My daughter went a little wild this year “trimming” back the grape vines that wandered over the fence that badly needs repair (rather than simply repairing the fence), so diminishing the ripening fruit that we got basically nothing from them this season. Ah, well. Happens every so often. They should be back in bulk next year, and I’m fixing the fence over the winter so she won’t be tempted to prune out of season. What she didn’t manage to trim into oblivion this year are the wild roses (sweet briar) bushes on the up-ridge side of the driveway. They can get out of control pretty easy, and always want to drape down into the driveway to cause scratches (and sometimes blood) to people who park too close.

So I’m the one who did the pruning this year, and I was very careful to hardily discourage growth on the driveway side, while encouraging growth on the ridge side. That allowed for a pretty good haul of rose hips this past weekend by my grandson. In previous years I’ve simply put the little hips – sweet briar hips are about half the size of dogwood berries, not the fat wild persimmon sized hips of garden roses – into a jar in the freezer to add to teas made over the winter. Especially the colds/flu tea we drink a lot of to keep the viruses away. But this year we made rose hip syrup, and I’m definitely a convert as I drink my morning coffee sweetened with it.

Rose hips are sort of a concentrated multi-vitamin, with an average of 20 times the vitamin C as oranges. They don’t turn red (and soften up) until after the first frost, which occurred on the up side of the hill weekend before last. They’re difficult to harvest, as they must be pulled from the branches carefully in order to avoid battle scarring from those pesky thorns. So I must say I was very glad for grandson’s volunteering to do that job, I usually wait until November to harvest and end up looking like I’ve been handling an ill-tempered badger. Rose hips also contain appreciable amounts of vitamins A, D and E, making them a very good wintertime tonic.

You can make a jelly out of them, but it seems to me that the heat of jelly processing is probably not the best way to preserve the vitamin content. Whereas steeping them for tea doesn’t expose them to high heat for extended periods. Always keep them whole prior to processing, as once they’ve been cut or ground they begin oxidation immediately. A good rule of thumb is that it takes ~1/2 pound of hips for 1 quart of syrup, though you’ll want to use half-pint jelly jars for the final product. Be sure to sterilize them as well as the lids. They do not require actual canning, but you’ll want to seal them while still very hot.

Some people who use the big garden-rose hips cut off the tops and tails, but this would be silly with little bitty wild hips. To remove as much of the long-dead petals and hairs at the top end, I simply rub a small handful between my hands to loosen it up good, before spray-washing. Once washed, put the hips into a grinder or blender and process to a kind of sticky pulp. Put this pulp into 2 quarts of rapidly boiling water, remove from the heat, cover, and let steep for 4-5 hours or overnight.

Strain through an unbleached coffee filter or jelly bag, try to get all the liquid you can out of it. Put this into a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat while slowly stirring in 1.5 cups of packed light brown sugar. Make sure your sugar is natural brown rather than dyed, as in natural form it retains quite a bit of the good mineral content. Reduce heat to a bare simmer and keep uncovered to reduce the liquid by about half, so that it’s quite thick. Pour this into the sterilized jars and attach lids. Allow to cool on the countertop, then keep in the refrigerator to preserve the vitamins C and A.

Use this syrup like honey to sweeten coffee or herbal teas, or just take a spoonful a day as supplement. You can mix this syrup with strong elderberry tincture if you have a cold or get the flu. It makes the tincture a little easier to swallow, but sugar does affect the potency of the tincture a bit. I prefer to use the syrup by itself as a tea sweetener, it adds a little bit of tart and a lot of sweet, especially for blackberry and mint teas.

And don’t forget to throw a few dried dogwood berries into the teapot when you’re steeping, these are also excellent sources of vitamins C and A. Here’s hoping the viral season is light this year, and that we all spend as few days under the weather as possible.

Some Helpful Links:

Foraging: Making Rosehip Syrup
Katey’s Rosehip Syrup recipe
Rose Hip Jelly, Jam Recipe

Autumn has come to the mountain just as spring did – one ay it was perfectly clear, close to 80º and comfortably into the mid-60s at night, the next it was barely up to 60º at mid-day and into the high 30s at night. Not only are we seriously behind in the necessary wood supply for heat, I’ve been having to scramble to bring in the remaining peppers and last of the tomatoes. Poplar leaves are already yellow and dogwoods are getting a ret tint on their leave to complement their quickly ripening bright red berries, and the crisp air fills with leaves whenever the breeze blows.

Luckily autumn is my favorite of all seasons. In three weeks from now the lush greens of summer will have turned into impossible corals and day-glo oranges and deep reds and yellows bright enough to light up the night. The smell of leaf-fall is heavenly even though it means endless raking in November, a necessary task to ensure resistance to spring fires. And of course the usual foot-deep winter covering once I’ve cleaned out the garden terraces and tossed the remains of their summer bounty on the compost pile. But it’s raining right now, so I’m shivering inside not daring to use any of the scant locust we have left from last year’s wood supply before nightfall, when it’ll really be needed.

In my last post I talked about a new centralized organizational outfit for connecting CSAs [Community Supported Agriculture farms] and ass orated organic suppliers with customer bases in their area via the internet, for promoting healthy, local food and food products and changing the way we eat. In my wanderings about the web, I discovered another kind of CSA that sounds like something right up my alley.

It’s called Goldthread, and it’s a CSA they say should properly be called a “CSM” because it offers community-supported medicinal herb shares. The Goldthread farm is located in western Massachusetts, and its herbal preparations are made in small batches at the farm in Conway and an apothecary in Florence. A share basket may include a combination of carefully dried bulk herbs, small bottles of tinctures, essential oils, herbal honeys and compounds, often accompanied by fresh culinary herbs and garlic.

“Grassroots medicine” sounds like a good idea at this current point in history, as my ‘customer’ base has only been increasing over the past few years as western medicine’s allopathic treatments have become far too expensive for most people to use, joblessness has stripped what little insurance coverage people once did have, and the state slashes Medicaid to the bone so that no one new gets on the roll until someone dies. Last year my elderberry tincture (for colds and flu) saved nearly a dozen people – one of them an ER nurse – from work and time loss due to viral respiratory infections. My ginseng tincture hasn’t been made yet, but three new ‘customers’ have requested some, asap. If I had money to invest in some cute little dropper bottles and labels, I could probably make a little income on the side just with those. Then there’s the black cohosh, the Japanese honeysuckle, the goldenseal, the dogwood and spiceberry tonic, and MUST get started on the autumn end of my skin lesion salve that takes a year to produce…

Problem is, I use those little quotes around the word ‘customer’ because I’ve just never charged anybody real money for my simples and remedies. People have long said I could, but all of my herbalist ancestors believed – and taught – that doing it for money was antithetical to the effort at healing. That was so ingrained in me that it’s been difficult to even begin thinking about charging money. But now that my grandson has put so much energy and effort into learning from me, and helping me greatly in managing the medicinal crops, I see that earning a little money on those efforts isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Now that grandson is in ‘business’ with me as apprentice-in-training, making a bit of money for his college tuition is where I’m aiming my thoughts for the next year. Both in producing the concoctions and in planning for more medicinals next growing season. We’ve already transplanted what will be an entire grove of elderberry that was threatened by a road-widening project, and nettle so we’d have our own on-property supply. We’ve transferred the ginseng to new, deeper beds much better protected from deer and tromping disc golfers than where they were before.

We probably won’t be a CSA like this farm in Massachusetts is, as there are plenty of needful folks just here in our area who tend to trouts the old herb-lady more than they trust whatever allopathic doctor’s on duty today at the urgent care center for $400 a pop just to walk in the door.

So wish us luck, and I’ll be sure to report back on whether or not this change of heart on the healing plane works out. Stay tuned!

Link

Goldthread Herbal Apothecary
The Kitchn: Goldthread Article

Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

The sun will rise over the Heel Stone at Stonehenge on June 21st to mark the Day The Sun Stands Still. Here at my homestead, looking directly east from the back porch (the cabin is cardinally oriented), it will rise above the peak of the springhouse roof before beginning its six-month journey toward the railroad’s gigantic wall, the precise middle of which marks the Winter Solstice’s sunrise.

In the Pagan world Midsummer is sometimes called Litha by moderns, taken from Bede’s De temporum ration, or The Reckoning of Time. Because the Solstice may come any time between the 20th and the 24th of June, it also coincides with the Christian’s feast day for the nativity of John the Baptist, also called the Feast of Saint John.

Despite Shakespeare’s most memorable fantasy play about fairy queens and woodland glamours, Midsummer is somewhat of a misnomer in that the Solstice actually marks the end of spring and the beginning of summer, not the middle. But there are certain things my household will be busy doing that will continue well into the rising of fireflies from the bottomland through the ferns after dark to mark this day the sun stands still, the longest day of the year.

The moment of Solstice is at 1:16 p.m., at which point my grandsons and I will be standing in the very middle of the high field to feel the sun on our faces. We will also be armed with axes, baskets and bags as well as not just one but two wheelbarrows and a Radio Flyer wagon. I’ll have the boys start chopping up dead pine limbs and filling the wheeled conveyances while I strip the earliest ripe blackberries from the thicket. The main crop doesn’t get fully ripe for another 10 days, around the 1st of July, but I have to get to the high field’s berries well before the bears or I’ll get none at all from those canes. Then I’ll be harvesting some of the rue in bloom at the edge of the field, along with my ample wilding crop of blooming St. Johnswort.

St. Johnswort [Hypericum perforatum] makes a pretty good herbal treatment for depression, and is also useful (along with milk thistle seed and kudzu root) in the treatment of alcoholism. Some say it’s good as a light ingredient in minty teas for treatment of hypertension, nervous tics, PMS and ADHD, and it does have antibacterial properties against gram-negative bacteria when the oil is used externally to treat wounds. I have encouraged the spread of this bushy perennial herb around the south side of the field for years to get a reliable supply, which is readily marketable dried to dealers or in preparations (tincture, oil, salves). But only because we haven’t yet managed to build a barn or obtained the bear-proof fencing necessary to the various livestock we’ve wanted (a mule, some goats, maybe a llama or donkey). If we ever do get around to that, the St. Johnswort as well as the rue will have to go, as they are poisonous to grazing livestock.

Rue [Ruta graveolens], a.k.a. Herb of Grace sports lively yellow flowers, on an even bushier evergreen perennial. It can be powdered with fleabane to make an effective flea powder for dogs and cats, and can be spread around barn stalls and chicken coops to ward off various insect pests. I haven’t tried it as a pest repellant in the garden, as that would seem a waste as it would wash off immediately at the first shower, and very hot pepper spray works better and lasts longer on garden greenery.

Then we’ll bring our goodies on home to the cabin. The boys will stack the wood, perhaps go for second loads, while I tie the herbs and hang them from the center beam of the shed to dry. Then we’ll visit a neighbor’s lovely acreage and trout ponds to pick raspberries and hopefully find a few ‘gifts’ from the elder grove left after the nasty windstorm of last weekend. Green twigs or branches can be started like willow at the bottom of my garden just by putting into wet ground, and I have just the wet ground perfect for an elder grove between the shed and the forest.

I’m planning a fat blackberry/raspberry cobbler topped with ice cream for Midsummer Eve dessert, after which we’ll build a nice fire in the firepit to enjoy. We won’t be doing any fire-jumping or fire walking, but will enjoy the first fire to welcome this summer season, and maybe we’ll break out some instruments and sing some songs. By the time the fireflies are high up to the tops of the poplars our celebration of Summer Solstice will be complete and I for one am planning to sleep in the nice new hammock I got for my birthday and strung diagonally to the back porch railing along with my husband’s, both of us Junie babies (who aren’t very baby-like these days).

Goodbye, spring and welcome summer!

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.

For bee, wasp and hornet stings, while ice is being applied mix a tablespoon of baking soda with a few drops of water to make a paste. Always make sure the stinger is removed, then apply the soda paste to the site of the sting. Allow the paste to dry thoroughly before brushing off and applying again. The action of drying helps to draw the painful toxins out of the skin. In a pinch, a minty dab of toothpaste can accomplish much the same thing.

Lemon or lime juice rubbed onto mosquito or gnat bites can ease the itching, and vinegar works on both mosquito and spider bites by helping to modify the pH of the injected toxins. rubbing mosquito bites with table salt after the skin is moistened also works, as does moistened tobacco on bee and wasp stings and spider bites.

Around my homestead we have some aloe vera plants in various strategic locations. Aloe is not only soothing and healing for burns, it is also quite good on insect bites once you’ve done the initial first aid. I like to keep some aloe in a sealed bag in the freezer for first aid use, using that instead of plain ice for the initial after-wash treatment and by the time the paste has worked, to apply to the bites afterwards.

