Winter Herbal Remedies E-Course & Recipes!

I am excited that our first e-course will be starting in early January!  With the covid pandemic this year we (like everyone else) have had to make major changes in how we run our home business.  For many years we have been offering hands-on, in person workshops, classes and events here at Little City Farm, where groups of participants came together to learn, share and make in our small home-based teaching space.  Well, none of these types of in-person activities were possible this year, and so we have been working hard to develop a small offering of online courses instead.  Virtual learning is our preferred method - we can't meet our participants in person, it's more difficult to create a shared group experience, and the hands-on component must be done by each person in their own home without the context of being here on our homestead.  We also don't love the idea of spending more time on a screen, and certainly agree with many that we are tired of zoom videos and meetings.  However, for our first round of the e-course we think we have found a simple, uncomplicated low-tech solution, and are happy to share it with our participants.  Our first e-course filled up quickly!  It's a 12 week Winter Herbal Remedies course running from January to mid March!  We look forward to offering it again in future, as well as developing other of our most popular workshops into online offerings for the spring and summer season. 

For those who aren't able to join us with the Winter Herbal Remedies e-course for this round, we would love to offer some of our favourite herbal recipes for winter wellness that we make each season in our home.  Try the following for immune boosting, easing sore throats, healing coughs, aiding congestion and supporting best health for the winter season.  To make these recipes, if you are looking to purchase bulk dried medicinal herbs, try Harmonic Arts for an exceptional Canadian company with superior quality organic dried herbs and other wellness ingredients.

• Elderberry Tincture
  
• Sage & Horehound Cough Syrup 
• Simple Herbal Throat Lozenges
• Thyme Honey Winter Cough Syrup
• Thyme Lemon Honey Infusion
• Favourite Winter Health Elixirs, Broths & Tonics

 

 

Week 5 - Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

Week 5 - Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

Weather: overcast with patches of sunshine, but chilly (felt like 2 Celcius)

Soup made by the kids: Sweet Potato-Leek

Herbal project today: 

• wrapping sage herb bundles to hang at home (and use for winter teas, bath and sore throats)
• discussing various historical uses of herb bundles for health, purification, ceremony
  

Art lessons today:

• form drawing - looking at the human form and proportion (face, body)
• turning the form sketches into flower fairy sketches made to proportion
• cityscape drawings in mirror image
• looking at spirals in nature (shells, etc) and sketching various snail designs

Other highlights:

• delicious warm honey-baked apples made in the outdoor wood-fired cob oven! 
• playing outdoor co-operative running games to warm ourselves up
• learning about how the cob oven was built, and standing around the fire to stay cozy

Week 1: Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

We have a wonderful new program here at Little City Farm this fall.  For the next 12 weeks, we have expanded our kids nature-based art classes into a one day long program each week.  The Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program is an exciting day each week, where about a dozen children aged 6-12 spend time outdoors to focus on hands-on learning that brings various aspects of nature-inspired art-making together.  The children are engaged in outdoor cookery using local seasonal veggies and on occasion we will also use our wood-fired outdoor oven for some baking.  We work on herbal botanical activities focusing on getting to know one main herb each week.  We have fibre arts activities, and life drawing sessions based on the collections and findings from our walks.  We enjoy herbal tea from the garden and a warm soup together at lunch each week, made from scratch and prepared by the many hands in our group.

This week we made a fabulous potato-leek with loads of herbs from the garden; made simple plant presses and collected flowers to be preserved for a future art project; worked at sketching our favourite animal and dream home/neighbourhood; collected a series of small found objects from our walk to a nearby community garden; had circle time to get to know each other and brainstorm how we want to best work together to make this a great experience for everyone.  We look forward to seeing this program unfold as we move through the autumn season together.

Here are a few snapshots of the first day:

Herbal Mini-Course: Wild Herbs for First Aid

Upcoming Workshops:
Herbal Mini-Course: Wild Herbs for First Aid (Plantain / Yarrow / Comfrey) - 3 part series
Dates: Wednesdays July 11, July 18, July 25 (pre-registration required) REGISTER HERE
Time: 6:30-8 pm
Facilitator: Karin Kliewer, traditional herbalist
Location: Little City Farm

Join this short 3 part herbal mini-series to learn about 3 wild foraged first aid plants we can find in abundance all around us. In this first aid series we will cover one healing plant per session: plantain (Plantago major), yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and comfrey (Symphytum officinalis), which are all common wild plants in our city that are not easily over-harvested.

