The Essential Herbalist

Recent Posts

  • The Culinary Herb Garden

    Herb gardens come in many forms. You can plant a very formal, “old english” style garden with paths, designs and form, you can grow your herbs in pots, intersperse them with your vegetables, plant them around your garden plot, plant them in your flower beds around your home or grow them on your windowsill.

    Most herbs like full sun and are very easy to grow and have little to no pest or disease problem. It is very important to grow them organically – this is not negotiable if you are using them for medicine. You also do not want to fertilize your herbs. When you use fertilizer (even the natural, organic fertilizer) it causes a spurt of lush growth – they will be beautiful ….but….they will have grown so fast that the oil content will not have kept up with the rate of growth. The oil is what provides us with the delicious aroma, taste and the medicinal benefits.

    What herbs to start with? On the culinary side, that varies from person to person. What do you use when you cook or flavor foods? What do you have on your shelves that you might grow and dry yourself? Basics I would start with: Basils: Purple Ruffles for color, Sweet Basil, Pesto Basil, Lemon, Lime are some of my favorites although there are many other basil flavors! Cilantro – gotta have that for my salsa….if you let some of it go to seed and collect the seed, that is Coriander. Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. French Tarragon for making vinegar (do not grow Russian Tarragon – little to no taste!) and Greek Oregano (make sure the label says true greek oregano….what they sell in the USA labeled oregano is really wild marjoram!). Parsley, caraway, cumin, fennel, dill (lots and lots of dill for pickles, cheese, cooking!)

    Chives for those baked potatoes…did you know that the chive flower is edible? Look closely and see that the flower bud is actually lots of tiny flowers – pull them apart and sprinkle them over a salad…it always wows people and the taste is a very mild onion flavor! Garlic chives is another favorite – just adds a touch of garlic taste. Garlic itself is a wonderful herb to grow – make sure you plant the variety that stores well – don’t use a garlic bulb from the store for planting…most of those are a California short season variety – they will not store.

    The list is endless! There are no wrong choices. Try picking a handful of herbs that you haven’t grown before and start there. Harvest all year – I pick basil all summer, lightly rinse the leaves, lay on a paper towell to dry for an hour or so and then place them in zip lock baggies in the freezer. I pack them in 2 cup measures which is exactly what I need for my delicious creamy basil dressing!

    Some herbs I dry….rosemary, oregano, parsley, sage do well dried. Cilantro I freeze – it tastes horrible dried! Each year add another handful. Learn to use what you grow each year. I found that I could do 5 or 6 new herbs each year. Go slow! If you plant 25 new herbs this year, chances are you won’t do anything with them…it is too overwhelming!

    One more “must have” plant would be stevia. Stevia is called the sugar plant…it is 100 times sweeter than sugar. It has no calories, no carbohydrates and tastes delicious. It is harder to start from seed and the seed is expensive but it is well worth the effort! Grow it all summer – it does much better outside! Pick the leaves and leave on a plate covered with a paper towell to keep the dust off – when completely dry (brittle) throw in a canning jar and keep it in the dark. When ready to use, I run it through a food processor until it turns into a fine powder and use it to sweeten drinks, baked goods etc. A very little goes a long way!

    What to do with all of these herbs? Cook with them, can with them, make herbal vinegars, herbal oils, flavor cream cheese or butter and serve with crackers! Throw a handful of chopped herbs into your buttermilk biscuit recipe and serve herbed biscuits, put them in your bread recipe….lay a few sprigs of lemon basil over a chicken when you roast it….put some herbs in your soups and stews. The flavors of homegrown herbs far outweigh those bottles of dried herbs on the grocery store shelves.

    I hope you will try at least one of these suggestions with some of the things you grew this year….let me know how it turns out!

    Tomorrow lets talk about the varieties of herbal medicines and some basic medicinal herbs!

  • Come and walk with me to my garden….

    Let me tell you about my garden….I will try to give you a picture since I haven’t figured out how to post pictures here.

    My garden is between the little workshop and the barn – almost directly across from the front yard. We pass it all the time which keeps its’ needs in the front of our mind. The old saying “out of sight, out of mind” is definitely true! Part of my garden is fenced. Many people think this is to keep animals out…. oh no!….it was to keep my youngest son in after he learned to walk! The garden was his outside playpen! I could work on the garden knowing that he was safe!

    As we face the garden, the front of it is lined with medicinal herbs. As we walk through the wooden gate, we are facing 20 raised beds that are each about 3.5 feet wide and 33 feet long. There is a wide row running down the middle front to back and another side to side – enough for a wheelbarrow and 2 people to work side by side. There is a large space at the back of the garden for melons or other sprawling crops, eventually we will put another 10 raised beds back there, 33 feet long, 5 on each side of the aisle. Behind the garden and through the back gate is a small unheated greenhouse where we raise everything ourselves from seed.

    Beyond the greenhouse is a very large field where we raise our corn, potatoes and other large crops. It is fairly level with a slight slope off the western side…the future site of blueberries! We hope to place 2 high tunnels close to the greenhouse in the near future.

    In the raised beds we grow our summer squash, lettuces (42 kinds!), carrots, onions, pole beans, dried beans, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, tomatillas, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, corn salad, kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower etc. Interspersed with our veggies are flowers and annual herbs such as a variety of basils, several types of parsley, cumin, caraway, fennel and others.

    There are 3 faucets in the garden to feed our drip tape, front, back and middle. They run from our well. Herbs also wrap down both sides of the garden – one side all the way to the back and one side half way. I will be adding more each year until the herbs completely surround the garden!

    There are several purposes for placing the herbs around the garden. Many herbs are in the Umbelliferae family. These plants produce umbrella-shaped flower clusters, like the dill heads you use in pickling. Other members of the family, including parsley, cilantro, and celery, have the same flower form. This means that they provide food and habitat for a host of good bugs. We always let a portion of these herbs go to seed so that our ladybugs, green lacewings, parasitic wasps etc. have some place to live and something to eat. I recommend you have a good bug identification guide. Learn what the good bugs look like at all stages of their growth. If you weren’t familiar with ladybug larvae or pupa, you might be inclined to squash them!

    We also keep them in view so that we can remember to harvest for our medicinal needs all season long. We use them fresh during the summer but we also gather and dry them for use during the winter months. Seeing them everyday also keeps us more dilligent in weeding the herb beds.

    Herbs are very easy to grow. They have almost no disease problems and, because of their volatile oil content, they have very few pest problems. Many herbs are perennial – they come back year after year. Some will reseed themselves and come back up in the spring such as dill and cilantro. Some are annuals, such as calendula.

    We use herbs (in different forms) for cooking, medicine, cleaning, as pest repellents both for us and the animals, for our soaps, medicinal salves, lip balms, shampoo bars, to flavor our cheeses, for teas and more!

    Next time lets talk about how to start an herb garden and the different forms of herbs and their uses.

    Blessings,
    Cheri

  • Would YOU eat this if you had a choice?

    Our Father created many wonderful things for us to eat. Wonderful meats, eggs, fish, a bounty of veggies, herbs to season with, fruits and so on. My family enjoys a great variety of the bounty of the Lord.

    But man, in his wisdom, has decided to improve upon God’s holy plan. There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14.12. Man is, and has been for many years, tampering with the very genetics that make up our food. Check out the link to Scott Terry’s site today, Homesteader Life, to learn a little about Genetically Modified Organisms…GMOs (also called Genetically Engineered Food). Those 3 letters should cause your heart to tremble!

    Let me give you an example….rats happen to produce their own Vitamin C in their bodies. Because our soil is so nutritionally defunct from poor stewardship, our food does not contain the vitamin and mineral content that it did 70 years ago. Soooo….man has begun to cross the gene’s of rats with the genes of broccoli to produce a broccoli with higher Vitamin C. I am not kidding!

    Now, I don’t know about you….but I don’t want to eat broccoli that happens to have been crossed with rats. Scott Terry mentioned the human liver genes being crossed with rice. The list is lengthy. They are also experimenting with breeding plants that actually have medicines in them. Oh, you didn’t want that flu shot? You might not have a choice! Most likely you will not have the knowledge either!

    They were working on crossing some nasty things with salmon….trouble is the salmon
    flesh kept turning green….not much of a market for green meat! Our ability to play with the molecular genetics of certain organisms goes way beyond our knowledge of the consequences of such actions….both in the end product and in the impact on human lives. Genes from plants, animals, viruses, and bacteria are being merged! Essentially right now the entire population is involved in a strange science experiment only we weren’t given the choice to opt out!

    Why are they doing this? Because when they modify a plant they have created a “new” food and they can patent it….bottom line…same as always….worshipping the dollar. Monsanto is, of course, heavily involved in this as are a small handful of other multi-national companies.

    The worst part of all of this is that YOU DON’T KNOW….THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!! Every survey ever done proves that if given a choice people do not want to eat food with GMOs….so the industry continues to lobby Congress hard (translate that to contributes much) so that they are not required by law to label food with GMOs.

    From what I have been reading over the last few years it appears that up to 80% of what is in the grocery store now, unless labeled organic, is genetically modified.
    This is especially true in pre-prepared food….all those “meals” that they call food that come out of boxes and cans.

    So….what’s a person to do? Write letters to your Senators and Representatives and tell them you want GMO food labeled as such. You have a right to know what you are eating. Buy local….buy organic (GMOs are not allowed to be labeled organic, at least for now)…buy from someone you trust…and the best choice….grow it yourself. You may not have a farm but do you have a small space that you can grow at least some of your food? If you are in an apartment, could you grow a few things in pots on your balcony? I read of a woman who grew most of her own food on the balcony of her apartment in pots and with trellises. Every little bit you can do is a step towards health.

    When you grow, use only open-pollinated seeds – better flavor and no danger of GMOs.
    Save your seed. Our seed is being drastically altered also….we must be diligent to preserve safe seed.

    Finally, get informed and inform other people! This is a big topic in all of my classes and when I speak. People are shocked…Monsanto has done a good job of keeping the lid on things…they threaten lawsuits when you speak the truth about what they are doing.

    Read books…I recommend the following: Genetically Engineered Food: Changing the Nature of Nature; What you Need to Know to Protect Yourself, Your Family and Our Planet by Martin Teitel, Ph.D. and Kimberly A. Wilson. Also, Genetically Engineered Food, A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers by Ronnie Cummins and Ben Lilliston.

    With GMO crops being grown on millions of acres, we must be diligent with the small part of creation that God has entrusted to us.

    Tomorrow, we take a walk through my GMO free garden!

  • Life and Death on the Farm

    The medicinal herb posts will wait a few days…lets talk about the other side of farming.

    Farming has risks and I don’t mean just financial ones. I believe that those of us living the agrarian life, to one degree or another, must endeavor to present both sides….not just the happy moments.

    It has been hard for me (who admits to leaning towards being a wee bit of an over-protective Mama) to watch my boys hike the mountain knowing they might encounter snakes, or even something larger….an occasional black bear. It was a struggle to let them work around or on some of the equipment… the tractor, the bush hog, the baler, the hay elevator….It was frightening to watch my oldest (15 at the time) mount the new horse and fly across the fields along the bottom of the mountain (after all we knew NOTHING about this horse!).I was a country girl at heart but had spent all of my adult years in the big city, which is full of other kinds of danger…enough to make anyone over-protective!

    Then there are those special moments that we get to experience when watching the birth of a calf , holding brand new baby goats, seeing the full moon climb over the mountain ridge at the back of the farm, seeing a little boy with his first gun “gonna bring home dinner Mama!”.

    But there are ugly moments too. When a favorite animal dies after you have given all you can to save it, when a coyote gets into the barn after chickens or cattle, or when a beloved animal goes missing (where IS that cat), when a crop fails, or you have a fire…or worse.

    Saturday a friend of mine left her husband clearing a path through the woods on his tractor. She came back in the afternoon and Steve wasn’t back…and she didn’t hear the tractor running…she went to look. Evidently, the tractor had rolled, at least once, and then up righted itself and Steve was found about 25 feet from the tracotr. He didn’t survive. This is a fairly young couple. Steve was 51. Questions race through my mind….what will happen to Sandee now? What will happen to the farm? How will the family cope? Will they persevere? Will the kids come home and help run the farm? In the end, will she have lost her dear husband and the farm that she loves?

    We have lived here 7 years. We have read a similar story at least once a year since we have been here. This is the first time it has happened to a friend.

    Farming has risks….you must ask yourself if you are willing to take them…count the cost….realize that the agrarian lifestyle encompasses all areas of life…even the hard ones.

    If you think of it…please pray for Sandee and her family.

    Blessings

  • Herbal medicine and why YOU should make it!

    I encourage everyone to leave this blog right now and go to The Deliberate Agrarian’s site and read his post on the Global Food Providers…it will help you understand the importance of this post much more thoroughly….it’s ok…I’ll wait 🙂

    Much of what Herrick says about the Global Food Providers is also applicable to the supply of medicines. Medicine is produced by a handful of pharmaceutical companies. Do some reading to find out how this industry works and the awful truth about the “inert” ingredients in our vaccines, prescriptions and even over the counter medicines. I promise that it will turn your stomach! Did you know that some vaccines involve using the tissue of aborted babies? This has been done for over 30 years! Check out https://www.cogforlife.org/ for the full story.

    Aside from the moral and ethical issues of some conventional medicines, in the future medicine may become scarce just as food may become scarce. It is always dangerous to have control of anything in the hands of a few multi-national corporations. Money becomes the bottom line – and making more of it.

    I think everyone should have some basic knowledge of making simple medicines at home. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers always had a medicinal garden for tea, poultices etc. In the days before there was a doctor’s office on every corner, the woman of the house was the healer. God states in His word that He has provided all that we need. I believe that God provided the herbs to meet the medicinal needs that we would one day have. You will find many passages in the Scriptures where herbs were used as medicines and for cleansing. As you begin to study herbs and their properties, you will see the hand of God everywhere you look.

    The sad thing about herbal medicine is that this is an area that the enemy has usurped! Just take a stroll into any “natural health store” or “herbal health store” and you will find the place filled with occult and new age practices and supplies. A friend said to me, “when you finish your training you will be the first Christian herbalist I have ever heard of”….how sad. And trying to study herbal medicine from a Christian perspective…..haven’t found it offered anywhere in this country. So….you have to “eat the meat and spit out the bones”. Take the facts and learn from them and ignore all the new age/occult slop. It isn’t hard to spot!

    Just as everyone should know how to grow at least some of their own food, everyone should know how to make at least some of their own medicines. What happens when the day comes,
    and I do believe it will if the Lord tarries, that you can’t run down to Wally World and buy a bottle of aspirin? Did you know that there is a beautiful plant called Feverfew that can relieve a headache, especially a migraine…. as can the bark of the White Willow tree.

    The first pharmacies were actually herbal shops! And a great deal of our medicine today is still derived from plants. The problem from the multi-nationals’ point of view is that you can’t patent a plant you haven’t bred (at least not yet!) so therefore you can’t patent herbal medicine. Since there is no money in it, there is no interest in research in that area. Thankfully we have many old texts from tens and even hundreds of years ago that can teach us about herbal medicines. Now, some of these herbal remedies have turned out to be folklore but some are nuggets of gold. The good news is that most of the folklore vs. gold has been researched by others….we can profit from the fruit of their labors!

    Another advantage is that when making herbal medicine you are using all of the attributes of that plant. This is very important. For example, when it was discovered that white willow bark would soothe a headache, the pharmaceutical companies isolated which compound relieved the pain. Then they made a synthetic (chemical) copy of that compound and called it aspirin. We all know that aspirin can irritate the lining of the stomach…BUT….if you use the plant that God created there also happens to be another compound that will protect the lining of the stomach…voila….no irritation! At every turn, God’s wisdom puts man’s “wisdom” to shame!

    We have found that people are hungry for this knowledge. I speak all over eastern Tennessee teaching about herbal medicine. I also teach classes here on the farm. I have an unusual mixture of people who ask me to teach, from garden clubs to Boy Scout Councils. When I speak at an open forum….like a farm expo…I get a mixed crowd ….lots of older people who have this knowledge or remember their Mama doing this and that….middle aged people who are fascinated but would rather buy it from me than take the trouble to make it…. and young people…..wise young people who are longing for the agrarian lifestyle and self sufficiency. They are raising babies and are wanting the best for them from food to medicine. But most of all….I get Christians…..people who want to know about the plants that God has given to us for our benefit but who don’t want the new age/occult slant that you usually find with herbal medicine. Oh, I get the occasional new ager or occultist, but they get an earful of the Scriptures when they hear me talk….and perhaps God will use that to reach their hearts.

    So take a walk with me through my herb garden….let me share about some plants and what types of medicines we make (and how simple it is!)…..I hope to entice each of you to try at least one “homemade” medicine….

    See you next post!

  • Are you using soap?

    Sometime ago I made an amazing discovery…all those lovely bars of soap at the local store were not actually bars of soap…they were bars of detergent! The “soap” companies had actually removed the glycerin, because they could sell that for a higher price, and sold us the leftovers. The most important part of the soap, the part that moisturizes our skin, was missing.

    As I began to investigate further, I found all sorts of nasty chemicals, additives, dyes, perfumes etc. were added to our “detergent” bars. Since the skin is the largest organ of the body, and since what we put on our skin finds its way into our bloodstream, it posed the question of how this was affecting our health. The more I read the more concerned I became.

    I have a friend named Julie who was making soap at the time and she and her husband offered to spend an afternoon teaching us about soap making. Julie and Michael are some of my favorite people, they are the only like-minded, Christian, agrarian friends we have locally.
    We met at their house and they walked us through the mechanics of making soap. Somehow seeing it done was much easier than just reading the book and “flying blind”. It really wasn’t that hard!

    Thus began our journey into soap making….I began to study oils and what effect they had on skin, were they moisturizing? were they drying? (It was funny to me to think of an oil that would dry??). What other properties did that oil have? Did it lather? Then I began to study essential oils…how they could benefit us, heal us, relax us or just plain make us feel good. We bought some basic books for recipes and searched the internet for the same.

    We committed to making pure soap. Pure oils, no color unless it came from herbs, pure essential oils instead of perfumes, no preservatives and no chemicals of any kind. We began with some simple soaps, our first was Castille, which is the purest, mildest soap, if made properly. Then we began to have fun! We made soaps that lathered tremendously, soaps that relaxed and soaps that invigorated.

    We came up with a soap that would kill viruses and bacteria. When someone in the family starts to come down with something, we put this soap at all of our sinks. We made a soap for working outside, it has essential oils that repel bugs and it has an exfolliant to help get the dirt off when you are done working. We made a soap that cuts grease for use at the kitchen sink.
    We got the boys involved and let them each pick an essential oil that they liked. Those soaps were named after the boys who created them. We made a soap that moisturized the skin and one that was drying, for those teen acne problems.

    By this time we were having FUN! We noticed that we didn’t suffer with dry skin as we used to..our skin felt great! We ran out of soap at one point and had to use one of our “detergent” bars. It was awful! So, we became more diligent at our soap making and continued to create as the mood hit. We gave them as gifts for birthdays and Christmas….and the response was good. Now people wanted to buy so they could give gifts…and they told people….who told people and thus our little soap making business was born.

