A Lesson Learned

  As I usually do, last year I saved certain seeds from my garden.. I grew Melons of different kinds and cucumbers of different kinds saving the seeds so I wouldn't have to buy them again this year. Some of the things I saved were the seeds of Armenian Cucumbers and seeds from the Musk Melons.
  I planted the Cucumbers on a fence this year, the best thing I have ever done, saving lots of space and making it easier to harvest the cucumbers overall. The vines did really well and as the fruits started to come out I started to see what looked like Musk Melons growing where I planted the Armenian Cucumbers. Thinking I just mixed up the seeds, I thought "fine I will just have more Melons than I planned". As the "Melons" continued to grow, they began to get extremely elongated which baffled me as I had not planted these nor had I ever seen anything like them before. They looked like Musk Melons but were very long and skinny. I let them grow just to see what they would turn out to be but they just kept growing.
  I started to suspect there was some hybridization going on here so I started to research. Turns out that melons will cross pollinate with each other. The cross pollination actually happened last year and the seeds I planted were already destined to become a mix. But wait! Melons and Cucumbers don't cross pollinate so whats going on here! As I learned last year, Armenian Cucumbers are not really cucumbers, they are Melons! They are used more like a cucumber would be used, as they are hard and crunchy, than used as a Melon would be used. They can be used in salads or sauteed or pickled as a cucumber would.
  If left on the vine to ripen the hybrid will turn yellow and slip from the stem as a Musk Melon would but the flesh is not as orange or sweet as a Musk Melon is. You can definitely see and taste the influence of the Armenian Cucumber on this Hybrid. All in all they are not a bad thing to eat and they get huge so you have plenty of food. They go good in a fruit salad or a cucumber salad and are not bad eaten alone.
 The lesson? Don't grow different kinds of Melon right next to each other unless you are doing some genetics experiments!

Ripe Musk Melon

Armenian "Cucumber"

Hybrid Armuskian Cumelon!

Teasel Update

 What a difference a season can make! The changes in my Teasel plants are amazing since I first posted about them in January ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2015/01/teasel-root.html ) If you check out the photos in the last post you can see the mat of dense scraggly winter burned plants that were no taller than 6"tall. They stayed that way through the rest of the winter and I often wondered whether they were going to survive because of the way they looked.
 As the days started to get noticeably longer and some warmer weather started to move in I started to notice a growth spurt and it seemed over night they grew about a foot taller and they just kept going from there. It is now June and they are taller than me and in bloom! I cant wait to collect the seeds and the dried flower stalks.

As the Teasel just began to get flower heads, they were as tall as my shoulder.

The flower heads just appearing

The leaves are opposite, sessile and clasping on a very prickly stalk.

Many of the leaves formed small wells where puddles gathered after the rain.

By the time the flowers began opening, the plants were over a foot above my head ( I am 5'8")

At first, the flower heads showed a slight purple ring around the center.

 That purple ring bloomed into the first flowers

Some Bloomed in two rows

Closeup of the flowers

To be continued!

Some Dandelion Fun

 Recently a friend asked if I could make her some Dandelion Tincture. I said "no problem" as I have lots of Dandelions growing in my, -garden to be- area. When I went out to harvest the Dandelions, there were some huge ones with lots of flowers on them. I hated to see those flowers go to waste so I picked them for lunch. I decided to make some Dandelion Fritters. I also thought I would try to make them with Coconut Flour rather than Spelt as I would normally do.
 Working with Coconut Flour can be tricky as it has no gluten to hold it together like wheat or spelt flour would. So I experimented. I had to add a lot of extra eggs to hold the batter together and a lot of extra coconut milk because the flour seems to have an insatiable thirst for liquids.I added some baking powder, some salt and gave it a shot in a hot oiled cast iron pan. It broke apart and didn't stick to the Flowers! Dag nabbit! I added more eggs and a little more flour thinking the batter was to liquidy. It seemed to work pretty well so I did the whole batch.