In this hands-on series we will invite you to build a relationship with these plants, by introducing their plant profiles, learning about their historical use and folklore, observing how they grow, harvesting them, and creating healing products together with these plants (with samples to take home). Each participant will also work on a personalized botanical sketch book/journal, where you can keep notes about the history and uses of these plants.

Plantain - we will make an after bug bite bath blend & nourishing plantain smoothie
Yarrow - we will make a wound oil & first aid liniment
Comfrey - we will make a healing salve

Please inform us of any allergies at time of registration. We may be using olive oil, cocoa butter, local beeswax, and certain essential oils in our classes.

More info & registration here.

Calendula Workshop! Learn to make 12 healing projects with this wonderful healing plant

Upcoming Workshop:
Calendula! 12 healing projects, and learn to grow, harvest, dry & use this healing plant
Date: Sat, July 21 (pre-registration required)  REGISTER HERE
Time: 1-3 pm
Facilitator: Karin Kliewer, traditional herbalist
Location: Little City Farm

Join this hands-on herbal class focusing on the well-known and loved healing plant ally Calendula. This anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, skin soothing plant has been used for hundreds of years around the world as a healing herb. It is so revered that it has been considered a sacred flower in several cultures, including India, Mexico, and by the ancient Mayan and Aztec. We will cover all you need to know for growing, harvesting, drying and using this gorgeous flower.

We will share our 12+ favourite uses for the treasured calendula: from daily skin and lip care; to first aid remedies for cuts & scrapes; healing salve for rashes; homemade calendula hydrosol (aka. flower water); soothing bath blend; uplifting tea blend; stomach soothing food plant; traditional dye plant; & more.

During the class you will learn how to prepare calendula oil, salve, tincture, tea, and bath blend, and when/how to use them. We will also talk about how to make homemade high quality hydrosols (healing flower waters). Each participant will make and take home:

• a calendula tea blend
• a calendula healing salve / lipbalm
• plant a small container garden with calendula seeds to take home and grow
• small sample of calendula hydrosol (if we complete this during our class)

Calendula grows quickly and you don't need a large garden for calendula, it can be grown in any sunny location such as a patio, balcony, driveway, small yard, community garden plot, etc.

Please inform us of any allergies at time of registration. We will be using olive oil, cocoa butter, local beeswax, and certain essential oils in our class.

More info & registration here.

Healing Herbal Summer Drinks Workshop! Making Herbal Sun Teas, Syrups, Shrubs, Lacto-Fermented Sodas

Upcoming Workshop:
Healing Herbal Summer Drinks! Making Herbal Sun Teas, Herbal Syrups, Herb-Fruit Shrubs & Lacto-Fermented Sodas

Date: Sat, July 7 (pre-registration required)  REGISTER HERE
Time: 1-3 pm
Facilitator: Karin Kliewer, traditional herbalist
Location: at Little City Farm

Herbal summer drinks are a delicious way to beat the heat AND get nourishing, creative flavours (without refined sugar) made right from your garden.

All of these herbal drinks, which were once common and popular, are again seeing a revival. And for good reason! These drinks are flavourful, healthful, and endlessly creative in the combinations you can come up with, Many of these drinks (syrups, shrubs and sodas) also have a fairly lengthy shelf-life, allowing your to make larger batches that can last all summer long for your drink mixing.

In this hands-on class we will introduce you to 4 types of wonderful herbal-based drinks you can easily make at home:

• herbal sun tea,
• herbal syrups,
• herbal shrubs (raw apple cider vinegar infused fruit-herb combinations),
• lacto-fermented sodas (and lacto-fermented ginger-ale)

You will get the chance to taste a wide variety of the amazing flavour combinations, and participate in making your own ginger bug and personalized herbal shrub to take home.

More info & registration here.

Mother-Daughter Herbal Immersion wrap-up

Can we believe that these flowers were picked only a few weeks ago?  This fall has extended itself on and on this year.  

These photos were from one of our final sessions in the Mother-Daughter Herbal Immersion group, where each family created their own botanical artwork by "framing" herbs and flowers from the garden which we had been using in our classes.  The group met once a week through the fall to explore herbs, learning plant history and folklore, medicine-making, wild-harvesting, documentation, and building relationships with these beautiful healing plants through story, botanical journalling, and hands-on projects.  

This Mother-Daughter group is wrapping up now for the winter, but will be offered again in Spring 2018 (starting in April).  We'll be working with one herb/wild plant each week including violet, chickweed, nettle, mallow and dandelion!  The group is small, 4-5 families can participate, with the girls being aged 7+.  More information will be posted here.

Practical Home Herbalist wrap-up

A few weeks ago we had our last session of the 4-part Practical Home Herbalist series.  For this spring series, we had  a great time meeting with 10 wonderful participants, to learn about home herbalism in a hands-on small-group learning environment right here at Little City Farm.  Each class we tried to use herbs from the garden, or wildharvest from nearby, then turn these seasonal herbs into remedies to last all year round (salves, tinctures, syrups, infusions, decoctions, sprays, liniments, and more).

For our last session we tackled remedies for winter care, including making tinctures and glycerites, elderberry syrup and throat lozenges (pastilles).  To end the final session of the Practical Home Herbalist we always share a potluck lunch, with a beautiful spread of herbal-inspired goodies featuring herbs we talked about in the classes.  This time participants made dandelion pesto, lavender-infused cupcakes, nettle dukkah, lemon-thyme scones, mint-chocolate flourless cake, nettle-kopita...mmmmm!  Thanks to all of you who participated in this spring series, and thanks to Natalie Nunn for the amazing photography.

FALL 2017 SERIES - PRACTICAL HOME HERBALIST: For those who want to learn more or enroll in our upcoming Fall series of the Practical Home Herbalist please visit the Little City Farm website here.  There is limited space as we want to keep this a small-group learning environment.

Mother-daughter herbal immersion

We've been having a great time each week meeting as a small group of mother-daughters, for an 11week herbal immersion!  Each week we "meet" a new herb, and through story, art, interactive games, and hands-on remedy making we become a little more familiar with these wonderful healing plants.  We are loosely using the wonderful Herb Fairies book series, and adjusting the order of the herbs to correspond with what is blooming and available for us here each week.  This group will be offered again in the fall, here at Little City Farm.

Our weeks have so far included:
Chamomile (making chamomile-infused honey, and chamomile sun tea)
Marshmallow (making marshmallow root pastilles, and tasting "real" marshmallows)
Violets (making flower fairy salad, and candied violets)
Calendula (making calendula lipbalm, and eating calendula muffins)
Dandelion (making dandelion pesto, and tasting dandelion cookies, and root mocha)
Chickweed (making chickweed super soothing salve, and chickweed super smoothie)


Chickweed Super Soothing Salve
1 cup olive oil infused with chickweed*
1/4 cup organic beeswax
5 drops lavender essential oil per 2 oz tin

Method:
Warm olive oil and beeswax in small saucepan until was has melted.
Take off heat, add essential oil and mix well.  Pour into tins, let cool.  Label.
Keeps about 1 year.
For soothing itching, dry skin and skin rashes, minor cuts and scrapes.

Yields: aprox. 10 oz salve

* To make the infused chickweed oil:
a) solar method - fill a 1 litre jar with fresh chickweed, and top up with olive oil to about 1 inch above the herbs.  Let infuse in a bright sunny window for at least 4 weeks, shaking every few days.  Top up with more oil as needed, so herbs always stay submerged.  When it has steeped, strain out herbs and reserve the oil.

b) double boiler method - add a large handful of chickweed to a small saucepan, cover with olive oil so herbs are covered by about 1 inch.  Warm in a double boiler on low (i.e. have another pot of water below this saucepan), for about 2 hours (do not let the herbs heat too much, the oil should not be cooking the herbs).  Oil should be a deeper colour, and smell herby (not smell fried).  Strain, and use in recipe above.

Practical Home Herbalist classes

We are currently running our Practical Home Herbalist series again.  This is a four-part series of herbal classes for those who want to delve deeper into their relationship with healing herbs and remedy-making for home use.  We have a wonderful group of ten women taking part this time around, and also a local photographer who is going to document our classes for us.  Classes offer hands-on remedy making with samples to take home, harvesting and tasting herbs, plants to take home for creating their own herbal garden, learning about four focus plants each week, learning through artwork (each participant creates a traditional "herbarium" or herbal botanical journal as part of this series).  The hope is to provide participants with practical skills and knowledge for making simple safe remedies for their own friends and families, as well as building deeper understandings of the beautiful healing plants that are our allies.  This series is so much fun to create, host and offer to our community!  I look forward to sharing more - for now here are a few photos from our first session in which we featured: plantain, dandelion, nettle and lemon balm.  With these herbs we enjoyed making herbal shampoo (nettle, lemon-balm), herbal pesto (dandelion-plantain), herbal vinegar (nettle), and drinking deep dark green herbal nettle infusions.  Read more about the Practical Home Herbalist series here. 

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.