Milk Thistle Harvest – A Powerful Herb

Today I managed to get out into the garden before noon for a little clean-up and prep. Took out the last of the early peas and radish pods from their nifty PVC tent with twine, the peas being well past done and the pods perfect for harvest. I’ll need to clean out the bed thoroughly to replant with pole beans, and I will replant radishes down below in a bare well-composted spot next to the potatoes (which are blooming great guns!).

I also donned leather gloves and de-headed the milk thistle [Silybum marianum]. They were as tall as me by this time, falling over from heavy heads to make it difficult to get past them to the rest of the garden. Those dry pods are spiny like you wouldn’t believe, as if the leaves weren’t bad enough, but all spring the leaves make great additions to salads and pot greens, very pretty variegated thick foliage you have to trim the spines off of before adding to anything. The flower heads – the usual pretty purple thistle flowers about the size of a golf ball – produce seeds that are readily marketable to herb dealers in our region, but we end up using most of them ourselves for skin treatments, general systemwide cleansing, etc.

This stately and strikingly pretty plant has been in use for more than 2,000 years as a remedy for all sorts of ailments, most notably liver and gall bladder problems. There have even been medical studies of milk thistle as a remedy for liver damage caused by pain medications such as acetaminophen. Its flavonoid Silymarin is antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and its action on the liver appears to be stimulation of new cell growth in that organ.

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Red Russian Kale for Dinner (and Breakfast)

I harvested some red russian kale this past week. Planted it in late March along with collards, bunching onions, spinach, beets and salad greens, because March is the best time to plant such things here unless you’re going for a fall crop. So fresh and tender, red russian doesn’t need to have the spines removed like collards and the blue curly kales do. Must break out my solar dryer this weekend, we can’t possibly eat it all before it gets rangy, but I did find a trio of excellent recipes I’ve just got to offer.

I’ll write them as I made them, though we all know the best cooks tweak their recipes and ingredients here or there. So I certainly expect my readers to do the same, bearing in mind what their families like to eat.

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Homestead First Aid Kit: Insect Encounters

Insects share our homesteads, our homes, outbuildings, land and gardens, and some of them are known to bite or sting. This can cause itchy welts, painful injuries and allergic reactions that make living and working on the land less fun than it should be. So in this second installment in the Homestead First Aid Kit series, I want to address the problem of unfriendly insects and what you can do to both protect yourself from their attentions and treat yourself for the harm they cause.

Disclaimer: Use your head first and foremost. Should a bite or sting show signs of painful swelling, local bruising, expanding allergic reaction, pus, red striations around the wound or symptoms of infection, seek medical attention.

First line of defense is always to wash the area of an insect bite or sting with warm, soapy water before applying any topical agent. Once clean, swab with rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to disinfect. Applying ice wrapped in a clean, wet washcloth can immediately help relieve itching and reduce swelling.

Use scotch tape to remove the tiny stingers of bees if they are not prominent enough to remove easily with fingers or tweezers. Tape also works well to remove the spines of stinging caterpillars.

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Homestead First Aid Kit: Mullein

I have offered a few posts over the years about this or that home remedy, tonics, tinctures and immune system boosters with the idea that staying healthy is a much better way to live than being dependent on allopathic medicine and too often harmful pharmaceutical drugs. But anyone who does a lot of work around the homestead – building projects, repairs, gardening, wildcrafting, etc. – is going to encounter the slings and arrows of basic life on the land and will need some ready means of attending to various cuts, scrapes, stings, sprains, bruises and such. Thus this series on the essential Homestead First Aid Kit will focus on the best remedies and treatments to be found (or grown) on the land.

I call it a “kit,” but homestead first aid is as much about knowing and doing in real time out on the land when the medicine cabinet isn’t handy as it is about having the right things in that medicine cabinet ‘kit’. And for the most common types of minor injuries people encounter in this lifestyle, I will begin with the most useful plant I know of: Mullein.

