Peace & Love Potion

I made a peace and love potion with the kids at Powerful Schools after school program last week, and this week we used a mortar and pestle to make fennel salt. The kids loved the sweet taste and decided to make fennel "sugar" by only grinding the fennel by itself... They are so creative and open to working with the herbs. I love that part of my job!

5 Easy Tea Herbs to grow for optimal health

To make a tea concentrate (Infusion) from the following herbs:
1) Boil water and turn the heat off. 
2) Add a good handful of herb or about 1/4 cup per half gallon.
3) Steep with the lid on for up to 2 hrs or as long as overnight. 
4) Strain into a glass jar or tea pot.


For Roots, Simmer in 2-4 times the water for a long time, up to 8 hrs, but don't forget to check on the water level. Then strain.
Make sure to store the strained herbs in the fridge because most of these herbs will spoil if left out. Drink the tea diluted in hot or cold to taste. I drink it straight when I really need a boost of natural energy! 


Clover- I learned early on in my wildcrafting days that it is easy to grab a clean grocery bag or lunch sack, collect an ample amount for personal consumption in a short walk each lunch break, or after I was finished working on the farm. When I worked a desk job, I would store them in a sunny window or car dashboard with the windows cracked and closed at night.**Note that I live in Seattle, and this works most of the time, but use common sense, or learn the hard way...if the car temperature will get higher than 100 degrees, it will burn the herbs up. That said, in a few sunny days they were ready to be tansfered to a gallon size glass jar with a tight fitting lid. When one jar is full, I start another... when the plants get scraggly, jut cut them at the base and they will keep coming until a freeze stops the flowering, or remove the plant if you need the space.

Nettles-  is another herb that good to collect daily, or at least several times per week when you can (spring & if you stay on top of managing the area, also in fall). The little tender leaves are the best, and at first you think you can handle the patch alone. You start having fantasies about what to do with the extras...lasagna, infusions every day, freezer stocking up...then you start getting a little behind, the bag in the truck is older than the one in the loft, and the ones you decided had to be dried right away are still sitting in the dehydator,and tons you picked after that are already dry... such is life.. Then you get worried that the plants (your booty) will go to seed and no one will get to enjoy them. That is when you start considering who is worthy of divulging your secret spot to- someone you know would appreciate the Nettles and maybe needs the iron and protein. Find a buddy to collect with, bring tall yardwaste bags, gloves, and clippers or scissors. Use the clippers to cut and guide the top 6 inches or so to the bag. Give the herb plenty of space in the bag, close it up loosely but completely and dry them in a warm place. Once they are dried, their stingers are broken up, but use gloves to transfer them into the airtight glass jar to store them.

Oats- I grew way more than I have been able to process or use in a space of about 10x3- 2 years ago!  I had a bunch processed and package up from when I first grew them, and I have been using it ever since. I still have lots of beautiful green/ golden straw that is really tasty, and I just came cross anther huge lawn bag, stuffed with the whole handcut straw with oats still on it. Oat Straw is a very pretty color of light green with some golden highlights. Very beautiful! I brought some in for the kids to cut up and bring home for tea.  They liked the slightly sweet taste when I brought it in the other day, and they have  great time whenever they use their hands to make the projects- they had such focus. Some kids were motivated by the straw, and cutting it up, and others were looking for seeds on the ground and another was going to try to make oatmeal for breakfast!

Marshmallow- is another helpful herb found and easily cultivated in the northwest. You can harvest 1/3 for yourself, divide up another third into about 6 new plants, then replant the rest back where it was or leave it in tact in the first place. This herb is one of the best herbs to soothe the entire system- from your throat, all through the digestive system. If you infuse it cold, it makes a really gelatinous goo, which kind of reminds me of aloe vera. As a hot herb, it tastes  sweet without raising blood sugar. It is mild enough to add to other tea blends without throwing off the flavor profile.

Astragalus- This tasty root was easy to grow on my farm, and added nitrogen to the soil, but I had to wait 3 years for it. I have already stocked the freezer with savory stock made from it and continue to chew on the root and make herbal chai tea. It tastes sweet, kind of like what a candy marshmallow smells like. I will make a preserved concentrate of Astragalus in alcohol or glycerin so I can make the potency of the herb last longer. I have saved the seeds from this one and plan to grow plenty this year. It is so attractive, and the bees love it too! The seeds dropped while we were harvesting them and we left some of the plant roots in the ground in order to ensure we have more coming up this year, and I am going to start more seeds in March for a new patch.

Happy Re- Birth Day Egypt!

Nutrition as Medicine- The lesson I continue to learn

I found my notes from the Brietenbush Herbal Conference!!!!!

I attended as a work study- twice now, and I like to be a part of the behind the scenes for part of it. I used to be a caterer, and still feel more comfortable in the "back of the house". I was asked to assist in two different classes, and ran the soundboard at the talent show!

I attended one class on anxiety- officially "nervous debility, insomnia, anxiety, PTSD" mostly because the teacher (Candis Cantin Kiriajes) announced her class as- if you are not anxious in this society we live in, there is something wrong with you! She talked about when your primal instinct or gut reaction to anxiety and stress effects your digestion first. If you ignore it, it gets worse or travels around your body, at first sending out small notifications- giving off lots of little signs. You may not hear until your body starts yelling, but hopefully we can listen to the signals when they whisper. But, it takes a lot of effort to listen when you are well, much less when you are sick and tired. So, compliance is one of the main issues that Naturopaths complain to me about, and I have noticed that in myself and my friends.

I have been saying that the biggest thing that I noticed that teachers were talking about was how much nutrition has to do with health. I know it sounds obvious, but somehow I feel there is a disconnect. All the remedies that the herbalists suggested to start healing with nutrition, and concluded with honoring your true spirit. I was struck by the commonality among western herbalists (I mean those who treat western people) to begin healing with nutrition. Whether it is clover or oats tea, or astragalus roots or bone marrow of beef, boiled way down for long periods of time. If you start treating a sick person this way -by adding nutrition instead of taking things away from the person, suddenly the person doesn't crave the old habits. They eventually start craving the nutritious things instead.

I have been listening to podcasts like crazy while I farm or landscape, and one of my favorites is The Herbal Highway with Karyn Sanders from KPFA. I love it because she has a discussion with really knowledgeable herbalists that is just a conversation about herbs and people's constitutions, or whatever else the person in the interview is an expert on. Sometimes she has a call in show. If you want to listen live, it is on every Thursday at 1pm pst. One recent program featured a talk with Matthew Wood, one of my favorite authors on Herbalism (and he teaches in Portland). He said he thought he could treat most people right off the bat with oat straw and nettles! WOW, what a statement... The Oats is for nourishing and repairing damaged nerves, and the Nettles is for increasing mineral and iron content in our diet. I have had good experiences lately with feeding nettles to Marc for his allergies; and I recently dropped off two concentrated infusions at a friend's house, and she liked the one that I feel like she needed the most...(Oats) interesting. I am excited to help her feel better, and will share the results as I go. I know I really like the Nettles tea infusions we have been drinking a couple of times a week, and lately I have been drinking a ton of Oats tea. And my other stand by is Clover tea. All of these teas contain protein, minerals and vitamins that are water soluble and easily assimilated by your body.

Organizing an herbalist

I have been going through my notebook from last year and writing notes in my new google calenders- (I could and would /will go off on that!!!) I have been scheduling in all the things that I am committed to doing, including all the time it actually takes to do it and get there, etc. Now I know what day I am doing things regularly and they are not going to be missed. I am scheduling 2 regular days per month for the interns, and every Friday is Herb Farm day (once a month at Longfellow Creek Community Garden). I have also been noting all the times I have written down harvests, so I can anticipate better the drying time/ schedule in the drying shack. I am determined to become more scheduled in the harvests and try to keep the racks full and rotating all summer. The same goes with the Intern days, we will be making products during those times.
Organizing, brainstorming, and drinking my Wholly Mama Tea- Yum!

Chickweed, shotweed, dandelions and sleeping potion

I have been busy weeding this week in the dry and sunny weather we have been having. I know that the rest of the country is under extra mounts of snow, but our plants are trying to sprout before they have even had their winter hair cut! I collected enough chickweed for a small salad, and caught the shot weed in flower this year before it went to seed (a first, I think). The dandelions were easy to pull since the soil had warmed up, but I left most in my yard... One of my interns came over to help plant some Solomon's seal and trim the wild parts of the cherry tree. She is going to try to make cough syrup with the inner bark and let me know how it is. I was going to do it with the kids, but decided the description I read would not impress them..."a taste not unlike stale cigars."Instead, I brought in the catnip flowers that had gone to seed and were trailing me wherever I brought the bag. I gave each kid a paper plate and a pile of herb for them to seek out the seeds. They did great finding lots of seeds, then packaging up some herb for their own kitties and for tea. I brought oat straw and added instant hot water from the teacher's lunchroom and let that sit for half an hour. I did the same to the catnip, but put a huge ratio of herb to water and shook ti from time to time. I had the kids shake it up and think about going to sleep. We then strained it, measured out 3 cups tea, and added 1 cup of glycerine (to make it taste sweet without sugar). I measured each kid out an ounce in a bottle and we labeled them sleeping potion. I have some leftover, so I plan to make some jello type thing with the leftovers.
I really have a great time with these kids at the Powerful Schools after school classes- and as they said today, they did my dirty work today! I have been lugging that bag around with me for two seasons, just reaching in there and grabbing a handful to throw on the field on planting day... I am so happy to have a small bag of mostly seeds, and a bunch of kitties are purrrring away right now in Seattle.