Elderberry Cough Syrup

    Last spring I ordered a number of seedlings from the Missouri Conservation Department including blackberries, aronia berries, and elderberries.  After getting them planted in early April, I discovered that I already had a number of wild elderberry shrubs growing on my land.  They are pretty easy to recognize after they begin to bloom because their small clusters of flowers are very distinctive.  By July and into August the berries on my wild shrubs were ripe and ready for picking.  Each cluster of flowers ripens into a nice little bunch of deep purple berries.  It was a struggle to stay ahead of the birds that seemed to really like them.  To harvest them, I just clipped off the entire bunch and put them in freezer bags, stems and all.  I then froze them, so that I could remove the berries from the stems as I had the time to do it.  As time permitted I would take out a bunch of frozen berries and use a fork to scrape them from the stems into another freezer bag.  You have to keep as many pieces of stem out of the berries as you can, because the stems themselves can cause nausea and stomach cramps if digested.  You are not going to get all of the little pieces of stems out and a small amount isn't going to hurt you.  So you don't have to spend hours picking through the berries, just get out the big ones.  After harvesting and removing all of the stems, I really wasn't sure what I was going to do with them.  I knew that they made good jelly, and I knew you could make elderberry wine, but other than that I was not sure.  I started doing some research on elderberries and found that they have antiviral qualities, I also discovered that they have been used for centuries to treat coughs and respiratory problems.  I eventually found some recipes for homemade cough syrup, so I though I would give this a try.  Most of the recipes included a large amount of sugar and some form of alcohol, but I really wanted to avoid these things so that I would feel good about giving it to my kids.  I finally came upon one that only used elderberries, water, honey, and lemon.  It appeared to be very easy to make, and I knew that honey and lemon are also commonly used to treat coughs, so I decided to give it a try.  Here is the recipe:

Elderberry cough syrup

   1 to 2 cups of frozen elderberries

   1 cup of honey

   2 tablespoons of lemon juice

   1 cup or less of water

    You start out by putting the elderberries in a sauce pan and cover them with just enough water that they won't burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.  Bring them to a boil and let them simmer for about half an hour.  You then remove them from the heat and strain out the berries and bits of stem, being sure to mash the berries in order to extract all of the juice.  This will leave you with only juice.  You then put the juice back in the sauce pan and simmer for another half hour until it reduces by 1/4 or 1/2 depending on how thick you want the syrup to be.  I prefer it to be on the thick side myself.  When it is done simmering and has cooled a little, you add the honey and lemon juice, and stir until it is well blended.  Then after it cools completely, you can put it in a mason or jelly jar or whatever and put it in the refrigerator until it is needed.  The honey and lemon juice will naturally preserve the berry juice for several months.  You just have to give it a shake each time you use it.  As far as dosing, I used 2 teaspoons every 4 hours or so when I needed it.  For the kids, I cut that down to 1 teaspoon.  It seemed to me to be just as effective as over the counter cough medicine, but is all natural, and tastes good.  I was lucky enough to have some honey from a local apiary that was not processed or pasteurized, just wonderful raw honey.  Honey has natural antibiotic qualities and is good for treating seasonal allergies, so I thought this cough syrup would cover all the bases, antiviral from the elderberries, antibiotic and good for allergies from the honey, and good for suppressing coughs from the combination of the elderberries, honey, and lemon juice with no sugar or alcohol added.  I have to say that I am pretty pleased with the results so far. 

Natural Pest Control

A few weeks back we had an issue with Japanese beetles in our garden.  They came in swarms it seemed.  So I did a little research, we are growing everything organically so we did not want to use any pesticides.  I read an article about using a garlic spray, which proved to be effective if you sprayed daily.  All you do is crush several cloves of garlic and let them soak in some water for a few hours, then stain out the garlic pieces and add the water to a spray bottle.  You have to make sure that you spray the plant completely, even under the leaves for it to work. 
Another option is to make a spray with castor oil and water, you probably should not use this on vegetables that you are going to be harvesting soon due to the diuretic effect of castor oil.
The last method we used was just to pic them off by hand.  The tended to clump together on the leaves and you could grab a whole handful of them at one time.  We then threw them into a bucket of water with some dish soap in it.  We used just water at first, but they just swam to the top and flew off.  The dish soap prevented them from doing this.  So those are a few things that we did and they worked really well, especially on the Japenese beetles.

Three Sisters Garden

    This year, I decided to try what is called a "Three Sisters Garden".  It was a planting method used by Native Americans that was what people now call companion planting.  The story passed on throughout generations of Native Americans is about three sisters, corn, beans, and squash.  These three sisters care about each other very much and when together, strengthen and help one another as they grow.  These were also three staple crops of the Native Americans that were essential for their survival.  Corn was a mainstay that could be eaten "green" or dried for storage and provided carbohydrates for them, beans provided protein for them and could also be eaten right off the plant or dried for storage, and squash provided many extra vitamins and minerals.  The three together provided a well balanced and life sustaining diet for them, that could be stored to get them through the winter months.   

    These three plants, when planted together, are found to benefit each other in their growth.  The corn provides a natural structure for the pole beans to climb.  The beans help the corn by providing extra support to the corn stalks to prevent wind damage, and they also are found to add nitrogen to the soil that the corn naturally depletes.  The squash provides a living mulch for both the beans and the corn, it inhibits weed growth and shades the soil to retain water better in dry times.  So, not only were these "Three Sisters" important to the people's diet, they were important to each others growth. 

    I knew that I wanted to do this type of garden, but did not plan as well as I should have, so this year is a bit of an experiment to see how it does.  After doing our "Lasagna Garden", we were hit with rainy and wet conditions, great for the lasagna garden, but the wet ground kept me from preparing the mounds for the "Three Sisters".  I had originally wanted to order some flint or field corn to plant, but it was already late may, and all the local stores only sold packets of sweet corn.  So, I went with sweet corn instead.  Which is fine, because I love to eat fresh corn, but I had planned on drying some of it to use as a supplement to chicken feed this winter.  Sweet corn does not dry all that well, so I plan on just freezing any extra, and occasionally  thawing and giving the chickens some ears as a treat this winter.  So at the end of May, the ground dried out enough for me to form about five mounds in the space left over next to my winter wheat.  I planted several seeds in a circular pattern in each mound.  

    As soon as these spouted, I planted my pole beans.  I put three to four seeds around each of the sprouted corn.  Again, I had originally wanted to plant a good bean that I could not only eat, but that I could dry to add to the chicken's feed.  However, due to easy availability, I just went with a Kentucky Wonder green bean.  The family loves green beans, and we could can any extra to eat later or feed to the chickens.          

    I went with pumpkins for the squash, mainly because I had an old pack of pumpkin seeds.  I now wish I would have gotten a new pack because only around seven of them sprouted.  One mound did not have any pumpkins sprout, but I think I can direct the runners from one mound to the other.  The pumpkins were planted on the edge of the mounds and I will keep the runners directed into the mound to provide that living mulch.  My plan is to have some jack-o-lanterns for the kids this Halloween and to dry the seeds to eat and again, give to the chickens.

    At this time everything is growing, but not very impressive yet, I will post more pictures and update this post as things progress.

Lasagna Gardening / Sheet Composting

    

    For the past few years, my wife and I shared a large garden at my mother's house.  Each spring I would drag out the rototiller to work up the ground, use string to mark some nice even rows, and use her old wheeled garden hoe to dig the rows.  A very traditional way of gardening that worked well for the most part.  After planting, my mother did most of the watering, weeding, hoeing, and harvesting during the day.  She would then share the vegetables with us.  Last fall she told us that it was just getting to be too much work for her and that she would rather just plant a small garden next year.  We of course couldn't blame her, we loved the fresh vegetables, but understood that she did the brunt of the garden work while we worked during the day.  So, we decided to make some garden beds in our back yard.  However, with three kids and both of us working full-time, my wife and I knew that it would have to be something simple that we could easily keep up with.  So, we started looking into some alternative gardening techniques.  We knew we wanted to do things organically, but were open to different methods.  Our first inclination was to make a few raised beds, then we looked into double digging some beds, and finally after reading an article on something called lasagna gardening, we decided that this might be the best option for us. 

    Lasagna gardening is a no-dig, no-till organic gardening method that results in rich, fluffy soil with very little work from the gardener. The name "lasagna gardening" has nothing to do with what you'll be growing in this garden. It refers to the method of building the garden, which is, basically, adding layers of organic materials that will “cook down” over time, resulting in rich, fluffy soil that will help your plants thrive. Also known as “sheet composting,” lasagna gardening is great for the environment, because you're using your yard and kitchen waste and essentially composting it in place to make a new garden.  It basically mimics what occurs naturally in forests to create nutrient rich soil.

