Nettles

Stinging Nettle is an herb that grows wild all over the place. A while back, I had the opportunity to go to a wild foods class. There I learned about how to identify stinging nettles. I had heard about this herb before, so I went out and found some to transplant to my garden.

The leaves have one of the highest protein contents of any plant. Back in WWII, when meat was rationed, people would use it in all kinds of things to up the protein content.

From what I understand it is a jack-of-all trades when it comes to medicinal uses. Some common uses are: arthritis, an herbal treatment for allergies, relieves hair loss, treats Celiac disease, bleeding, bladder infections, skin complaints, neurological disorders and a long list of other conditions.

I grind it in a coffee grinder and put it in capsules to take as a supplement. I also use the leaves in soups or to make tea.

There is quite a list of drug interactions so if you want to use it, do your research. I'm not a doctor :) It is a diuretic and can affect blood sugar and blood pressure. Be careful!

The fresh leaves and stems can sting you so I only sell the dried form.

Our chickens love dried nettles. Not sure about fresh ones. Occasionally our flock gets a “cold”. Usually if this happens, they drop production for a few weeks. Sometimes they even go into a molt.

This spring when they started to sneeze, I put some dried nettles in a pillow case and stuck it in their water. Within a couple of days the sneezing and coughing had stopped and the egg production was better than normal.

It's a pain to harvest (quite literally), but we have decided we need to grow a whole lot more of this gem :)

Have you learned something? One wonderful life rule is : "Learn something every day." It's a good rule. If you have, you can go back to bed now :)

Alternative Health - Asthma Gone!

Yesterday, I did some pretty heavy duty cleaning and I didn't have to take any asthma meds! I'm not sure exactly what I am doing right, but I thought I'd share my supplement and oil routines. Maybe someone else might be helped.

Morning: chromium, garlic with parsley, a B complex, a pro-biotic, magnesium, hawthorn, ginkgo, cranberry, stinging nettles, ground egg shell capsule, and during the winter, vitamin D3

Evening: magnesium, selenium, ginger, zinc, hawthorn, garlic with parsley, cranberry, nettles and 2 ground egg shell capsules

I grow and pack the egg shell  and nettles capsules myself. I'm working on being able to produce my own ginger and may try to put some garlic and parsley together in a capsule sometime this summer. Not to sure about that though. I think the gel caps that I currently use from Puritan's Pride are odorless because of the combination, but I'm not sure if that is really the case or if they do something else to the garlic.

The ginger is a fairly recent addition. I bought a bottle a while back, but it made my stomach burn so I quit taking it. Then this winter, I decided to try it again, but make sure my stomach had plenty of food both before and after the capsule. That worked and I suspect it may be a major factor, because ginger is known to reduce inflammation.

I used to take 1000 mg omega 3  and 1000 mg evening primrose 3 times a day for my joints, but I have found that if I eat plenty of tree nuts every day, I can do without those, so I make my own trial mix out of several different types of nuts and dried fruits. I eat about a cupful a day. Lots of calories, but when you work like I do, that's not a big problem. I am also of the opinion that middle aged women need a good amount of fat on them to keep their bones strong anyway.

The other thing I think might be a major factor in the asthma issue is the oil routine I have developed. Last winter, I read somewhere that doctors are having some success treating back pain by putting people on anti-biotics for 100 days. Seems that sometimes bulging discs are caused by a bacterial infection such as pneumonia or a skin infection that somehow traveled to the spine and lodged there. This made sense to me, so I thought, "If I rub oils on my spine every day for a year, maybe the problem spots would heal up. So I ordered a back roller from a guy I "met" on a Young Living Face Book group and mixed up a concoction I thought might be helpful.

Last fall, I had stuffed a jar full of rosemary and lemon balm and covered it with olive oil, so I decided to use this as my base oil. I took an empty essential oil bottle and put a dropper full each of Thieves oil, melaleuca, and oregano from Young Living in it. Then I filled it with my homemade rosemary/lemon balm oil. I topped it off with a roller ball and twisted it into my back roller.

I've been using this for a couple of months now in the morning and before bedtime. I really think it is helping my back. The pain isn't gone yet, but I seem to be stronger! Chiropractors say that asthma can often be cured if the back is aligned correctly. I don't have the time or the money to go to doctors much, but maybe this is healing my back enough to kick the asthma :)

If you'd like to order or become a distributor, go to my website. https://www.youngliving.org/gramasues

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Stevia

Stevia is a sub-tropical to tropical plant who's leaves are much sweeter than sugar. . Different plants have different levels of sweetness and there are even differences on the same plant from cutting to cutting so using home grown stevia can be a bit of a challenge, but the rewards are well worth it.  

Studies done on this plant suggest that the compounds in the whole leaf have anti-hyperglycemic, anti-hypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, anti-diarrheal, diuretic, and immunomodulatory actions. Most stevia found in stores contains only the stevioside compound that gives the leaf it's sweet taste. The other compounds in the leaf are those that do these jobs. What's really interesting about this plant is that it only seems to affect blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. when levels are abnormal. Sweet! According to the info out there, there are no known harmful side-effects like artificial sugar substitutes, however, I do know a couple of people who say it gives them headaches.

You can grow stevia from seed, but only "black" seeds will germinate. I did have a plant that flowered and put out seeds a couple of years ago that produced babies, but from what I've read, plants from seed may or may not have the sweetness of the parent plant. Propagating from cuttings is the preferred method, but I haven't been successful at that :(

To use the stevia, I dry the plants and put them in the freezer. When I want to use some, I grind the leaves in a coffee grinder and sweeten with the powder to taste. Stevia doesn't ferment, so it's no good for things like wine or vinegar and when making jams or jellies you really need a no-sugar pectin because it doesn't contribute to the jelling process like sugar does.

The plants are sometimes hard to come by. Last year I didn't find any until August and they weren't as sweet as other plants I've had, but I dug them up and brought them inside because I didn't want to be without this year.

They look kinda scraggly by spring, but once I get them back outside in the sun they will perk up. I've done this before, but I lost them last winter because I had to be gone and they didn't get watered enough. I'll wait until the temps stay above 50 most of the time before I put them back in the garden. I've killed a few by putting them out to soon. They love a thick mulch on well drained loamy soil. Raised beds are perfect for them. Once established, they tolerate temps in the 33-50 degree range quite well. I've even covered them like tomatoes when there was a light frost and had them come through fine.

Unless I can get enough quality plants, I won't be bringing stevia to the markets. So far, I've only been able to produce enough for my breads and jams, but it's really nice to be able to brag that I grow my own!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Lemon Grass

I'm out on the road today. Haven't done much creative this week. Just sitting in the pick up truck enjoying God's creation! Thought I'd show you my lemon grass. I use this stuff in my tea all the time. It's a tropical type plant so I have to dig it up and bring it in every year. That's OK though, it grows better indoors than my lemon balm. I use it for tea all winter long.

Lemon grass is used a lot in Asian cooking. Like most herbs, it has all kinds of health benefits. It is loaded with anti-oxidants so it's good for colds and chronic diseases that involve inflammation. A while back, the big news channels were reporting that in Israel, it is used in cancer treatments. Apparently people who drink lots of lemon grass tea along with the conventional treatments like chemo and radiation experience greater tumor reductions than those who use the conventional treatments alone. 

I have several little pots started from seed too. I have a hard time selling the cut grass, but maybe people would be interested in the plants. We'll see.

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue