What’s Plantain?: Plantain is an herb that grows just about everywhere and it’s easy to recognize. For this reason, it’s a great starter for the novice herbalist. It’s been used for hundreds and probably even thousands of years to treat a number of different ailments from dandruff to upper respiratory infections (source). Of course, you should always consult your physician before using any herbal/natural remedy! How Do You Recognize It?: There are a few different varieties of plantain. The one that grows most in my yard, and with which I’m most familiar, is the broadleaf plantain (Plantago Major). It has very distinct Broad Leaves. The veins on the leaves start at the base and extend outward. Plantain also has very distinct flowers (pictured below) and the leaves will usually grow around the base of the flowers (as seen in the middle picture). How Do You Use It?: The leaves and juice from the leaves can be used to treat sunburns, bug bites, and minor scrapes and burns. Plantain contains antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, think of it as a natural Neosporin. It can be made into a tea or tincture to help tummy troubles (diarrhea, indigestion, ulcers). The same tea can be used as a hair rinse to treat dandruff. Plantain is rich in tannins, which can be an aid in stopping bleeding. A tea or tincture applied externally can reduce the itching that comes from poison ivy, poison oak, bug bites, or rashes. What’s a Tincture?: Tinctures are basically extracts of a particular herb. This is usually done with alcohol. It can also be done with vegetable glycerin or apple cider vinegar, but alcohol (vodka or grain alcohol no […]
Archives for July 2014
A North Eastern Fall Garden
It’s time to start thinking forward to cooler weather already! Most of us northern gardeners are still patiently waiting for our tomatoes to start turning red. My cabbage is just starting to form heads and I saw the tiniest little broccoli crown today. As I’ve said before, gardening in cooler climates is a true test of patience. Lots of Fall garden articles are geared toward people who live in warmer clients. But the truth is, there’s a lot that we can do in the north, too. Where I am, I don’t have time for a second crop of cabbage or broccoli. They’re typical Fall garden options, but really not practical for my climate. They just wouldn’t have enough time before a hard frost hit. Sure, I could speed things up by starting them under lamps inside, but grow lamps are expensive and I’m really a no-muss no-fuss kind of gardener anyway. I’m going to be sowing a cover crop in my large garden bed this year to try and get some nutrients back in the soil for next year. I got the Peas/Oats blend from Botanical Interests. I may block out a small patch for some carrots. I haven’t decided if I’ll do those in the raised bed or not. I’ll use my 2 4×8 raised beds to try out a winter/fall garden this year once they’ve cleared out for the summer. I have some old leftover windows that I’m excited to use over the raised beds to form a kind of green house- you know, to extend the season a bit when temps start to drop. This chart on the Mother Earth News […]
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Glazed Buttermilk Biscuits
This has become one of my family’s favorite breakfast treats. Healthy? Not even close. Delicious and warm and gooey and comfy? You bet. They’re so good. So, so good. Try them. You won’t regret it. Promise. Recipe makes 9 biscuits with a 3 inch biscuit cutter. Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda 1 Teaspoon salt 6 Tablespoons COLD butter, cut into cubes 1 cup buttermilk 1/3 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon For Glaze: 6 Tablespoons butter 1 cup powdered sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Directions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. Cut in cold butter with a pastry cutter until resembles course meal. Mix in buttermilk until combined. Turn out biscuit dough onto a floured surface and pat (don’t roll) flat to about 1/4 inch thickness. Sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon over the dough, and fold it in about 5 times. Pat our flat again and cut into biscuits with your biscuit cutter. Place biscuits in your baking dish (I used my 12 inch cast iron skillet) and bake 15-20 minutes depending on your oven. To make the glaze, melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan, then whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla until all is combined and a smooth consistency is reached. Serve biscuits warm with glaze drizzled on top. Tip: To get fluffy biscuits, you want to keep that butter as cold as possible until it goes in the oven. Those little bits of butter will melt in the oven, causing little steam pockets, resulting in deliciously fluffy […]
July Garden Update