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Radioactive Spring

I am probably not the only American homesteader who has been watching with fascinated horror the events in Japan since the 9.0 earthquake on March 11, its subsequent tsunami on the nation’s northeastern coast, and the amazing nuclear disaster underway at the Fukushima-1 power station. We have heard reports of three reactors in various stages of meltdown, we watched horrified as reactor buildings exploded one by one, and we keep on hearing about unshielded (open to the atmosphere) spent fuel pools that are also in various stages of melting.

Radiation levels have been so high that plant workers attempting to prevent worst-case scenarios by spraying seawater onto the melting fuel had to be withdrawn for extended periods of time. We have been humbled by the selfless courage of workers willing to lose their lives to protect the nation from this awful mess. And this past weekend we have begun hearing about radioactive contamination of food crops and water at ever farther distances from the reactor reservation, even as we concurrently hear about the plume of nasty isotopes having made it across the Pacific to come ashore in California, the most important milk, fruit and vegetable producing region for the entire United States.

Thus it seems timely to offer some real information about radioactive isotopes that will continue to contaminate milk, meat, vegetables and fruit in northern Japan, and which may end up in our food supply too (but in much lower concentration). First, let me direct my readers to an excellent blog effort by a friend of mine who spent a long career in government [USDA] assessing various dangers to the food supply, including emergency planning for radiological accidents and how they can contaminate food.

Radioactive contamination of food: A primer for consumers by my friend, who goes by the internet pseudonym of “Deep Harm,” is the best place to start in gaining understanding of how to minimize your family’s exposure to radioisotopes in food, along with very good information about how all this works, what it means, and how to protect yourself.

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The Elder Wand

Many readers are probably most familiar with the “Elder Wand” from the Harry Potter series of books and movies, but not all that versant on the lore surrounding the humble elder tree. According to the Harry Potter Wiki, the Elder Wand – made of the ‘given’ wood of the elder tree – is the most powerful magic wand that ever existed.

Author Rawlings drew from the large body of Celtic lore to frame her magical fantasy series, and among that body of lore the elder looms large. The elder tree [Sambucus nigra] is small and usually grows at the edge of woodlands and forest. Legend has it that the elder-mother resided in the trunk of the tree, a being who protected not just the tree itself but any home where an elder was planted. Fairies were said to visit troubles on anyone daring enough to cut or steal living branches from the tree, so any object crafted of elder wood had to be from a branch or tree ‘gifted’ by the fairies to the craftsman by wind or other natural deadfall. New trees can be planted by means of a live twig which will root in the ground like willow, and I am happy to say that there appear to be survivors among the several ‘gifted’ twigs my grandson and I planted in the ground last summer after a storm. Hoping, of course, to have our own elder grove at the bottom fenceline of the garden.

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The GW Issue Few Wish to Hear

Most environmentally aware people try to keep up with the science, the debates, and the drafting of policy that will hopefully address Global Climate Change (a.k.a. Global Warming). The hope is that we can diminish human contributions to greenhouse gases before the planet becomes unlivable. Things like developing energy sources that don’t require raping the earth or poisoning the air and water (Mountaintop Removal) or never-ending oil wars, conservation at home and at work, switching urban transportation fleets to biodiesel, purchasing hybrid cars, commitments to rebuilding infrastructure such as the electrical grid so it doesn’t ‘lose’ nearly half of our generation capacity, ending the decimation of tropical rainforests, etc.

And many of the people young and old who are paying attention and doing what they can to mitigate their own carbon footprints are also well aware that with some tweaking of our antiquated agricultural policies that were originally designed to ‘beat’ the Soviets in some kind of mock Cold War game of who can produce the most corn, we could be saving 20% of our fossil fuel consumption simply by switching the nation’s primary shipping systems – trains, ships and semi fleets – to biodiesel made with alternative feedstock crops. Along with our agricultural machinery. A combine can run just fine on biodiesel – or, with a pre-heater refit, straight vegetable oil.

Yet there’s a huge contributor to climate change that people don’t seem to be particularly aware of or take seriously as far as choices they could make to lessen their own impact. It’s not about carbon dioxide, which is the primary focus of most attempts to mitigate Global Warming, but about other greenhouse gases like nitrous oxide and methane. For these the agricultural sector is again the most significant contributor, and it all revolves around our hard-to-kick habit of eating way too much meat.