    Soap making is NOT difficult. You can do it in the smallest apartment or on a farm. You can make a small batch of just a few bars or make 40 bars at a time. I encourage all of you to try it.

    Some of our favorite soapmaking books are: Natural Soapmaking by Marie Browning, The Everything Soapmaking Book by Alicia Grosso, The Complete Soapmaker by Norma Coney and Milk-Based Soaps by Casey Makela.

    So, remember to ask yourself….

    Are you using soap?

  • Been Fishin’…

    Last Saturday, after chores and milking, we took our annual “thank you for all the hard work in the garden this summer” boat trip. We rented a pontoon boat for the day, loaded up a great picnic lunch, complete with fried chicken, potato salad, cookies, cake, drinks and snacks and all our fishin’ gear. Our whole family loves to fish. Even Grandma joined us – she is an expert fisherman!

    We headed north an hour to a HUGE lake. I must confess that not a lot of fishing went on this time. I was to darn lazy to lift the pole! But I enjoyed watching the others and keepin’ my Mom company. Seems that the kids wanted to swim more than fish. We spent a few hours swimming in a quiet little cove. Very peaceful! It even had an old fashioned white church with a beautiful steeple sitting at the water’s edge.

    Took the boat down to the dam so the kids could say they “swam at the dam”. Now, don’t ask me why that seems to be important…I haven’t a clue. Then off to look for another inlet for another swim before heading home.

    All of a sudden, hubby swings the boat around…something had caught his eye and he was excited. The boys are all looking to see if HUGE fish are jumping and they missed it….Dad doesn’t normally drive a boat like that! Not a fish….much more important! A ROPE!

    There was a perfect tree – hanging out over the lake with a long, knotted, yellow rope hanging over the water and a sandy bank at the shoreline. Someone had even nailed boards up the tree “ladder-like” to make the climb easier. Needless to say we spent a long time at this spot.

    It was great fun watching the boys climbing like monkeys and swinging (and screaming) like Tarzan! The 7 year old was not too sure about climbing the tree that high. His oldest brother
    came to the rescue. He hoisted his littlest brother up onto his shoulders (he stands at 6 feet tall),
    helped him grab the rope and swing off. A much safer choice in Elijah’s eyes and he had a ball!

    All in all, it was a great family day and a great break from the typical day on the farm!

  • Cheese!

    I am excited to say that I started a new adventure in cheese making yesterday. I have been making soft cheeses for about 5 or 6 years now. I make Feta, Chevre, Cream Cheese along with buttermilk, butter and sour cream. Yesterday I made my first hard cheese….a colby!

    My first lesson….never start this late in the afternoon when you don’t really know what you are doing…I won’t even mention when I finally hit the pillow. I used Riki Carroll’s book “Home Cheese Making”. Everything seemed to go according to plan…but it will be 2 months before we really know.

    Lesson 2….you can’t add up all the times in the recipe and really think that you will be stopping at that point. It is not…I repeat NOT…..like baking a cake! I should have been done at 11:00 pm according to my calculations… a little late but do-able….let’s just say it was quite a bit past that point and I was so tired I was ready to chuck it out to the chickens!

    I had wonderful advice from the Kansas Milkmaid…check out her link on this page and check out her new website….awesome! There were some concerns about the cheese sticking to the cheesecloth. This could be for a variety of reasons…some good and some bad. I will just go on in faith, wax the cheese and see what happens.

    I am, however, undaunted and will be trying again in the next few days. Wheels of Parmesan, Cheddar, Gouda along with Mozzarella, Montery Jack and Pepper Jack are dancing before my eyes. I am cleaning out the small dorm refrigerator that has been out in the garden shed and dedicating it to my still to be pressed wheels of cheese.

    This would be something you could do even in a small apartment. So, I encourage those of you who long for the homesteading life….or those of you working towards it….get a copy of this book or check out the links on the Kansas Milkmaid’s website and give it a try! I hope to hear lots of success stories….