Bites and stings that involve some damage to the skin cells – producing a raw spot that looks as if it could easily become infected should receive an application of topical antibiotic. Among the best topical antibiotics to keep in your homestead first aid kit are raw local honey, lavender or rosemary essential oil, or even garlic.

To make yourself (and your family) less appetizing to mosquitoes, gnats and other pesky insects, try garlic first because it’s the tastiest and best for you. If you can’t stand eating fresh garlic, take a few garlic oil gelcaps a day. Or puncture the gelcap and rub the oil directly on your skin if you don’t mind smelling like a peasant while out tending your garden. Avoid floral or fruity smelling cosmetics, sunscreens, perfumes, etc., as these draw mosquitoes.

If you make an infused oil of cinnamon, rosemary, peppermint, cloves, lavender, thyme, lemon balm or garlic to use as a repellant, re-apply every couple of hours that you are spending outdoors working. An infused oil is easy to make with some light vegetable oil (canola or safflower works well) in a mason jar, into which you pack chunked raw garlic or plant materials. Put it in a sunny window for a week or so, then strain into a handy size bottle.

Be aware that nothing you can apply to yourself will deter angry bees, wasps, hornets or yellow jackets, and these can swarm to cause many stings. Some common spiders – black widows and brown recluse – can be quite dangerous if there is allergy, and can cause tissue damage around the bite. Look for ‘rings’ of inflammation or bruising around bites, as these can indicate a need for medical follow-up. Some ticks carry Lyme Disease, and this usually shows up as a ring of inflammation around the area of the bite as well.

Previous Posts to this Series:

Homestead First Aid Kit: Mullein

Useful Links:

WLJ Natural Medicines
Natural Antibiotics
Home Remedies for Insect Bites & Stings

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.

Mullein [Verbascum thapsus] is a common plant easily recognizable with its large, hairy leaves and tall, yellow-flowered stalk. All portions of the plant have been used in herbal medicine for centuries, including the deep taproot. For home use you will want to avoid plants that grow in places likely to be polluted (industrial yards, train right of ways, next to busy highways, etc.), and any whose stalks are not straight and tall. This is because mullein, like horseradish and some other deeply rooted plants tend to absorb and concentrate pollutants.

Thousands of years ago the common mullein was known to the armies of Greece and the legions of Rome as ‘Soldier’s Herb’, even as its fanciful name in Europe and the Americas was ‘Aaron’s Rod’. As Soldier’s Herb the thick, astringent leaves of the plant were used as both poultice and bandage on wounds, and this is still one of the most useful ways the plant can be used out on the land. For sprains and contusions (deep bruising), the fresher the leaf the better.

A friend once twisted his ankle badly while hiking, the foot swelled and turned a nasty shade of purple-black quickly enough to cause us to suspect it was broken. I gathered a few large basal leaves of mullein and washed them in cold water. Then I cut out the leaf spine from the back with a pocket knife, rolled the halves and lightly bruised them while still wet by squeezing. These were wrapped around the foot and ankle well and then held in place with an Ace bandage. By morning the bruising and swelling was completely gone, and remaining soreness in the foot was not a big issue so long as my friend tied his hiking boots firmly.

I have found this wet leaf and Ace bandage treatment also works on wrenched knees, tennis elbow and attacks of carpal tunnel in the wrist and hands. Everyone who has tried it swears their aches and swellings are so much better with the mullein than just wrapped without it, that several have taken to growing their own mullein in corners of their yards in town.

The astringent property also makes bruised leaves good for staunching blood flow from cuts, and mullein itself – leaves and or flowers – is an emollient wonder for almost any kind of skin condition or injury. There are better things for poison ivy or poison oak, but for rashes, dry patches, scrapes and burns, a quick application of clean, wet mullein is soothing and aids in quick healing. Cuts must of course be well cleaned and disinfected as soon as possible, but between the time of the injury and getting back to the house mullein can help a lot to staunch blood. Hold it to the cut tightly.

Mullein has also long been recognized as useful for the treatment of various lung and bronchial issues, including asthma and allergies, pneumonia, sore throats, coughs and croup. It contains expectorant saponins, and leaves are smoked both as remedy for bronchitis and as a tobacco substitute. The flower oil is used in treatments for skin rashes, digestive upsets, earaches, eczema, warts, boils, hemorrhoids and such. Recent research shows compounds with antibacterial, anti-viral and anti-tumor action in the flowers.

Teas made from the leaves for treating respiratory illness should be finely filtered to remove the tiny hairs, as these can be irritating all by themselves. Extracting essential oil from the flowers is a difficult process, which is unnecessary for most applications (skin, earaches, antibiotic for scrapes and wounds). Just pack fresh flowers into a jar of olive oil and let them infuse. Don’t use this on an earache involving ruptured ear drum, but for your average earache a few drops of this warm oil are soothing and help to loosen wax and fight bacteria. Mix this oil with some beeswax and you’ve a very nice skin cream. Good as a diaper rash cream as-is, mix with infused calendula (marigold) oil for treatment of rashes and dry skin.

Mullein for the homestead first aid kit should thus include at least an ounce of dried, shredded leaves, for use in poultices for wounds. Also an ounce of dried and powdered mullein leaves and flowers for making teas (1.5 tbsp per cup). An ounce of infused mullein flower olive oil in a dropper bottle for earaches. A jar of mullein/calendula infused oil/beeswax light cream for antibiotic and healing skin treatment.

Stay tuned for future installments in this series, each of which will come with a collection of links to all previous articles. Next time: insect bites, poison ivy/oak treatments to keep handy.

Useful Links:

Natural First Aid Kit
On the Farm First Aid Herbs
Home Remedies: Mullein

See those lovely, begging-to-be-harvested morel ‘shrooms in the photo? We eagerly await the first part of April every year here in the wilds of western North Carolina, just for these tasty beauties. But just as Morel Hunting Weekend was called, when dedicated mushroom hunters and able chefs were to converge on the homestead for the annual harvest…

…this happened. Yep. Yet another spring fire, scheduled at exactly the wrong time. Took me by surprise this year, as we’d been getting plenty of rain – it had rained at least an inch just the night before. But the odd spring ritual of train engineers riding the brakes uphill once again sent molten metal (from the brakes) flying into the tinder-dry old kudzu vines and the leaf-fall took off.

Now, the forest loves this kind of fire. It’s too wet to get burning really good, isn’t going to take any trees more than a few years old. It’ll just add some ash to the forest loam just before the underbrush and kudzu gets going, in another month everything will be so thickly green you won’t even be able to tell there was a fire. But alas, we got no morels this year.

Morels are wonderful freshly cooked, but they also dry nicely for use in gourmet dishes later on. But with none to feast on over the weekend of April 9-10 this year due to the fire, we had to make due with some portobellos. These actually worked well as the main ingredient, rubbed with sesame oil and grilled, but if you eat meat this same dish made with morels sliced lengthwise, or thinly sliced portobellos would work as well.

As the portobellos were grilled, in the grill-plate on the second level we put some chunky-cut red onions, green and yellow bell peppers and fresh strawberries, some fresh basil and sage and a short shake of good chili powder, all drizzled with sesame oil and tossed. To this you’d add the morels if you were lucky enough to have any. I know this sounds weird – who in their right mind would grill strawberries? But when it all gets grilled soft and is well tossed, this ‘salsa’ (chutney?) is unbelievably delicious spooned thickly onto the grilled portobellos, or it would be spectacular on lamb or slices of good roast beast if you’re into such things.

For a side we had grilled halved brussels sprouts tossed in olive oil and cracked pepper tossed with fresh raw peas from the garden, over a bed of noodles. I admit I got ‘extra’ strawberry salsa and mixed it in too…

So we got our gourmet meal out of the deal even though the fire got this year’s morels. Sigh. The goldens will be up soon, so all is not lost. Besides, the red kale is almost ready to start picking, beets, salad greens and bunching onions are up, potatoes are in, and the tomato seedlings are up in the window. I figure if I just keep digging, there will be food enough this year.

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.

We obtained the ‘gifting’ from a fine elder grove currently neglected on a neighborhood property lost a couple of years ago to foreclosure. Since no one was tending the property, we decided nobody’d miss the berry crop if we did the harvesting. The grove is located on the far side of a fine trout pond installed by the previous owner for fishing, which boasts a nice little sand beach, a dock for a little john boat, and an aerating fountain that still works on back-fall pressure from the creek. It was so blasted hot during June and July last year that we were very grateful for the luxury of that cold water pond, not to mention the ample blackberries and raspberries that had taken over because nobody was tending the land.

The crop was large, so by harvesting a couple of baskets full over a period of time allowed us to process in a leisurely manner over time as well. We simply stripped the berries from the tiny stems, filled quart jars about 2/3 with them (not crushed or packed), and then filled the jars with 100-proof vodka. Many herbalists say 80-proof works as well, but I go for good (and organic!) when I can. The tincture itself will keep for about 5 years once filtered and bottled and kept in a cool, dark place, but it never lasts that long during cold and flu season.

Once we’d made as much tincture as I could afford to make (organic 100-proof ain’t cheap), we dried the rest of the berries in the solar dryer. I let them dry hard, which would likely allow me to store in jars in the cabinet, but to be safe I went ahead and bagged them in ounce-size baggies and stored in the refrigerator drawer. Handy size for dry, as just add vodka (1 pint to 1 ounce), shake every day for a week, and start taking a jigger a day if you’re sick, a tablespoon or two if you aren’t.

For those wondering about the objective effectiveness of elderberry preparations as an anti-viral, side-by-side trials with Sambucol (elderberry) and TamiFlu (the standard pharma anti-viral) conducted during the swine flu epidemic demonstrated the superiority of elderberry extract, tincture and syrup over the alternative for both preventing infection – via immune system boost – and shortening duration of colds and flu. One immunological study from Israel demonstrated elderberry’s effectiveness against 10 strains of influenza virus. That’s impressive, and probably one of the reasons that in traditional herbal circles elderberry is called “Nature’s Medicine Chest.”

At any rate, this year’s flu season hasn’t been nearly as bad as ‘normal’, so I still have a couple of dried ounces of elderberries left. They’ll keep fine until next flu season if there’s no reason to make more tincture this year. Another surprising thing I heard recently about the scary swine flu that managed to infect millions before Big Pharma could make and distribute the vaccine is that apart from not being as deadly as the usual seasonal flu by the time it was all over, the immune system effect of that oddball H1N1 flu apparently inoculated survivors effectively against a variety of known forms of flu due to excitation of immune system response!

At any rate, grandson and I are looking to make some preparations this year from elder flowers as well as the later ripening berries, I will write about that when they’re blooming.

* In my last post I linked to a new project launched by one of my region’s most energetic organic farming families to take advantage of our huge and growing organic/local foods markets. The site is currently down, so an expansion of this great idea for developing local food networks will have to wait until it’s back up. I am planning an interview with the proprietors to get their vision on expansion and the markets they serve, so please stay tuned!

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.

The vinegar is a preservative and solvent that will keep the vitamins and other nutrients active and accessible to your body in easily assimilated form. There’s no cooking involved, so delicate nutrients won’t be destroyed. Even herb teas have some issues with that, in that they are brewed with boiling water which destroys some of their effectiveness. So first thing on the list is to obtain a quart or two of the very best cider vinegar you can. Don’t substitute white vinegar, as it’s mostly just chemicals in water. You want the natural goodness and medicinal/nutrative properties of the cider vinegar.

First, cider vinegar is a natural germicide. It helps to fight infection and eases inflammation. It also helps to prevent blood clots and contains vitamins C, B6, E, beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor and anti-oxidant), potassium, magnesium, calcium, riboflavin and thiamin. It also stimulates excretory organs and aids digestion. Plus it tastes good!

Second ingredient is dandelion roots. We grow some hefty dandelions in a lower terrace of the garden for greens, but also for roots in the fall. They’re easy enough to harvest with a potato-fork or hand trowel in soft ground. The roots go deep, usually straight down but sometimes they’re forked or grow at angles around rocks and such. I usually just loosen the soil around at about a foot distance and a foot deep, then pick them out by hand carefully. Dandelion root is a rich blend of vitamins A, B, D (you’ll need this one), iron, magnesium, zinc, potassium, sodium, calcium and silicon. It’s a mild diuretic, eases digestion, and promotes healthy blood circulation.

Third ingredient is chickweed, of which we’ve plenty in the yard and garden. We don’t use artificial fertilizers or weed-killers or other chemicals, but if you do you should obtain your chickweed (as well as dandelion) from someone who doesn’t. It’s high in vitamins B1, B2, B3, E and C, beta carotine, calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, iron and zinc, and contains flavinoids that aid in absorption of nutrients. It’s rich in chlorophyll, contains saponins, is a rare plant source of essential fatty acids and is useful against respiratory infections. Chickweed is renowned for reducing inflammation and speeds healing. You’ll want to keep a good growth of chickweed going all year, as it’s delicious in salads as well as excellent for your skin (along with cleavers). But this time of year, we’re talking tonic.

Fourth ingredient is rose hips, best source of vitamin C anywhere, plus A, E, K, B-complex. Generally, wild rose hips need to experience a freeze before they turn red and soften enough for harvest. First freeze in my zone should come in October, so this particular ingredient will be added later to the tonic extract.

The recipe for tonic is easy. First, wash and drain the chickweed, pat softly with paper towels. You can cut it into small pieces with kitchen scissors, go ahead and dip the blades in boiling water for a few minutes first. Put about a loose cup of chopped chickweed into a sterile quart jar. Trim and soak the dandelion roots in cold water, agitating occasionally. After the dirt is mostly off or softened, drain and scrub them carefully with a vegetable brush or old toothbrush (pre-soak brush in boiling water for 3-5 minutes). When they’re good and clean, chop them into small chunks and add to the jar(s) with the chickweed. No need to dry the roots first. You’ll want 1/2 to 1 cup of root chunks per jar. Fill the jar(s) with cider vinegar, leaving enough head space to accommodate about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of rose hips when they’re in.

Cap and store in a cool, dark place. No need to process, the vinegar will preserve and serve as solvent for the nutrients. You may wish to strain out the ingredients at some point (I don’t bother) and re-bottle. If so, wait for at least a month for the nutrients to infuse the vinegar. Take a tablespoon of the vinegar per day, however you like it. I like it on salad, but sometimes I just like to take it straight. You can use it in cooking, but that will destroy some of the nutrients you’re aiming to ingest. This tonic extract is very rich in vitamins and minerals plus anti-oxidants and flavonoids, etc. Your body will absorb more of them in this form than you’d get from a pill or capsule too.

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.”

There are several decent websites with ample enough disclaimers to get around the FDA, which I’ll list at the end of this article. But in addition to the immune-boosting, maybe anti-viral tea (cold or hot), there are some dietary things we should think about doing before we ever get sick. First, a good helping a white rice cooked with turmeric every day is a good idea. Turmeric contains curcumin, which imparts the bright yellow coloring. It’s an excellent anti-inflammatory (for any inflammatory condition), and may be helpful in mitigating the cytokine storm of flu as well as allergies like hay fever in general. Add an equal amount of cayenne or other pepper powder to the pot, as this pepper enhances absorption of the curcumin. Buy fresh powdered spice, store in the ‘fridge door – your new, improved spice rack! Or in a cool, dark place away from kitchen range heat.

When you’re food shopping, look in the fresh produce section for those nice bags of fresh cranberries. Buy as many as possible, freeze them. Not only can you make scrumptious whole cranberry sauce with these (do so, eat often, use raw honey if you can instead of sugar, 3/4 cup honey to 1 cup sugar), you can also make high molecular weight, high Non-Dialysable Material [NDM] with them. Just boil them about 5 minutes in good water, strain. Either drink a few ounces of this strong juice every day, or dilute it with more water and sweeten a bit with honey or maple sugar and drink as juice. If you’ve a blender and food dryer, make mush of the solid leftovers and turn it into fruit leather. Add blueberries (reconstituted dried or frozen) to increase the antioxidant value and enjoy like tart candy snacks!

If you can find good elderberry wine or brandy, get a bottle and drink 2-4 ounces every day as well. Elderberries are among the most ancient and valued of herbals, and may reduce the risk of contracting influenza. Do, but don’t overdo. If you can get a good organic basalmic vinegar (I make my own 1-year aged with native muscodines), take a tablespoonful every day – a healthy dose of basalmic and virgin olive oil dressing on a lunch salad will do. Throw some raw spinach and other actually valuable food-greens in while you’re at it. Good whole grape juice (with sediment) is also recommended, I bottle a couple of gallons of it every year. You’re going for your daily dose of supplements in the form of things you actually eat or drink, not taking a host of capsules or pills over the course of a day. If you’re like me, you get way more value from the real thing rather than somebody’s possibly questionable – and often expensive – supplements, and those generally go right through me.

