Lovely lavender

It's time for the first lavender harvest!  This is one of the herbs my daughter and I love most that we grow here in our gardens - it's such a pleasure to harvest as it's easy to snip off in large bunches and quick to tie up to dry.  We dry it in many different ways - laid out in wicker baskets, hanging in tied up bundles, woven into braids) and then there are the many wonderful uses it brings us later this fall and winter. 

We make this lavender oil to use for burns and scrapes, and when ready this medicinal oil is also added to many of our salves; we use dried lavender in calming bath blends; we put lavender bundles into drawers to protect our woolens from tiny wool moths; use lavender for cooking and baking (...lavender ice cream, lavender cookies); and of course give our lavender bunches away as sweet-smelling gifts.  Lavender is an effective and powerful herb, yet gentle for sensitive skin and babies, so it's one of the go-to-always-keep-in-the-herbal-medicine-chest herbs here at Little City Farm.

Calendula harvest

This seems to be an abundant flower year.  I have never had such a bountiful crop of calendula blossoms, that we keep harvesting over and over, and they just keep on blooming.  And what a good thing to have so much, since I never seem to have enough calendula for all the winter months where we use it in salves, soaps and tea.  If I was to pick a list of top ten valuable medicinal herbs to grow in a home garden, calendula would be at the top of the list (right next to lavender, peppermint, red clover, plantain, comfrey - oh, it's so hard to choose!)  Did I mention, the bees love calendula too? 

To harvest and dry calendula - pick flowers fresh on a sunny day when they are fully opened, after the morning dew has evaporated but before flowers are wilted by the heat of mid-day.  To harvest continuously keep picking fresh flower heads before they start to form seed heads, and your plants will continue to blossom.  I like to let some calendula go to seed early on in the season so that I ensure a good supply of seeds to self-seed in the garden when they fall, and also to harvest and keep for next year's planting.  Dry calendula on open screens or in wicker baskets, with good air circulation but out of direct light.  They should be fully dried before storing, and can be stored in clean dry glass mason jars with tight-fitting lids, kept in a dark dry cupboard. 

Practical Herbalist Series * Starts in June!

4-PART PRACTICAL HERBALIST SERIES
 
Cost: $200 ($140/workshops plus $60/materials)  - Pre-registration required

TO REGISTER go to our website here.

An exciting unique 4-part series, that includes 12 hours of instruction and hands-on learning, plus some "home" assignments between sessions.  Workshops will be held on 4 Saturday mornings, from June to September.  This series is led by Karin Kliewer (Master Herbalist) at Little City Farm in Kitchener.

AT THE END OF THIS SERIES YOU WILL HAVE GAINED:

• confidence and knowledge of growing and using basic medicinal herbs at home
• a well-stocked pantry of simple effective herbal home remedies you have made
• hands-on experience making 10+ herbal products (e.g. oils, salves, poultices, liniments, decoctions, tinctures, cough syrups, etc)
• familiarity with 20+ medicinal herbs (see list of “focus herbs” for each session below)
• guidelines for herbal dosages, basic herbal first aid for home use
• general understanding of plant identification and ethical wild harvesting
• hands-on experience harvesting, storing, drying and using medicinal herbs including leaves, blossoms, roots, berries, seeds and bark
• basic understanding of herbal gardening, herbal propagation, planting and seed saving
• simple outline for starting your own medicinal herb garden at home
• knowledge of where to source quality herbs and herbal product-making supplies
• a collection of herbal recipes, hand-outs and other useful resources
• a network of other community members interested in natural herbal healing

Please see below for more details on topics we will cover in each session

This Practical Herbalist Series is limited to 10 participants.  One goal of this series is to create a continuous small-group shared learning environment, so priority will be given to participants who can commit to taking all 4 sessions. For questions, or registration please contact Karin at: info@littlecityfarm.ca / or 519-575-9174.

PRACTICAL HERBALIST SERIES DATES & DETAILS:

 

Session 1: Spring Leaves - Sat, June 14 from 9-12 noon
In this session you will learn: how to properly identify and harvest herbs; ethical wild harvesting; basic herb gardening (planting and propagating herbs); 10 medicinal herb teas to grow at home; drying & storing herbs; general guidelines for using herbal leaves, flowers, roots, berries, seeds and bark; setting up your herbal home medicinal making space; and making herbal infusions.  Our focus herbs will be red raspberry leaf, lemon balm, peppermint and nettle.

Session 2: Summer Blossoms - Sat, July 12 from 9-12 noon

In this session you will learn: guidelines for using herbal remedies externally; making herbal medicinal oils, salves, poultices and liniments; basic herbal first aid.  Our focus herbs will be calendula, lavender, red clover, marsh mallow, comfrey and plantain.