Dandelion Lunch!

As you can see they came out pretty good, well, good enough to eat anyway. I don't have a real recipe as I tweeked this one so many times, but I'm sure you can find a batter recipe somewhere online from someone who is better versed in the ways of Coconut Flour than myself.
 When I harvested the plants, I noticed there were lots of flower buds deep in the plant as I broke it apart to clean it. I decided to not let those go to waste either, so I harvested them, put them in a small mason jar and poured hot homemade pickle brine over them and sealed the jar. I now have Dandelion "Capers" to use in place of real Capers when I need them.

Flower Buds Ready For the Brine

Teasel Root

 I have always loved the Teasel plant. It didn't grow where I lived, or where I live now for that matter, so any time I saw it in my travels I always stopped to admire it. Supposedly the plant gets its name because it was used to "tease" or cart wool way back when. If you have ever seen the dried flowers you can see that this is certainly possible. 
  Relatively recently, I have been reading a lot about how Teasel Root has been used successfully for helping cure Lyme disease, even in cases that have been resistant to medical treatment for many years. Intrigued by the fact that this beautiful plant has such powerful Medicinal qualities, and the fact that I really liked the plant, set me on a quest to find some seeds to plant in my Medicinal Herb Garden. After looking to my usual sources of seeds without much luck, I hit the internet to search for the seeds. I ended up, of all places, on E-Bay. Turns out there are lots of people jumping on the Teasel/Lyme Disease band wagon. I don't mean this in a negative way, actually, I was glad to see it was easy to find the seeds for myself.
 Teasel is a biennial, which means it takes two years to flower. This is a good thing because, as you have read here many times before, it best to pick the roots in early Spring and late Fall when the plants are not in flower. So, I planted my seeds last spring and the plants grew well through the summer.  I planted my seeds too close together so I have a big dense patch of Teasel in my garden that I plan to separate to a new patch before the weather starts to get warm. I just hope disturbing them this late in the game doesn't throw off their flowering cycle.

Densely packed Teasel Plants

I did dig up a few plants to photograph a single plant, check out the roots and to clean them to make some tincture out of them.

Single Teasel Rosette

Root Stock

  Now, I usually write about plants I have used so I can speak of my experience, but this plant is a Pursuit in progress. I did use the Tincture a couple of times when I felt a cold coming on. I added it to the usual entourage of tinctures I use when I feel a cold coming on and the cold never developed. Obviously, there was no control in this experiment and there is no way of knowing whether the Teasel made any difference or not, but as I learn more I will learn how to use the plant in better ways. Teasel Root is used in Chinese Medicine and there is a lot of info online about its uses. I have not studied Chinese Herbal Medicine in depth so I often find the nomenclature a bit confusing but I plan to talk to an Acupuncturist I have gone to in the past to get the scoop. 

  I will  also post photos of the plants in flower over the summer and continue to update anything else I have learned and experienced in using this new plant in my herb garden.