The point of herbals and natural food-based remedies, in my opinion, is to get you to alter your daily consumption habits toward things that really are whole and good for you, as well as get you involved in preparing them for yourself. It’s a wholistic deal, this natural thing. Your thoughts, intents and actions all count toward the prevention/cure. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself healthy in spite of yourself, looking forward to your next meal or snack! Don’t forget alfalfa sprouts (grow your own) and nuts/seeds and hearty multigrain sprouted or seeded bread. Big on vitamin E.

Now for the great tasting tea with all the antiviral, antibiotic, anti-cancer and immune-strengthening ingredients! I start with peppermint, mostly because not only is it high on the list, it’s what grows like crazy in my garden. Have tons of it, always put it in my summer iced teas and winter hots. Lemon balm is the second ingredient, it’s got even stronger immune stimulating properties. Wild and red rose leaves, wild strawberry leaves and fruit, grape leaves, muellin, Japanese honeysuckle flowers and new leaves, pineapple mint, some ground spicebush twigs. I dry thoroughly and carefully, mix it up well and put it in a well-sealed jar, keep it in a dark place. When I brew a family-size couple of green tea bags (always good for you), I toss a handful of this dry mixture into the pot. Let it steep 5-10 minutes (10 if you’re dlluting), strain into a 2-quart pitcher. It’s still hot, so add honey now, preferably local and raw. I don’t like my tea very sweet at all, so only use half a cup or less for half a gallon. When this is mixed well, add pure water (we have mountain spring water out of our tap!) to fill the pitcher and stir. Refrigerate, drink over ice. I usually have an insulated cup with a lid that keeps it cold, sip on it all through the day.

If it’s cold, you have a cold, or you just want a hot tea, use a rounded teaspoon of the herb blend with a single-serving green tea bag, strain, sweeten with honey and drink hot.

I always fluff the dried mixture to mix it well before using, as some of the ingredients will tend to sink to the bottom of the container. That way you get all of it, and you’ll want all of it. You could add more exotic ingredients like St. Johnswort (good relaxer if you’re sick) or dyer’s woad or some other favorite, even mix with that hearty cranberry juice or whole grape juice. Any way you like it, it’ll help you fend off colds and flu as well as keep you refreshed!

During the very hottest portion of the year I get really very sick of lemonade and regular old iced tea. Worse, I find that I can’t actually drink iced tea after noon if it’s been brewed honestly because it has even more caffeine than coffee. Plus, I live in the south where “regular iced tea” comes complete with about a full cup of white sugar per glass. I don’t like my drinks to be sugary, but I get pretty sick of plain old water too, despite having the Planet’s Best Mountain Spring Water right here in the tap.

So I make some cool summer teas from the first plants in the garden and the last to die out in fall – the mints. In fact, cool summer teas are the #1 thing to do with all those exotic mints – like apple mint, pineapple mint, chocolate mint and lemon mint (as well as good ol’ peppermint). To these I like to add a bit of rose hips, just for the tart flavor and excess vitamin C. I harvest those when they turn red in the fall, then freeze them in a jar for later use.

Now, the very name of the mints tells you all you need to know about the specific taste undertones you get out of them. I like to make my tea fresh, as making it of dried herbs requires less material and no simmering (I use the dry for hot wintertime tea). So in the following recipe, use your mint of choice!

Summertime Tea

2 cups mint leaves
1/2 cup rose hips
4 cups cold water

Put the water into a not-aluminum pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Add the rose hips and turn the heat to medium-low to simmer, simmer for 5 minutes. Add the mint and simmer for another 5 minutes to break down the cell walls and release the flavor.

Remove from heat and cover tightly, let steep for about an hour (or more). Strain into a 4-quart pitcher and add cold water to fill. Refrigerate, drink with ice, garnish with a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.

You could add brewed green tea if you wish, and get green tea benefits too. And you can sweeten this tea if you really want to (yuck!). I use local raw honey in hot tea, but you can heat a half cup of honey in a cup of water, then add that when you’re mixing up the 4-quart pitcher. You can drink this iced mint tea all day long and into the hot night, it’s good for hydrating you (mostly water), is high in vitamin C, and isn’t going to hurt you. It makes for a great “sports drink” at softball games or when you’re cooking out or playing badminton in the yard too! Kids can drink it as often as they like too, and it won’t spoil their appetite or make them fat!

So get out there and trim those mints, make some tea and relax!