Session 3: Fall Harvest - Sat, Aug 9 from 9-12 noon

In this session you will learn: herbs for radiant hair and skin care; herbal baths for children; making herbal shampoos, face creams, scrubs, and facial cleansers. Our focus herbs will be rosemary, chamomile, yarrow, witch hazel and rose.

              

Session 4: Winter Roots - Sat, Sept 13 from 9-12 noon

In this session you will learn: herb seed saving; guidelines for using herbal remedies internally; general herbal dosage information for children and adults; herbal winter remedies for colds and flu; making herbal decoctions, tinctures, cough syrups and lozenges.  Our focus herbs will be sage, elderberry, rosehip, slippery elm, fennel and echinacea.

Backyard herbal teas, home-grown remedies, and the love of peppermint

On the weekend we held our annual "backyard herbal teas" workshop.  Thanks to everyone who came out to learn about growing, harvesting, drying, storing and using medicinal herbal plants for teas and other home-grown first-aid remedies for your family.  We finished with a short herb walk through our herb garden, pointing out 15 or so favourite herbs we are growing to be used in medicinal teas (infusions/decoctions): calendula, peppermint, sage, echinacea, horehound, hops, lavender, chamomile, anise hyssop, red raspberry leaf, rosehips, fennel, red clover, lemon balm, dandelion root, burdock root, nettle, and a few others.  There are so many I love!

We had covered several ways to propogate herbs, in hopes of having everyone start or expand their own herb gardens - herbs can be propogated by seed, by root divisions of the mother plant, cuttings from the mother plant (set in water or soil to form new roots), and layering the mother plant under soil (to grow new roots).  True peppermint (mentha x piperita) is one example of an herb that can't be grown from seed, and must be propogated by other means as mentioned.  Peppermint (as opposed to other mints like spearmint) is generally sterile, meaning it produces no seeds or if it does have seeds they are not true to the parent plant.  Peppermint has such a wide range of medicinal uses - there is evidence of it being used medicinally more than ten thousand years ago - that I decided to root a whole series of peppermint plants in order to expand my true peppermint patch next year.   Once established, peppermint then easily spreads by roots and shoots.   Peppermint is wonderful as a digestive tea, for the skin, for hair, added to other more bitter herbs for flavouring, and is a large nectar producer that attracts honey bees.  Every garden should have at least a small patch of peppermint.

Herb harvesting season

It seems like the herb gardens (both my culitvated herbs and the wild ones we wildcraft) have recently exploded!  This is one of my favourite times of the year - the season of gathering herbs that will be made into medicines (tinctures, salves, syrups, teas) for the winter months.  Right now the lavender, arnica, red clover, lemon balm, catnip, motherwort, yarrow, mints, sage, thyme, comfrey, chamomile, feverfew, plantain, (not to mention all the culinary herbs like oregano, basil, savory, dill) are in their prime -- so we've been heading out with our collecting baskets each morning taking an hour or so to gather, bunch and hang dry these wonderful healing herbs. 

I had a few questions about the recent red clover harvest blog post, so here are a few more general harvesting/drying tips: herbs need to be dried quickly, out of sunlight, and with proper air circulation; flowers should be picked when fully opened and fully dried from morning dew, then and stored in brown paper bags that are punched with air holes (paper bags will catch the herb blossoms that tend to fall off); other herbs can be tied into small bunches and hung dry in a cool place with good air circulation, out of direct sunlight (we use our greenhouse during the off season, as it dries herbs quickly - but we hang a tarp to block out sunlight from our drying area); finally, always label your herbs well before you hang them up to dry (herbs can look quite different when fully dried and you don't want to mix up your bunches!)...happy herb harvesting.

Calendula harvest

Calendula, one of my all-time favourite herbs for it's vast medicinal applications, ease of growing, and beauty, is at it's peak!  We have been harvesting baskets of it each day, as you need to keep picking the flower heads in order to maintain flower production.  At this point we are ready to let some of the flowers go to seed, some of which drop to the soil and will self-seed in the same plot next year.  Others we'll save indoors and direct seed in April.

Here is a quick note on making herbal salves with calendula from an earlier post.