Cinnamon Vine

 Last winter while going through my Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds I came across a plant I hadn't noticed before. The name is Cinnamon Vine, apparently the flowers have the scent of cinnamon when they bloom, so that's where it got its name.
 The plant has another common name, Air Potato, because the fruits resemble a small potato growing on the stem of the vine and not underground like a regular potato.
  In early Spring I planted some of the tiny "potatoes" in pots so I could bring them in on cold nights, and hoped for the best. They started sprouting rather quickly and as the soil began to warm up later on in the Spring I planted them outside under a home made trellis right next to my Mango Melons . Unfortunately as the season progressed so did the aggressive Morning Glory's and they covered up the cinnamon Vine pretty well so I never got a chance to see the flowers or to smell them to see if they smelled like Cinnamon or not.    Like most people who work 5 days a week, my garden falls prey to all the opportunistic plants whose seeds have been waiting all winter to explode into growth, and I don't always have time to clean them out.
  As the summer progressed I would check the vines now and again and finally one day I started to see some '"potatoes" forming on the vines. Very excited I cleaned the Morning Glory away from the vines to give them as much sun as possible to help them grow and in a few weeks they were ready to taste.
  The "potatoes" are very small and can be eaten raw or cooked. I tried both. Raw, they had that potato crunch when biting into them and had a white flesh the same consistency as a potato also. I grabbed a palm full of the "potatoes", threw them in a pot, added water and brought them to a boil and cooked then till they were soft. To my amazement they tasted just like a potato! So, of course I grabbed some Organic Butter, salt and pepper and seasoned them as I would a regular potato. They were good! Unfortunately I had barely two bites before these small veggies were gone. Too bad they don't get bigger, I could make a meal out of them.
  Supposedly the roots get big like a potato and are also edible. After taking all I could get from one of the vines, I dug it up to check out the roots, unfortunately they ware very small and not worth taking. Maybe the plant needs to be a few years old for the roots to get large enough to eat. I will see next year if the plants survive the Winter.
  I didn't eat most of the Air Potatoes, I saved them to plant next year to increase my yield. So glad to have a new Edible in my garden!
Peace

Mango Melons

   A friend of mine brought me some Mango Melons to try awhile back which she got from the Farmers that supplied her CSA. I had never heard of these before so I gave them a try and they were pretty good. I kept the seeds and the next year I built a trellis for the vine to climb and planted the seeds at the base. Every one of the vines grew and I had a plethora of Mango Melons and have turned many a person on to these tiny melons. I have grown them every year since.
  Mango Melons or Vine Peaches as they are sometimes called, are small yellow Melons that grow on a readily climbing vine. The largest ones barely get to the size of a baseball. The anatomy is that of any other Melon except shrunk down proportionately, so there isn't that much flesh once you scoop out the seeds. The biggest complaint I hear from others is that what they get from them isn't worth the hassle of growing/harvesting/preparing them.

Cut Open

Seeds Scooped Out and Flesh Removed

They are also not as sweet as some other melons, another complaint I hear. The flesh is tangy maybe a little bit sour in some of the fruits. Maybe that why I like them so much, I like sour foods. I
 I got so many Melons this year I decided to freeze some to use for smoothies etc. I fleshed the melons and laid them out on a dish, keeping them separated so they don't stick together, then stuck them in the freezer to harden.

Ready for the freezer.

I like to make a "sorbet" with the frozen Melons. Just add water and frozen Melons to a blender and puree to a smooth consistency. Add some sweetener if you like or instead of water use coconut milk or other liquid to experiment with. Add them to your regular smoothies or just eat them the way they are as a snack. My friend puts Melons in her dehydrator for a chewy snack.

Mango Melon Sorbet!

If you think you might like to grow Mango Melons I have some Organic seed for sale HERE

Whats going on? or Where have all the Butterflies gone?

This has been a crazy year on the Homestead. So many things have happened that I can't explain, it's on the verge of being spookie!
 First, we had a longer and colder Winter than normal, and to make things worse we had a late unexpected frost that did a lot of damage. A few years ago I got a Mulberry Tree ( stick) from the Arbor Day Foundation and it started to grow well once planted, and turned into a nice small tree. I couldn't wait till I started to get Mulberries form it. Well, this year it was finally going to happen! Early Spring tiny leaves started to grow and hundreds of flower spikes filled the tree. I was very excited. Than came the frost. One night after some nice warm weather, we had a hard frost. Didn't think much about the Mulberry Tree as Mulberry's grow in NY and I figured if they can handle a NY winter they can surely handle this freak frost. Well I was wrong. I went out a couple of days later and all the leaves and all the flowers were dead! Brown and shriveled. I hoped they would regrow but only the leaves came back. Looks like I will have to wait another year.
 One of the greatest disappointments of this cold winter was that all my Edible Canna Died. If you have followed this Blog you know how excited I was at finding and growing this new Canna and how beautiful and lush they grew. ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2013/08/edible-canna.html ) and ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2013/12/edible-canna-part-2.html ) Not one came back this year and many of my other Canna died off also.
 Another tragedy was the death of my huge and bountiful Prickly Pear Cactus ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2010/10/tunas.html ). This Cactus has been part of my life since I bought this house, but after this winter, it ended up as a large gelatinous mass of dead pads. There is a silver lining though, I have seen some small pads growing out of the heap of dead ones that I hope will continue to grow and eventually flower and fruit some day.
 Another great tragedy was the loss of one of my Magnificent Mimosa Trees. ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2011/06/mimosa-water.html ) For some reason it never made it through the Winter. True I still have 5 left, but to see this brown dead tree amongst the others that are in flower right now is just sad.
 Other things that didn't make it through the Winter are 3 large Butterfly Bushes. Many people consider these plants invasive, but they are a godsend to the pollinators in my area as I live amongst a bunch of toxic sterile farms with no color. God forbid a flower grows in their GMO fields! Quick, get the poison and pollute the water supply, there is a natural flower on my land!
 Another unexplained phenomenon is the lack of Butterflies on my property. This makes me so sad you can't imagine. I love Butterflies, I dream of one day of having a Butterfly house close to my house so I can raise and release all kinds of native Butterflies into the wild.  Every year I cant wait for my Echinacia patch to bloom as it attracts Butterflies from miles around to this little oasis of nectar. I have spent hours at my Echinacia patch photographing Butterflies and it was not uncommon to have 20-30 Butterflies at one time flying from flower to flower. This year there are none! Going out to my Echinacia patch is what sparked me to write this post. It just blows my mind that the only Butterflies I have seen there are a couple of Cabbage Butterflies resting amongst the leaves when I water in the morning before work. The Mimosa trees I spoke of before are incredible Butterfly magnets. Last year there were so many butterflies around just one Mimosa tree it prompted me to get my video camera to document the amazing sight. There were literally hundreds of Butterflies swarming my trees. I would just sit on my porch, drenched in the sweet perfume of the Mimosa Flowers and watch the Butterflies for hours at a time. Most were Tiger Swallowtails ( http://ethnobotanist128.blogspot.com/2011/06/mimosa-water.html ) but there were many other species also. Besides that, here were Hummingbird Moths, Bees, Hummingbirds, Wasps, Beetles and Flies just to name a few. This year there are NONE! Even around my Milkweed plants where I have counted 12 Fritillary's, including some Gulf Fritillary's ( a new species for me), at one time just on one plant. There are None!
 So, whats going on? Where have all the Butterflies gone? Is it a Natural cycle that I have never noticed before? Was it the cold winter? Is it the roundup ready corn and all the sprays my "neighbors" use on their property? Maybe all of the above. Maybe this year was just the perfect storm of Natural and man made assaults on the environment, I don't know. I do know it is sad to see and I hope this isn't the new norm around here.
Peace
PS If anyone has any incites on this and has noticed this in their area, I would be interested to hear from you.

A New Plant!

I always get excited when I discover a new plant.
 In an area that I have an old overgrown garden, a new plant has emerged that I have never seen before. I haven't been in that area of the yard much this year and when I went to take a look the other day I saw a very beautiful plant, in flower, that I did not recognize. It was definitely some king of Mint. It had a square stem and the flowers were obviously Mint like. It was unique as the flowers were in whorls around the stem and there were four clusters per stem. The flowers were a beautiful pink color. As soon as I realized it was a mint, I squeezed a leaf between my fingers to see if it was aromatic and the smell was very strong... and familiar. It smelled a lot like Bee Balm, Monarda didyama., yet it was surely not, as Bee Balm has only one whorl of flowers on the end of the stem. So, I hit the books. No luck. Than I hit the web, still no luck. I uploaded a couple of photos to a website to see if anyone had ever seen it before. Two folks got back to me with the same answer, Monarda citrodora. Once I had a name, I went back on the web and the photos I found matched my new plant!
 Once I knew what it was I could start experimenting with this new plant. The first thing, after taking photos that is, was to taste one of the flowers. Definitely tasted just like Bee Balm, I guess it runs in the family!
 I plan to save some leaves to dry so I can taste the tea made from them. I would like to take a whole flower stalk to dry to make a leaf/flower tea but I am hesitant as there are only two plants and one is rather small. I really want to save as many seeds as I can to plant this beautiful flower in my herb garden for next year so I want all the seeds I can get. Maybe this is the year of discovery and next year will be the year of experimentation. I'll decide the next time I go to admire it.
Peace

Click on Photo to see full size

Burdock

 I know it's been a long time since I have written a post. The winter was long and cold and I felt I didn't have much new to say so I put things off for a while.
  Last year I bought some Burdock seeds because since I have been living in NC I haven't seen any Burdock in the wild. Where I come from it was very common and I missed my old friend. I planted the seeds in part of my Medicinal Herb Garden. The garden got over run with unwanted plants and it wasn't till the Fall that I noticed some small Burdock leaves amongst the rubble. This Spring the plants really started to grow well and are out competing the other plants so far.

The large leaves of the Common Burdock

  Burdock is a grandiose plant. The leaves are large and somewhat heart shaped and are more fuzzy than shiny. I have seen Burdock leaves over 12" long not including the leaf stem. The leaf stem looks a lot like Celery with the base usually a purple color, especially in older plants.

Celery shaped leaf stems, purple at the base.

   While out mowing, I saw a large Burdock plant on a part of my property I don't frequent very often and was surprised to see it there. I got so excited, I went back to get my shovel with thoughts of finally having something to write about. 

  Burdock has a long, usually straight tap root that is almost impossible to get out of the ground in one piece. I dug the shovel in as deep as I could working around the plant, than started to pry hoping to get as much of the root as I could. While prying I heard that familiar SNAP! as the plant gave way and popped out of the ground. As soon as I saw the root I realized I made a big mistake. You see, Burdock is a Biennial and the first year roots are what you are looking for. The second year roots are large, woody and fibrous, where the first year roots are solid, succulent and tender.

 As soon as I saw the large woody root I realized I let my excitement cloud my experience and knowledge, and I destroyed a plant that would have flowered this year and would have spread seed around to grow more plants. The only silver lining I can rationalize is the fact that I got such a small part of the root that most of it was still in the ground and hopefully will grow into a new plant. Also, I stuck the plant back in the ground in a different spot hoping it will continue to grow. 

  While working my way back, I started to notice a couple of younger Burdock plants growing in other places. I dug out a small one and actually got most of the root, it was a good one too! Interesting that I had never seen Burdock on my property before now it is in multiple places. Coincidence, or did birds take the seeds I planted and deposit them in other places?

Whole young Plant

This tap root was over 9"long!

  So, why go through all this trouble anyway? Burdock is a prized Edible and Medicinal plant used in many parts of the world. Most people use the roots but the leaf stems are also an important survival food source. The leaf stems are eaten in any way you would use celery. They can be eaten raw or cooked. Before using them though, the fuzzy coating should be removed. The easiest way to do this is to hold a knife perpendicular to the stem and scrape the stem till clean. It comes off easily and can also be done with your finger nail.

The celery like stems cleaned and ready to eat!

 The real prize of the Burdock is the root. I have seen burdock root for sale in health food stores for $26 a pound! As with most plants, collect the root in the late Fall or early Spring as to get all the stored energy and nutrients. The root can be eaten raw or cooked and when young and succulent, they are delicious. Use them in salads, stews or stir fry's.

  I first learned about the Medicinal qualities of Burdock Root a long time ago when I learned about a very famous Cancer Cure called Essiac. Burdock root is one of the main ingredients in this formula because it is considered a superb Blood Cleanser. You can dry the Root or make a Tincture for future use.