    One of the best things about lasagna gardening is how easy it is. You don't have to remove existing sod and weeds. You don't have to double dig. In fact, you don't have to work the soil at all. The first layer of your lasagna garden consists of either brown corrugated cardboard or three layers of newspaper laid directly on top of the grass or weeds in the area you've selected for your garden. Wet this layer down to keep everything in place and start the decomposition process. The grass or weeds will break down fairly quickly because they will be smothered by the newspaper or cardboard, as well as by the materials you're going to layer on top of them. This layer also provides a dark, moist area to attract earthworms that will loosen up the soil as they tunnel through it.

     

    Anything you'd put in a compost pile, you can put into a lasagna garden. The materials you put into the garden will break down, providing nutrient-rich, crumbly soil in which to plant. The following materials are all good for lasagna gardens:

•Grass Clippings                                           

•Leaves

•Fruit and Vegetable Scraps

•Egg Shells

•Cofee Grounds

•Manure

•Compost

•Shredded paper

•Trimmings from the garden

•Peat moss

Just as with a lasagna that you cook, there is some importance to the methods you use to build your lasagna garden. You'll want to alternate layers of “browns” such as fall leaves, shredded paper, and peat moss with layers of “greens” such as vegetable scraps, garden trimmings, and grass clippings. In general, you want your "brown” layers to be about twice as deep as your “green” layers, but you don't need to get real picky about this. Just layer browns and greens, and you will end up with a lasagna garden. What you want at the end of your layering process is a one and a half to two foot tall layered bed. We started our beds in October and were amazed at how much they shrank down over the winter.

                                        

    In the spring when you are ready to plant, just dig down into the bed as you would with any other garden. If you used newspaper as your bottom layer, the shovel will go right through, exposing nice, loose soil underneath. If you used cardboard, you may have to cut a hole in it at each spot where you want to plant something.  Be prepared to uncover a lot of earthworms.  Then just place your plants or seeds right into the ground as you would a conventional garden.  Because the soil is so rich, you will find that you can plant things much closer together than in other traditional methods.

To maintain the garden, simply continue to add some organic material to the top of the bed. Once it's established, you will care for a lasagna garden just as you would any other: weed and water when necessary, and plant whatever you want.

    While you will be maintaining a lasagna garden the same way you would care for any other garden, you will find that caring for a lasagna garden requires less work. You can expect:

•Few weeds, thanks to the newspaper suppressing them from below and the mulch covering the soil from above.

•Better water retention, due to the fact that compost (which is what you made by layering all of those materials) holds water better than regular garden soil.

•No need for fertilizer, because you planted your garden in almost pure compost, which is very nutrient-rich.

•Soil that is easy to work: crumbly, loose, and fluffy, unlike the heavy clay soil we normally have to deal with.

    Lasagna gardening has worked very well for us so far, all the plants look amazing.  We also applied the same method to planting some potatoes and watermelons in Rubbermaid tubs that we had available.  You can see these in some of the pictures posted above.  With the potatoes, you do not have to dig them when they are ready, you just turn over the tub and gather the potatoes.  I'll keep you posted when it comes time to harvest.  For anyone wanting more in-depth information I would highly recommend the book by Patricia Lanza.  We purchased it early on in the process and it explained the process very well and gives you some ideas for different vegetables. 

 

Food Inc.

Search Amazon.com for food inc


I watched the documentary "Food Inc." the other day. It is a documentary about food production in the United States. Sounds boring, but I was utterly appalled at how the majority of the food in this country is produced. They went into detail on how chickens, cows, corn, soy beans, and hogs are raised and processed commercially and it was enough to make me really think twice about the things I buy at the store. I have always been one to try to go with as much organic products that I can afford, and this year we bought a side of beef from Missouri Grass Fed Beef, which I would highly recommend. The point of the documentary was how large companies are ruining the food processing and farming industry. These companies have applied factory production techniques to making food and it is astounding at how unhealthy the food has become over the past few decades because of their unnatural treatment of the animals. I have seen small scale feed lots before, but some of these facilities were just deplorable and contained thousands of chickens, cattle or hogs standing in their own waste with no room to move. It wasn't just the unhealthy conditions that bothered me, it was how the animals were treated. Now, I grew up on a farm, and I have no qualms about butchering animals for food. I am not a PETA fan either, but there was just something that seemed so disrespectful to life in general in the way they were treated. They were picking them up with fork lifts and shoving them into trucks or processing plants while they were still alive. The point to me was that they were taking farming away from the farmers. Farming I think teaches you to respect the animals you are caring for. They can be used for food, but they are respected for their purpose. They are living creatures created by God.

They also went into some details about Genetically Modified Foods(GMOs) and how large companies like Monsanto basically bully farmers into using their products. I know that Monsanto is based here in St. Louis and employs a lot of local people, and I never had a problem with them until watching this movie. I was shocked to see that they sue these small farmers for patent infringement, because they are saving their own seeds to use next year, and some of their corn or soybeans have cross pollinated with their crops from the neighbors fields. They have so much money that they can sue the guys, knowing that they may not be able to win the suit, but just to tie it up in court until the farmers legal fees are too much for him to handle. They just ruin these poor guys just trying to make a living.

On an uplifting note, they did show some farmers and producers who were trying to do things organically and naturally. They followed some farmers who use grass fed only techniques to make healthier food. They showed how some organic farmers are going against common industry practices to produce their food in a more natural and healthy way. So, there is hope that things can change. They explained that we as consumers can change these practices by seeking out and purchasing natural and organic products. I know there is also an increase in popularity of buying locally produced food at specialty stores and farmers markets, so it is possible to be more healthy and environmentally friendly. I would definitely recommend this documentary, I really think everyone should watch it.

My First Blog.

Well, here it goes. I've considered doing this for some time now, just never took the plunge. I don't know how interested people will be in reading about me, my family, and my little farm, but I guess there is only one way to find out. I don't have a lot of land, only around five acres located in DeSoto, Missouri, but it is attached to my parents larger 37 acre tract of land where I grew up. As this thing progresses I will add pictures of the farm and what we have going on here. I have a number of little experiments I am trying out, most of them are already started and some I will be starting in the near future. I consider my place a hobby farm because everything I am doing right now is just for me and my family's use. My farm does not generate any kind of income at the present time, but that is something that I would like to change, eventually. I don't think I will ever be able to be a full time farmer or anything like that, but it would be nice to market some home grown products.

One of the things we have here on the farm is a small poultry flock, which we will be increasing in the near future as soon as our chicks come in. We have all Rhode Island Reds, except for the rooster that is a Plymouth Rock. Our first group of chickens were given to us by a friend of my wife's. I was informed by her on a Thursday, that we would be getting them that Sunday, so I had to quickly erect a coup and a run that Saturday. It is definitely not much to look at, but it gets the job done. I will probably post a future blog when I have a chance to do some remodeling. The hens have been good layers so far, keeping us, my mother, and my mother-in-law supplied with eggs for most of the year. We have not butchered any for meat yet, I don't think my kids would eat any of it if they knew, but this is always a possibility in the future.

We also have a small garden that we are growing potatoes, lettuce, onions, spinach, broccoli, strawberries, tomatoes of course, sweet peppers, watermelons, cantaloupe, and one cabbage that my son brought home from school after a class project. There are also various flowers being grown. The garden is my wife's pride and joy. Prior to this year, we just helped my mother that lives next door with her garden. I would till it in the spring, the kids would help her plant, and she basically did the rest. However, she informed us last fall that the garden was just too much for her and she didn't want to bother with it next year. So, my wife and I started looking into some alternative gardening methods and decided upon something called lasagna gardening, sometimes called sheet mulching, and made some beds in our back yard. It is a no till method which seems to be working very well. I will have to keep you posted.

On a whim last fall, I also purchased some organic winter wheat and broadcast it over half of my mother's old garden area. It seems to be doing well so far and should be ready to harvest around June of this year. My goal is to grind it myself and make my own whole wheat flour. I think it would be very cool to bake some loafs of whole wheat bread from the wheat I had grown, harvested, and milled myself. I guess we will see how that turns out also. With the other half of my mother's old garden, I plan on planting a three sisters garden. This consists of companion planting corn, beans, and squash or pumpkins. This is a Native American traditional way of planting and each plant compliments the other. The corn provides support for the pole beans, the beans put nitrogen in the soil for the corn, and the pumpkins form a natural mulch to retain moisture and inhibit weed growth. These were also dietary staples of the Native American tribes. I will be planting the corn in the next week, and hope to post pictures and let you know how this progresses also.

The last thing that I have planned this spring is planting Blackberries, Aronia berries, and Elderberries that I have ordered from the Missouri Conservation Department. I am doing this to test how well each grows in my area. Aronia and Elderberries are very high in antioxidants and are supposed to be gaining in popularity in the U.S. for their health and medicinal benefits. Who knows, if they do well, maybe they can be turned into a modest cash crop. When they arrive I will be going through the planting process, hopefully with pictures also.

Well, so far that is it in a nutshell. I am hoping that those of you that drop by to visit will enjoy seeing what we are doing and maybe learn a little from our trial and error experiments. Maybe I can even inspire people to do some experimenting on their own. Thanks for stopping by, and don't hesitate to make any comments or ask any questions as this thing evolves, any input would certainly be appreciated.