mason jar, and add a few Tbsp to your hens feed.  We sometimes mix in live cultured yogurt as well, when adding the herbs to the dry feed, as this is also beneficial for hens health and well-being.

A great source for Canadian organic non-GMO sprouting seeds is Mumms, based in Saskatchewan.

 Here the hens are happily eating their mat of sprouted wheatgrass.

This eggs was laid in a nest box lined with bran and lemon balm.  We also like to add mint leaves, rose petals, and marigold or calendula to the nest box.

Here are trays of pea shoots and buckwheat greens ready to feed to the hens as a treat.  We enjoy these sprouts too of course!