    .Good night folks…thanks for stopping in!

  • Sometimes you just have to laugh….

    In a previous blog I mentioned how much I love baling hay. I should have specified that I feel that way when everything goes right.

    We had an interesting experience baling hay. It was really a comedy of errors – I can chuckle because I wasn’t involved in this baling experience. We had some guys over to help which relieved the boys and myself this time. Sometimes on the farm stead, things go so horribly wrong that you just have to laugh….helps to keep your sanity!

    My husband left work early to get a small field baled and in the barn before the expected rain. The trouble began when the baler got to the field and refused to tie all those wonderful knots in the baling twine. After numerous adjustments, he seemed to satisfy the baler and work progressed…down two rows. Then evidently he hit a nest of some kind. Immediately the air around the baler was filled with some type of stinging insect that objected to having its nest baled. One of them hovered directly in front of my husbands face and then decided to go for the nose…a direct hit! Thankfully he had the presence of mind to grab some plantain, chew it and put it on the sting.

    Since he couldn’t get back on the tractor he went to find some sort of wasp spray. He left the baler going…for a long time….with dry hay beneath it….and in it….get the picture? Smoke..then fire! He quickly jumped on the tractor and drove to the nearest faucet..which happened to be in the middle of the front yard. Smoke was pouring from the baler and from the row of hay out in the field, which caught the notice of our nearest neighbor.

    Lloyd came quick as he could to see if we needed help. Aren’t country folk wonderful!! The fire was quickly quenched. Husband and neighbor got everything under control and the tractor and baler were working in perfect harmony for about 10 minutes when the clouds broke open and we had a down pour like we used to see in Florida. Thankfully the guys had been picking up what was in the field during the wasp, smoke, fire fiasco. We lost very few bales but spent a great deal of time and effort with little to show.

    Thankfully days like this are rare…but they do happen…..lots of time, effort and frustration and very little to show for it at the end of the day. Perhaps it is God’s way of keeping us humble. We are very grateful it wasn’t worse. No damage to the tractor or baler…the fire in the field was quickly put out before the rows of hay were ignited, no one was hurt and we didn’t loose a field full of hay bales to rain. God blessed and protected us. We are thankful for the blessing, the protection and that we can laugh…

  • Sweet dreams garden…

    The last two weeks we have been busy putting the garden to bed for the winter. I like that phrase…I see myself tucking nice warm blankets around the garden beds as they nod off for the winter. Having a garden is a lot like having children….it is lots of work, you never know what you will find the next day, you get very attached very quickly, it exasperates you but is very rewarding at the same time and it requires daily prayer and attention or it goes to ruin!

    We pick the last of the veggies as we go along. Yesterday I made the final gallon of fresh salsa with the jalapenos, tomatoes, tomatillas, and cilantro….yummy! We freeze our excess of those things during the summer. I lay them out on cookie sheets and by the next morning they are ready for the big freezer. They look and sound like giant colorful marbles! We put a large bucket (or several) in the bottom of a chest freezer and just drop those frozen goodies in them all summer long. Then during the winter we can thaw out a bowl full and make salsa that tastes so good and fresh – almost like we just picked it! We love spicy food at our house and going months without homemade salsa just won’t fly. I can’t abide the stuff in the store ….what do they make that from? I have tried canning salsa and freezing salsa but it just tastes better and is a lot less watery if I make it fresh.

    We take out the larger plants and till in the smaller ones and then we sow a cover crop to help build the soil for next year. Our favorite mix is cereal rye, austrian peas and red clover. This protects the soil over the winter and adds great nitrogen to the bed when we till it under next year.

    Although I am glad we are finishing up with this garden, it always makes me a little sad….sort of like saying good bye to someone you care about. I guess it comes from spending so much time in the garden. We are so thankful to God for His provision through our garden, it has kept us well fed all summer and now the shelves are lined with rows of colorful jars for the winter. Isn’t God good?