Time for another monthly garden tour! This year is definitely shaping up a bit differently than last year. We’re having much more in the way of pest issues. In fact, I believe those cucurbit beetles may have infected one or two of my zucchini plants with bacterial wilt. For now, they’re still producing, but the leaves just do not look happy. I expect that they’ll be finished off within the next few days if my suspicions are correct. So sad. Ye trusty ole kale. Something seems to be snacking on it a bit, but I can’t figure out what it is. It’s not doing too much damage, though. Thankfully. The mesclun mix in my pallet raised bed is growing slower than molasses!! I don’t know if it’s a sunlight issue or a soil issue. I think I’m going to replant some in the main bed somewhere. Otherwise we won’t have any lettuce until Thanksgiving time at this rate. When I went outside to take pictures for this post, I realized that something is also snacking on my cabbages. Probably the same thing that’s munching on the kale. For now, growth doesn’t seem to be impacted. We’re having a lot of rain right now, but when it stops, I’ll go out and sprinkle some diatomaceous earth and see if that helps. Peppers are starting to come in! And our tomatoes. Here we have brandywine, san marzano, and black chery. Who doesn’t love the look of a squash blossom!? I think beets are my new favorite thing to grow. I love root veggies, especially in the fall. I planted half of a raised bed with beets […]
Healthy No Bake Energy Bites That Actually Taste Good
I know there are a lot of no-bake cookie recipes out there, but I’ve never been impressed with any of them. Some of them are “okay”. Others I would rank as “edible”. I never saved any of the recipes for them because I just wasn’t terribly impressed. THESE, my friends, are something different. THIS no-bake snack tastes good. Really good. They whip up quickly. You don’t have to bake them, obviously, which is great for summertime when you don’t want the oven heating up the house. You actually store them in the freezer, so they’re a great cool snack (just set them out for 5ish minutes so they soften up a bit). Plus … check out those ingredients. Healthy! I may or may not have served these things for breakfast a couple of times. I found the base recipe from Amy’s blog at Plain and Not So Plain (great blog for larger families, by the way). Amy says that having these energy bites on hand was key while she was losing 70lbs. When she was craving something sweet, she grabbed one of these instead of gorging on something unhealthy. I tweaked the recipe ever so slightly based on our tastes and what I had on hand. I hope you enjoy! Ingredients: 2 c. Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (Quick Oats would probably be fine) 1 c. Peanut Butter (Or your favorite nut butter- almond, cashew etc.) 2/3 c. Honey (Local, if possible!) 2 c. shredded unsweetened coconut 1 c. ground flax meal. 1 c. chocolate chips (alternative: dried fruit, butterscotch chips) 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract Line a couple of cookie sheets with […]
How to Get Rid of Cucumber Beetles Naturally
So, I was out in the garden one day weeding. I looked over to my left and saw this little beetle. It was quite flashy. Yellow and black stripes. Being the naive, novice gardener that I am, my reaction was, “Oh! That’s a pretty bug! Hi, little bug!.” Something in the back of my mind thought that, since I’d never seen this bug in my garden before, maybe it wasn’t really supposed to be there. I only saw one of them, though. So, I didn’t think too much of it. I made a mental note to look it up. Two days later, I saw five of them. So now I knew they were invading, and I really needed to research. I thought I might have cucurbit beetles, but wasn’t sure. Two more days … there was no denying it. I have a cucumber (cucurbit) beetle problem. Cucurbit Beetles will attack anything in the cucurbit family (squash, gourds, cucumbers, melons), which includes about 1/3 of my garden. They’ll eat the leaves of your plants, but perhaps more menacing, they carry a bacteria in their intestinal tract that can cause bacterial wilt. Bacterial wilt can wipe out an entire crop in a matter of days. Bad news! You won’t find me using invasive pesticides in my garden. So I’m always going to search for a homemade or natural remedy. First I tried a garlic hot pepper spray. I honestly only tried this for about 6 hours before I decided it wasn’t working. The beetles stayed on the leaves, totally unscathed by my spritzing them with garlic and hot pepper. Maybe I wasn’t using hot enough peppers (I […]
Simple Tips for Growing Awesome Tomatoes
(Some of my posts may contain referral links. That means that if you clink through one of my links and then purchase something, I get a small commission. Thank you so much!) “Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to garden, and the whole neighborhood gets tomatoes.” True story. By now, most of us already have our tomato plants growing in the ground. Up here in the north, I’m starting to see some beautiful little green tomatoes replacing the blossoms. Once a few of them get large enough, I’ll harvest some for fried green tomatoes. Mmmmm. Here are some of my favorite tomato growing tips. I keep it as simple as possible. Like most of you, I don’t have the time to research fancy solutions, nor the money to spend on them. So if I can find a solution using what I already have on hand, that’s the route I take. If I can’t, then it honestly probably won’t get done. I hope these tips help your maters grow and yield generously. 1. Prune the suckers: These are the small shoots that grow in the crotch between a stem and a branch. These growths will never produce fruit, so many gardeners will pinch them off. No sense in letting them use up valuable nutrients! This is especially true for indeterminate varieties of tomatoes. 2. Coffee Grounds and Egg Shells: I keep a bowl on my kitchen counter collect the used coffee grounds and egg shells from the day. At the end of each day, I carry them out to the garden and lay them at the feet of my tomato […]