Herb harvesting

Our greenhouse has turned into a solar herb drying facility - we've hung up a tarp to block out the sunlight, and have converted our shelving into herb drying racks, plus a long series of hooks for herb bunches to hang from the rafters.  Herbs dry quickly in here, as it's dark, breezy and very dry in the greenhouse when the door is left open.  I remember volunteering as a WWOOFer one summer about ten years ago up at the Algonquin Tea Company near Ottawa.  Interning with the WWOOF program (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) is an excellent opportunity to try out life on a real working farm and do some travelling, with organic farms listed across the globe and as diverse as your interests may be - from sheep farms to biodynamic dairy farms, to herb farms, to farms with working draft horses, to market gardens and large-scale CSA's, there is bound to be a farm in the WWOOFing guide that suits your needs.  The experience at Algonquin Tea was probably one of my biggest inspirations for delving further into the world of herbalism and wild foods.  They had converted an old barn loft into their herb drying studio, with rows and rows of shelving to dry all the plants for the six beautiful loose-lea teas they produce. 

For proper herb drying you just need these conditions: pick herbs when at their peak (determine if you are using the leaves, flowers, roots, berries, etc);  pick late morning when dry but not too late in the day when they may be wilted from the heat; dry in small hanging bunches with proper air circulation around them, or in paper bags with a few holes punched in as air vents (bags are useful for collecting flowering herbs like lavender which drop their petals while drying); or on racks or old window screens, again with lots of air circulation.  They should be dried out of direct sunlight, and when herbs are dried crisp yet still with colour intact, they are ready.  Herbs should never be stored if they are not completely dry as they will mold and spoil your whole batch!  Today we were harvesting herbs on our property for our teas and salves: bergamot, mints, lemon balm, catnip, lavender, calendula, red clover, anise hyssop, sage, yarrow, plantain, comfrey, oregano, thyme, marshmallow leaf, sweet grass, plus basil and wild grape leaves (to eat).

Happy homestead - what's going on this week

This time of year is filled with days where we are trying to enjoy the last warm moments outside. We've been taking time for walks to the park, and eating picnic meals outside as much as possible. Luckily there is plenty to do outdoors to complete the harvest and prepare for winter gardening as well as next spring. In the garden we've been harvesting potatoes, tomatoes, basil, zucchini, kale; we've dug up the garlic and are getting ready to plant our next year's garlic; drying herbs and preparing our herb shares (making tinctures, salves, medicinal oils, and tea blends for our herb share members); and of course saving seeds for next year. We've also started flats of new greens for the fall cold frames and to be planted in the greenhouse - photo above shows them sprouting nicely.

It's also canning season, so the last few days we've been working on a bushel of pears that is being turned into pear sauce and pear-custard pies...we make loads of pear and apple sauce, and love to use this on everything from breakfast to main course to dessert in the winter months. I've also been doing a fair amount of bread baking the last few days, as a friend and I will be baking weekly for a local CSA pick up that takes place in our neighbourhood. We've been experimenting with an organic wholegrain sourdough recipe that uses a "biga" made several days in advance, using locally milled organic flour from Grassroots Organics and Oak Manor. There is nothing more satisfying that fresh bread from the oven, made with wholesome simple good quality ingredients. What I love about bread, and especially sourdough, is that is never quite comes out the same twice - so much depends on the environment it's baked in - the house temperature, the exact amounts of flour, wild yeasts, the mood I'm in, the other foods cooking around the dough at the same time (I like to think this sourdough took on subtle notes of pear as it was rising beautifully next to my pots of pearsauce on the stovetop). I hope to experiment more with our outdoor wood-fired oven as well, once I get this recipe worked out. After the CSA is over, we may continue to bake for our neighbourhood or the local barter community. Here are a few photos of our busy homestead this week...

Homesteading fall tasks

This is my favourite season, and a busy one here at the homestead.

Last week's projects included:
- seed collecting and drying (coriander, calendula, lettuce varieties, tomato varieties, beans)
- garlic harvest and drying
- herb harvest for fall herb shares (ready for local members in a few weeks)
- building a better herb drying rack in our kitchen for easy access
- more canning and preserving of fruits for winter (Niagara pears, peaches, plums)
- planting fall crops
- adding compost to the garden beds
- regular bread baking
- cleaning chicken coop :)

Calendula harvest

I've been harvesting herbs - calendula is flowering in abundance, one of my favourite herbs! Also raspberry leaves, lemon balm, mints, catnip, yarrow, sage, echinacea, lavender, st. johns wort, bergamot, comfrey, nettle, and basil are all ready to be harvested. I have converted our grow light stand in the kitchen into a drying rack, by adding mesh screening across the frames. I can quickly dry large quantities of herbs, then move them into paper bags to be stored in a cool dark location for best quality. I also have a larger herb drying area in the barn, hanging them off the rafters in bundles. There is good air circulation and a cross-breeze in the barn loft which is key to quick drying.