 Most people would think I am crazy because it is considered a noxious weed, but I am glad to see Burdock growing on my property and I hope it spreads around to provide me with food and Medicine as I need it.

Peace

PS Later on in the summer when Burdock blooms, you will be treated to some very beautiful Thistle like flowers!

Burdock Flower

If you think you would like to grow Burdock, I have some seeds for sale HERE

Chufa

  Chufa ( Cyperus esculentus), also known as Nutgrass is not a grass at all but is a member of the Sedge family. I'll never forget the rhyme that helps me remember and helps me teach others how to differentiate between  three narrow leaved lookalikes; "Rushes have ridges, Sedges have edges and Grasses are all round". The "edges" in this rhyme refer to the triangular shaped stem of Sedges.
  I learned about Nutgrass or Chufa many years ago but never had much luck in the wild finding the"nuts". Than I came across the seeds in an Ethnobotanical seed catalog and decided to put them in the garden to see what would happen. Well, what happened is, they took over  a large section of my garden! I have since learned that they are considered a noxious "weed" in many parts of the country as they are very aggressive multipliers. I suggest if you decide to plant them you put them in a raised bed to tame their aggressiveness.
  Even though they have gone crazy in my garden, I don't regret planting them. They are one of my favorite tasting wild edibles. The Tubers are the "nut" part that you eat. Even though they are relatively small and not that easy to harvest, they are so good, it is worth it. They are sweet, succulent and taste like Almonds to me, maybe that's why another common name is Earth Almond.
  As with most root crops, it is best to harvest the Tubers after the plant dies back for the winter and you can continue to harvest them till they start growing again in the spring. Harvesting is a bit tedious so I will go through the steps I have come up with through trial and error. 

Chufa mixed with Rocks and Debris on screen

 First, I have a screen with 1/4" holes that I originally made for collecting Fossil Sharks Teeth but has become my go to screen for lots of other Pursuits. The "nuts" I go for are not that deep so I skim the surface to about 3"down with a shovel. I shovel it into the screen and shake it till most of the finer soil and debris has fallen through, than break up the clumps with my hands and shake some more. Now what I have is Chufa and lots of rocks and debris left behind.
  

Debris Floating on Top

  The next step is to wash the rest of the dirt from the screen with a hose. I blast it the best I can and than take the contents of the screen and put them in a jar or a bucket and run water into it. Everything that floats can be skimmed off and the water can run till it is relatively clear.

Clear Water with Chufa and Rocks

  The trickiest part of this whole process is separating the Chufa from everything else left in the jar. Originally I would just pick them out one by one, but this became rather tedious when I had a quantity to do. I had to think of another way. I decided to try some Physics. I recently did a Science program on Density for the Seniors I work with using some demo experiments I used to use when I taught kids as an Environmental Educator. 
  I noticed that the Chufa were more dense than water but not as dense as he rocks and sand in the jar. So to get the Chufa to float but not the rocks I needed to increase the Density of the water just enough to get the Chufa to float and leave the Rocks behind. The easiest and cheapest way to do this was to add salt to the water. I began adding salt to the water and as I added more salt the Chufa began to float.

Chufa Nuts Floating On Surface of Water

 All that was left to do now was to strain the Chufa out of the water and to rinse all the salt off.

Cleaned Chufa Nuts Ready to Eat

 The tubers are great just as they are and make a Delicious snack. They can also be dried and stored for future use. One of by favorite ways to use them is to make a "nut" milk out of them. Just place in a blender with water and blend till you have a thick milky liquid. Strain and drink, no sweetener needed, they are sweet on their own. As a matter of fact, the Spanish have a drink they call "Horchata de Chufa"which is basically a Chufa nut milk with sugar and cinnamon in it. Save the ground up Chufa as an addition to pancakes or muffins. The Chufa can also be dried and ground into nutritious flour.
  Chufa is also famous as a food for Wild Turkeys and Ducks. It is often planted by hunting clubs to attract Wild Turkeys to an area.
Peace