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Concocting a Winter Vita-Tonic

Today it is officially Autumn, my personal favorite season (for the colors and smells and crisp, clear air). Unfortunately, this year it’s been so cool and wet that we basically had no summer. The tomatoes turned black and died, pumpkins are rotting in the field, weeds have taken over and it’s been weeks since we’ve seen the sun.

But now is the time to prepare for winter, beyond just putting up the harvest. We managed to get the H1N1 flu right after school started, but the immune-strengthening tea I’d previously gathered and dried worked quite well to keep it relatively mild. Was only abed for a day, which is less than with any other flu I’ve ever had. It does seem to go straight to bronchi and lungs, though, so I’m glad I was prepared. I’d encourage everyone to either gather and dry the recipe’s herbs now, or get some from a local (and organic) supplier and have it ready to brew. It tastes good enough to drink hot or cold just for fun, and certainly won’t hurt you if you do!

The winter comes with its own issues for keeping yourself healthy. There’s a dramatic lack of sunshine – thus a shortage of vitamin D – and cold weather’s general ill effects on a healthy immune system. There’s also a notable lack of fresh foods (at least, those not from some South American country you’d rather avoid), and a steady diet of grains and processed or preserved foods will often come up short on nutrients that would help keep your family going. Thus as soon as it stops raining cats and dogs here on the ‘stead, I’m planning to gather and process the ingredients for a winter tonic packed with goodies. Only four ingredients (you can always add more, of course), and some local organic apple cider vinegar.

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A Delicious, Immune-Strengthening Herbal Tea

Concerns about how the fall and winter are going to be shaping up with the “Novel H1N1″ version of swine/avian/1918 human flu is going to turn out. It’s already full-fledged pandemic, is less deadly so far outside of Mexico than originally feared, but is unstoppable and there is no effective vaccine on the horizon. It could do an instant replay of the 1918 pandemic, from which the human DNA elements of this novel strain are derived, meaning it will incubate as not-too-deadly all summer, then come back when the seasons turn to wipe out tens of millions.

That’s not guaranteed, of course. It could as easily piddle out and mutate itself into something not even infectious. Yet so far, that isn’t apparent either. I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I’ve gone looking for the most effective natural ingredients for an immune-booster with likely antiviral properties that will also make a good day-drink just because it tastes good and is good for you generally. For regular cold viruses, bronchial/lung inflammations, sore throats, coughs, fevers, chills, etc. High in vitamins and minerals and antioxidants, plus some indications of anti-tumor agents.

Now, medicinal claims for natural herbs and such are strictly illegal per the FDA these days, so take it all with a grain of salt. Yet at the same time, many traditional herbal remedies have been and are being studied because they do appear to be effective. Many modern medicines are based upon traditional herbal remedies, even if they’re just the alkaloids artificially synthesized. First thing I did was go Googling for herbal “antivirals.”

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Letter to the New Farmer in Chief

There is a resurgence of hope across America in the wake of Tuesday’s election of Democrat Barack Obama as President, promising a new direction of change for the future of our nation. Those of us who have been paying attention to the global financial meltdown, increasingly severe food shortages in the wake of global warming, and the outrageous poisoning of our citizens and livestock/pets by corrupt Chinese producers (a glaring example of globalization’s failures), are hoping that a new dawn in America will bring with it the serious changes to our agricultural policies that have grown increasingly necessary through decades of decline.

Now, politicians don’t generally talk much about agricultural policies while they’re stumping for votes in big cities. And they’re often so ignorant of agricultural issues that even rural dwellers – actual farmers – get nothing but pablum and platitudes in response to their questions. Luckily, journalist Michael Pollan wrote a great ‘open letter’ in the New York Times in October entitled, Farmer in Chief. This is a must-read for all of us committed to self-sufficiency, locally grown foods, the viability of family farms and homesteads, and the future health of an environment we all depend upon for life.

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