Lemon Balm

This patch of lemon balm is going to be torn out this year. Grampa Tom and I use so much lemon balm during the summer that I thought I needed another bed, but I've got so many little patches turning up here and there that I've decided this space would be better used as a parsley patch.

I usually don't bring cut lemon balm to the markets because it wilts to quickly, but I'm planning to put this bed in pots to bring all summer long so my customers can grow it too. Lemon balm needs full sun to produce to it's full potential, but like any plant in the mint family, it can survive just fine in partial shade. Be careful where you put it though! It's a weed. It spreads by the roots as well as by seed. To keep it contained, you should put some sort of a boarder around it and keep it cut so it doesn't flower.

We use lemon balm on a daily basis during the summer when it is abundant. I even bring a pot of it in during the winter. Lemon balm makes a wonderful tea. We mix it with the green tea that we make into iced tea. It is also great in salads, soups or on sandwiches.


It's great for any type of skin irritant, bee stings, bug bites, rashes, cold sores ... just rub the leaves on the affected area. Lemon balm has been shown to have anti-viral qualities. Citral (the chemical that creates the lemon smell) has been shown to cause cancer cells to self-destruct.


Got a toothache? Put a few leaves between the affected tooth and your cheek. The pain will start to subside within a few minutes :)


I make a tincture of it to use on mouth sores during the winter, and I'm experimenting with making lotions, creams and salves with it. Haven't got that one down yet - still in product development (shhh... That means I haven't gotten around to finishing what I started.)


It's also reported to be good for anxiety, insomnia, colic and upset tummies. It is even been proven to help Alzheimer's patients be less agitated.


Lemon balm also seems to be a pretty safe herb to use. The only warnings I can find about it are cautions when using with sedatives. Lemon balm can increase the potency of these drugs.



Our chickens love it. They always keep any stems that try to escape the garden trimmed back well. I try to dry some every summer to give them a treat during the winter :) Dried lemon balm looses it's scent quickly, but if you put it in the freezer it keeps pretty well.
So be looking for it when you come see me!


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue 

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

Raised Beds Officially Planted

 
The last few days have been really busy with filling and planting all the raised beds. We have potatoes, spinach, radishes, lettuce, chard, carrots, kohlrabi, kale, onions and cilantro planted. I am hoping to get a bed of parsley planted tonight or tomorrow. Grampa Tom is out hauling corn to town for the next couple of days and then he'll be in the fields so I'll probably need to do most of  the rest of the planting. I don't mind. It feels so good to dig in the dirt! I'm sore, but it's a good sore and I feel stronger every day!

Only thing is, I've decided I need about 10 times the raised beds we have now. That is going to be my major project this summer. I've got one started that is going to be an earth bermed dog house/raised bed huglekulture garden. I'll be posting about that when I've got it built.

I'm so glad I don't have to work inside all day every day!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

To Reinvent the Wheel

A while back, I was telling a friend that I would like to build a top bar bee hive. He didn't know what that was, so I described it to him. He  asked, "Sue, why do you always have to reinvent the wheel?" So, I went on to tell him about the difficulty I have handling the weight of regular hives.

Grampa Tom often makes the comment that I "always do things the hard way", but I just can't do things the way he does them. I can't just see or hear something and remember it. I have to use memory tricks or I don't remember. I can't throw a shovel full of dirt 16 feet, so I shovel the dirt into the garden in one place and then I use the rake to spread it out. I'm likely to do things backwards and then have to go back and straighten it out of make adjustments.

I am only 5' 4", I've always had memory issues. I'm spacially challenged and slightly dyslexic. And even though (for a woman) I have a large rib cage and shoulders, I've never had even half as much upper body strength as a typical woman. Seriously, I know how to change a tire, but I can't physically do it! One of Grampa Tom's favorite memories of when we were first dating is when he ran across me literally jumping up and down on a jack trying to get the lug nuts loose! He laughs about that every time he tells the story! I was so glad to see him drive up in his white truck like the hero he became that day! He whipped those babies right off and changed my tire in no time.

But I regress ... Guys, and everyone else who looks at the crazy things I do and wonders why I am always trying to reinvent the wheel, the reason is: Your wheel is just too darn big!  Either help me or I'll figure out some other way to get it done!

Rant over :)

God  Bless You All!


Grama Sue

Raised Beds

Finally got Grampa Tom to let me fill the block beds with real dirt! We've had potting soil in them for years. The stuff is wonderful to work in, but the stuff is $$$expensive$$$, and it needs a lot of water. We had a 2 year old compost pile that was free and needing a home. Best possible dirt you could ever find!

Got some radishes, lettuce, peas, spinach, black berries and chard planted today. I am sore and tired, but we should have something come market time! We should have rhubarb too. We have a good friend who has some greenhouses who told us he would sell us anything we need to fill in the empty spaces. He says he will have lots of strawberries and he even has tomatoes that are blooming.

It's been a long cold winter. I'm really sore, but it's a good sore. I have to take care of a handicapped lady tomorrow. Good thing, I need a day of rest :)

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

Rasins

It's been a long hard winter folks! Our chickens are so happy today! They are finally able to get out of the building.

It's muddy and they aren't straying far from the coop, but they will. We've been bringing them goodies to eat in the building. The weather has been so crazy that we didn't think they should be outside. We hang suet for them to pick at and take them kitchen scraps, pumpkins we have stored, alfalfa and produce that the local grocery store gives us that is good, but can't be sold because it is past it's prime.

In the last haul from the grocery store, there were 3 boxes and one of them was almost all red grapes. They were good, just not the freshest. Since raisins are basically super past their prime grapes, I decided to make raisins out of them.

I soaked them in a sink full of vinegar water for about 15 minutes. Then I destemmed them and took out any that showed any signs of mold while loading them on to the dehydrator. I put them on a medium heat and waited. It took a couple of days before any of them were dry, but I tried a high heat the last time I did this and wound up with a whole lot of burnt grapes. Live and learn!

Even after 2 days many of them weren't dry, so I picked through them and put those that weren't ready on for another day. There were still a few that needed another half a day.

I got a little over a quart of raisins out of the deal :) It was a lot of work and the electricity alone probably cost me more than what I could buy the same amount of raisins at the store. That's the way it is with pretty much everything I process at home. But, the satisfaction of knowing that I can make my own raisins is well worth the cost!

Now if I could only grow my own grapes and have a solar food dryer ...


God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue