Aronia Berry: A Perfect Fit for Your Kitchen Garden?

Blooming Aronia melanocarpa in RavenCroft's West Hedge

This morning found me and Joy in the west hedge gathering aronia berry. The A. melanocarpa, Viking, has been in the hedge about 15 years now. A prolific bearer and versatile in the kitchen, this berry is a delightful addition for most gardens and would benefit many a hedgerow. http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_arme6.pdf

Bioflavinoid rich aronia berries

The purple-black astringent berry is not a snack fruit for out of hand eating. It is best simply processed into juice, syrups, jams, wines and sauces. As an herbalist interested in optimum nourishment, it makes sense to include as many nutrient dense foods in garden and diet as possible and aronia has earned her keep in my garden...

Native to North America, aronia has found world wide acceptance as a food with deeply nourishing properties. Rich in bioflavinoids, aronia has the highest concentration of the antioxidant, anthocyanin, of any fruit, with elderberry running a close second. Improving circulation and strength of blood vessels, the berry may reduce blood pressure with regular consumption. Along with reducing general inflammation and specifically inflammation of the urinary tract adding aronia berry to your diet is a simple, delicious way to improve health. http://aroniaberrynews.com/

Fresh harvested aronia berries

As a gardener, I enjoy the tenacity and vigor of the plant itself. Aronias are hardy, unfussy as to soil and will grow in sun and part shade. At RavenCroft the shrub holds a place in the damp, clay soil of the west hedge. Every year, even with wide variances in weather, the 6’ x 6’ bush consistently yields 25-35 pounds of fruit. 

Beautiful spring blossoms, aronia is in the rose family

A deciduous shrub, aronia begins unfurling her year round beauty with the arrival of deep green glossy leaves in spring. Having a leathery texture and somewhat fuzzy appearance, the leaves provide a great backdrop for the beautiful white flowers tinged with pink and  born in clusters on the branches. After the blossoms fade the dense green holds a steady place in the garden or hedge for the summer. Toward late summer the abundant green berries begin turning black. This is a bush that offers color and interest for months on end. 

As fall approaches myriads of deep dark purple black berries literally drip off the limbs. Easy to harvest in their tidy clusters, I picked 15 pounds in just under 30 minutes this morning. It was a fun morning to be gathering the berries, as the annual bike event riders were pedaling by and beyond the hedge I heard a steady stream of “thank-yous’ offered to the police officer guiding traffic around the tight corner...

 IronMan bike race and a stream of Thank-you's bless the harvest

Once the fruit is gone and the weather turns toward its cold and wet wintery self; the leaves turn a vibrant red signalling the dark days scented with wood smoke will soon settle upon the croft. 

Red leaves of fall

With Aronia wine, Aronia-Fennel Oxymel, Aronia syrup and vinegar in the cellar all is well and the weather just keeps life interesting!

See you at market!

If you’re already growing aronia or can find some at your local farmer’s market, give this delicious Aronia Chutney recipe a try and let me know what happens!

Tastes as delicious as the picture looks!

Aronia Chutney

2.5 # aronia berries

2 # apples any variety, chopped

1 onion, diced

3 yellow banan peppers, any variety will work

3 small pilloncillo towers of raw sugar (find at local tienda)

1 cup dark brown sugar, 2 if no pilloncillo is found

1 cup fennel flower vinegar

1.5 oz minced garlic

1 T ceylon cinnamon punded fine in mortar

2 lemons juice and zest

2 oranges juice and zest

Put all ingredients in kettle, bring to boil, simmer until thick. Enjoy fresh for up to one month refrigerated. Freeze or can what won't be eaten for later...Enjoy!

Aronia Fennel Oxymel 
yield 1 gallon 

4# Aronia
4# apple cider vinegar (4 pints)
4# honey (2 qts)
fresh fennel blossoms to taste

Simmer aronia with vinegar until berries pop, crush with a potato masher, let sit until cool, press mixture through a mesh sack, return juice/vinegar to pan, heat with honey and fennel just long enough to dissolve honey. Strain and bottle. Store in cool, dark place.

Tangy oxymels are an easy way to preserve the harvest and can be enjoyed many ways. Enjoy with sparkling water for a thirst quenching, nutrient dense beverage, add to fruit salad to brighten flavor or to a vinagrette for a green salad dressing, enjoy off the spoon or drizzle over pancakes! Have fun imagining more ways to include this nourishing food in your daily diet.  Let us know what you come up with!

More information on aronia can be found here: http://aroniainamerica.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-to-purchase-aronia-plants.html

Until next time!

Be well, make time to go outside and play...

Hot? Try Linden Nourishing Infusion

Linden allee along the river Avon in Evesham, England

Lindens, Tillia sp. have been presenting in beautiful and surprising ways in my life over the last few years. On pilgrim adventures to England and France, I came to appreciate how entwined their history is with the peoples of those places. Often planted in parks and used as allees in vast, spacious settings, lindens are ubiquitous. 

Lindens in a city park in Monroe, WA

Upon returning home to Washington state, I began seeing them everywhere as well. City parks and streets host many lindens in cities across America. They are a quintessential street tree with many a town boasting a Linden Avenue. 
In Monroe, WA where I live, there is a beautiful row of 10 lindens in one of our city parks. I've enjoyed gathering the flowers there for over 15 years. Mid to late June in the early morning as the rising sun kisses the magnificent trees you'll find me in the branches of the linden. 
At first, when they were young I could stand on the ground and pick the fragrant blossoms with their long bracts. Now, I bring an 8' ladder stool and enjoy their growth as they rise up in their elegant gesture and off-set heart shaped leaves and open-armed grandeur.

Linden flowers almost ready for gathering!

Today it's hot! It's been unseasonably hot for over a week now. I wanted a refreshing, cooling beverage with nutritive value as it's almost too hot to eat! Voila! Linden nourishing herbal infusion with a hint of hibiscus added for heart health is born.

Linden Hibiscus Nourishing Herbal Infusion

Linden-Hibiscus Nourishing Herbal Infusion

Place 1/2 oz. dry linden flowers in a quart canning jar. Add boiling water and cover. Steep 4-8 hours. Strain. Return herb to pan, cover with cold water and bring to boil. Let sit until cool, strain and squeeze out the herb. (Feel the soothing, slippery quality of the linden flowers...sometimes, I just rub them up and down my arms for a quick soothing beauty treatment!) Mix infusions together top up to make 1/2 gallon infusion.

Place 1 oz Hibiscus flowers + 1 small cone of pilloncillo* in a separate 1 quart canning jar, add boiling water, steep 4-8 hours. Strain and squeeze herb to garner all the delicious nutrients and flavors. Again, strain the first brew, then add cold water to the hibiscus bring to a boil, steep covered 4-8 hours and mix with the first infusion. This is a semi-sweet concentrate you can add to other healing infusions for taste and enhanced nutritive value. Refrigerate. Blends well with the sweet taste of oatstraw and linden nourishing infusions.

Mix linden and hibiscus infusions together to taste, pour over ice, add a swizzel stick of lemon balm and enjoy the heat fortified with this simple, refreshing summer beverage!

This cooling infusion nourishes, reduces inflammation, adds nutrient dense bio-flavonoids, soothes internal organs and allows a body to meet the heat of summer with gusto! 

*Living in a town with several Mexican Tiendas, I've enjoyed weaving flavors from the home places of friends and neighbors into my herbal repertoire! 

Local, common and easy to access herbs and foods abound closer to home than you might imagine...in the fields, in the forests and yes, even in the local tiendas, treasures are awaiting discovery. What's growing in your neighborhood?

ENJOY!

Remember stay cool, jump in a river or lake every chance you can and take good care with fire this summer...

Miner's Lettuce and Co. A Tiny, Spring Salad

Miner's Lettuce

Miner’s lettuce, delicious salad herb, succulent green reminiscient of spinach, is a hardy winter annual.

Claytonia perfoliata appears during a slack time for garden greens. Along with hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta and mache or corn salad, Valerianella locusta, these 3 wildings make a tasty, textured salad in early spring. They grow well in cool weather and are ample before lettuces are up and growing in the garden. Served with a light balsamic vinegar or spruce tip vinegar and lots of olive oil and a bit of chive makes for a delicious fresh spring treat.  

The miner's lettuce although bland, is juicy and has good crunch, giving a small salad texture. Hairy bitter cress is fiesty, on the peppery side of the flavor scale yet lacks any real tooth. Mache, on the other hand, has the butteriest texture of all the wild greens. A real smooth mouth feel and taste...one of my favorites. 

All 3 naturalize in the garden easily. For the wise gardener, it creates a perfect "eat your weeds" scenario. I often remind apprentices that "if you can't beat it...eat it!" Beware! The caveat around eating wild food is, you may have wild thoughts. You are duly warned…enjoy!

These hardy greens seem to carry with them an added vitality. Perhaps because they aren't afraid to come out when we humans prefer to stay in! What I know, is that I'm hungry for something fresh when they are at their best. Along with cooked overwinter brassica tips and the beginnings of the spring potherbs, these wild wonders make easy foraging in a wild-edged garden!

Miner’s lettuce often grows in thick stands so harvest can be quick. It prefers the edge of the woods in filtered light and then persists longer in denser shade as temps warm up. By summer it is easily replaced with garden lettuces and greens. Miner’s lettuce goes by in flavor and texture as summer heat moves it toward dormancy.

Claytonia is easily grown in the home garden, seed being available from many vegetable seed purveyors. With a simple shelter Miner’s Lettuce will stand through the Maritime winters here by the Salish Sea. Hairy bittercress is abundant and needs no coaxing or shelter often blooming upon emergence. An excellent survival strategy! Mache is no native here, so needs to be seeded to start and  often naturalizes. The name corn salad comes from the weed’s appearance in grain fields in Europe where corn referred to the grain of the area, i.e. wheat in England, oats in Scotland and Ireland, probably barley in the Bible. 

A Tiny Spring Salad

Miner's lettuce, hairy bittercress, mache in parts to your taste!
Leave greens whole, toss with balsamic vinegar or spruce tip vinegar, olive oil 
And a quick grind of salt and pepper if you like...

Happy foraging. 

Salt and Pepper Pickled Eggs

Eggs! New beginnings, continuation, future possibilities, potent mystery, seeds of species. Eggs represent many things to many people. And, eggs are delicious. Spring is surely the time nature finds most suitable for generative activity. And, here in the flumdiddley kitchen we have lots of fun with eggs that become many tasty meals…Some quick, others maturing through the seasons for carrying the pleasure of spring and summer into the dark of winter.

While browsing at a local nursery last week, I happened upon this tiny nest tucked into a row of geraniums! Nature accommodates, the birds make do with possibility...

A tiny nest tucked into the geraniums at a local nursery!

Chickens at RavenCroft have managed to live on the wild side this season. Finding their nests has been a source of joy and consternation. Seems a raccoon in the neighborhood enjoys soft protein as much as I do! Using nettle as a hiding place proved a wise move on the wiley chicken's part and made for a quick supper in our kitchen. Green Eggs and Nettle being a long time favorite.

Brown and green eggs in the nettle patch...

Last week I brought the last jar of Pickled Eggs up from the cellar, the plain, ordinary Salt and Pepper recipe. It was a beautiful day for working in the garden so a quick trip to the cellar provided ingredients for a tasty potluck contribution at our Snoqualmie Valley Tilth farmers' monthly potluck. There is no easier way to preserve the bounty of spring for a future time than by vinegar brine pickling…even eggs.

Salt & Pepper Eggs from the cellar

Here's an easy Salt and Pepper Pickled Egg recipe you might enjoy trying in your kitchen this spring…As we move through the year watch for recipes for Rainbow Eggs in every season hatching here in the flumdiddley kitchen blog.

Diced Pickled Egg with dooryard herbs

Salt and Pepper Pickled Eggs
Ingredients
12 eggs, hard boiled, leave one egg in it's shell, peel the rest
1 - 1 qt canning jar with plastic lid
.5 - 1 tsp whole pepper corns

Salt Brine:
1.5 cups Apple cider vinegar
.5 cup water
2 T pickling salt
Mix in a small nonreactive saucepan. Heat and stir to dissolve salt into vinegar.

Process:
Place the 1 egg in shell at the bottom of canning jar (as eggs stand through the months ahead, the calcium in the shell dissolves into the brine deepening accessible nutrients)
Add pepper corns to taste.
Add peeled, hard boiled eggs to fill jar.
Pour slightly cooled brine over all and cap. When jar cools place in refrigerator. I've stored eggs for up to 8 months brined and refrigerated. They make quick and tasty morsels all through the year. And, the brine is an excellent nutrient rich addition to cooked beans, salad dressings and over hot rice!

Egg Salad on its way to Tilth Farmer's Potluck

Pickled Egg Salad

12 pickled eggs, chopped
Add enough yogurt, mayonnaise or mix of both to make a spreadable texture
Add minced herbs, whatever you have in the garden or available at your farmer's market or green grocer...Chives, sorrel, thyme, sweet marjoram, young leeks, parsley, fennel and lovage all work well.
Have fun with the changing flavors as the seasons turn one to the next.

Freya with her hatched "egg",  another unfolding creation

Pickled eggs run deep in my family's storyline. One of my favorite stories is about great Uncle Elmer's one room cabin set in the plains of Manitoba. There, a shelf near the ceiling ran on three sides of the room and on that shelf were gallon jars of pickled eggs. Imagine, if you will, a major portion of your diet being from the simple, whole nutrition in eggs. Those eggs got Uncle Elmer through many a cold winter on the rolling Canadian plains. Their piquant, tangy flavor still brings great pleasure to our table today. Enjoy!

Dancing the Round in the Merry Month of May

An hawthorn hedge in the Snoqualmie Valley, WA

What a luscious May week. Rain and sun, hot and cold, perfect in every way, so reminiscent of maiden energy! Long underwear on one day, barefoot the next! 

This week, I followed blooming hawthorn up and down the Snoqualmie Valley. Seeing the persistence of remnant hedges brings to mind a once thriving agricultural activity that prospered people here. After years of agricultural decline, it is uplifting to see a return of vibrant young farmers and hungry eaters eagerly growing a new world from the ground up. This enthusiasm is a heartfelt match for the bounty and medicine of the many crataegus gowing in our valley. Although the week was filled with rainy days, one fine, sun filled day opened to the possibility of harvest. After morning rounds, I put my kit together and set off for a ramble in the hedge.

Over the years, I’ve found much medicine in visits and tendings of trees, shrubs and perennial wild herbs engaged in my rounds. Over time, I’ve found visiting plants as deeply nourishing, if not more so, as their constituents. These plants are friends, when we see one another after a long spell, there is mutual greeting and sweet remembrance of who we are. Some offer themselves in harvest, others offer solace and comfort just in their presence, some give shape and form, color and fragrance to life which feeds a deep place; a place reflecting the same beauty the plants offer in the practice of a lemniscate life. I’ve come to know this way of plants as the order and flow of an ever changing, growing universe and am reassured through these long term relationships, that, “all is well in this world”.

Local Diversity in Hawthorns

Haw Thorns, Serious!

This week I was amazed by the diversity in the hawthorn trees I met along the way. A wide range of leaf forms from serrate to deeply lobed, resembling mittens or paws. So many different flower clustering habits. And, unique thorn forms from short 1/2” piercing mechanisms to thorns over 1 1/2” in length. Thorns, those sharp, woody spines, modified branches, function mechanically as a deterrent to herbivory, which, I admit, I was wont to do! Even the shapes of hawthorn trees differed greatly. 

Many years ago I read about this in a book by Alan Watts. A sameness enough to recognize the trees as their genus, yet, seeing each tree’s individual difference referred to as li, ‘“the underlying reason and order of nature as reflected in its organic forms.” Zhu Xi, in the Neo-Confucian period in China “held that li, together with qi, or vital material force, depend on each other to create structures of nature and matter”.  It was during this period of history that Buddhism became more integrated into Confucianism. Some now embrace a further philosophical shifting as seen in a westernized version of tao, or watercourse way and recognize patterns of li as patterns of flowing water. I was so moved by the possibility this perspective offered, my youngest son carries the name Li.

What, you ask, does this have to do with hawthorn, medicine, or you? Given the engaging transitions our world is currently experiencing set me on a quest through space and time looking for patterns and morphologies of culture that may currently serve our personal and collective transitions.  

Hawthorn: Keynote Heart Remedy

Crataegus monogyna, Snoqualmie Valley, WA

Hawthorn stands out as a keynote medicine for strengthening heart and is a perfect tonic for the times. Crataegus spp. is a genus comprising some 200-300 species worldwide, being used in many cultures through centuries for a variety of therapeutic purposes. The World Heath Organization, WHO, lists cardiovascular disease as globally the number one cause of death and the American Heart Association cites heart disease as the number one killer of American adults. Personally, my father had 3 open heart surgeries in the last 30 years of his life. I have experienced the toll a troubled heart can have on a family’s well-being in many ways. I’m sure his experience spurred me toward a better understanding of natural health, herbal remedies and spirit healing in matters of the heart. 

We live in challenging times. In keeping with the wise tradition of using hands-on accessible medicine, I am delighted to see so many Hawthorn in our NW region, along with its global distribution and long term use. Various species of hawthorn are found locally on roadsides, in hedges, in public and private gardens and in the wild. You might find Crataegus monogyna, C. oxycantha, C. douglasii, C. laviegata and frisky as these trees are at calling in their allies, i.e. the birds and the bees, the squirrels and the breeze, you’ll find innumerable natural hybrids! Again, perfect medicine for our times and abundantly available.

Rambling with Hawthorn

"Enjoy the day a bit," they intoned.

While on my Hawthorn ramble, I had the good fortune to visit a dignified group of old trees in a remnant hedge. As I began to harvest, they encouraged me to pause and sit a spell. “Enjoy the day a bit”, they intoned! The cool, tall grass was a tad more than slightly damp and smelled fresh and green as I settled in under the trees. I felt tension held in my body give way, melting into earth. Simultaneously, I felt earth energy moving up into the empty space recharging my body with a refreshing vitality. 

So many connections weave a life

The clear blue sky marked with wispy, white clouds made a brilliant, saturated backdrop for the profuse white blossoms adorning the trees. An energetic hum filled my ears as honey bees busily burdened themselves with bluging saddle bags of pollen. A butterfly slowly opened her wings and then just as slowly closed them. A fragrance, somewhere between earthy and heavenly, rich and fertile, filled the air wafting into my nose and settling down into deep consciousness. It is easy to imagine why she is called Mayflower and how it happens that fertility rites are part of this season in the northern hemisphere. Birds flitted and darted around the trees, chasing one another in the reckless abandon of the season. Recharged from my dreamy, restful meander, I picked up the loppers and began the harvest. So many flowers, so few needed to abundantly fill the tea cupboard at home for a winter of nourishing infusions. 

Health Benefits

Knowing each leaf and flower is filled with antioxidants, bioflavonoids, vasorelaxants and vitamins which increase blood flow to the heart and brain, strengthen the contractions of the heart, tone the circulatory system by strengthening cell walls in arteries, normalize blood pressure, improve exercise capacity and duration and reduce the need for the body to create plaque on arteries brings great impetus to get to know this herb well. We are now beginning to recognize the health building value of bee-song, butterfly whispers and myriad unknown constituents that will be released into densely nutritive infusions brewed from the flowers and leaves of the simply amazing hawthorn as well.

Harvest 

Harvest by removing 3’ long pieces of branches with a pair of strong loppers. Remove crossed branches to open the canopy for air flow, ones hanging too low and, generally, use the pruning/harvest to improve the structure and health of the tree. Over time trees improve in vigor and health with careful tending. Heap onto a cloth for transport back to the car. 

Ready for transport

Occasionally, branches are still filled with the hum of a hitchhiking bee, enjoy! At home, flower and leaf clusters are deftly plucked by hand from the short spurs, mind the thorns or they’ll mind you! 

Plucked branches and drying baskets

Then, flowers and leaves are laid out on cloths and in baskets to air dry. Depending on humidity the herb may take from a few days to over a week to completely dry. Dried flowers and leaves are then placed in paper bags, put in the freezer 3-5 days to inhibit unwanted larva lingering in the material from hatching in storage and, finally, store bags in a dark, dry closet or cupboard.

Making Hawthorn Herbal Vinegar

Hawthorn vinegar basking in the sun

1. Fill any size jar with fresh hawthorn flowers and leaves lightly packed, you know, so a fairy jumping in neither bounces out or sinks to the bottom

2. Now, fill the jar again with apple cider vinegar, watch out for decoys labeled as apple cider flavored vinegar, which is distilled vinegar flavored like apple cider vinegar, no apples no health benefits!

3. Enjoy this earthy vinegar in any recipe calling for a sour taste, on salads, as a condiment on beans, greens or grains 
It delivers flavor and a stiff dose of heart health with a side of courage! 

Can You Find a Hawthorn Close to You?

Hawthorn tree alive with honey bees and a butterfly!

Now, go outside, take a look around. What kind of  trees are blooming in your neighborhood right now?  Find the nearest hawthorn to your home. If you miss leaf and flower harvest, watch for the berries, which are botanically pomes, like apples, both being in the grand family of Roses and prepare for another harvest come fall. Please note! A possible side effect of an increasing awareness of plant life around you is a condition known as 55 MPH botany. Bee warned! 

Stay Tuned...

There’s more coming on this delightful hedge medicine ally. More remedies and recipes, folklore, cultural uses, magick and crafts! 

And, if you will, comment with your natural discoveries, rambles and recipes in search of the ubiquitous hawthorn.

Until next time... Be Well, go outside often, enjoy the meander...

A hybrid cross between Hawthorn and Mtn. Ash in the S. hedge at RavenCroft

Hawthorn in RavenCroft's East Hedge 

Hawthorn: The

Mayflower

Many species of Hawthorn (Crataegous monogyna, C. oxycantha, C. douglasii) can be found gracing hedgerows in rural farming areas of western Washington. During this merry month of May they are easier to find as they burst into bloom. Remnants of a bygone era, these hardy trees continue to offer fruits, flowers and branches to foragers of all kinds; beckoning us to again include them as a participatory part of the rural and urban scene.

Blooming in early May, the flowers make a delicious, nutritive herbal infusion used for centuries to strengthen and restore heart and improve the function of the circulatory system. Hawthorn’s mild pleasing flavor is delivered in a golden hue that inspires one to remember the lengthening days and bounty of summer. Gladdening the heart many ways!

Hawthorn Herbal Infusion Recipe

Place 1 oz dried Hawthorn leaves and flowers in a 1 qt canning jar

Pour over 1 qt boiling water and cap

Steep 4-8 hours, then enjoy warm or cold

Simply wonderful and you can drink as much as you like. The health value accumulates with regular use over time.

Hawthorn infusion steeping

On the Farm: In the Garden

Hawthorn is an excellent tree to improve habitat, creating homes for diverse insect and bird species. A versatile, contribution for many farmscapes or even urban gardens as a tree of small, compact stature which seems to enjoy heavy pruning, resiliently springing back after each harvest. As herbs again gain popularity for improving health, hawthorn trees will provide a source of income and habitat enhancement for local farms and an easy hands-on nutritive and tonic medicine for urban health enthusiasts.

Early blooming C. monogyna Snoqualmie Valley

Inspiration: Then and Now

Commonly known as Mayflower due to its habit of blooming the first part of May or the festive occasion of May Day, the hawthorn is the perfect tree to remind us how far the farm to table movement has come in the last 20 years. A new generation of farmers and eaters are changing our world bite by bite. The medicine of the Haw offers us a strong heart open to courage, hope and joy; qualities anyone might need to begin a journey into the new territory some call "the future". The Pilgrim’s trusted the Mayflower to bring them safely to their new world. Today, the cellular wisdom of this tree still offers a pathway to a strong, resilient heart carrying us forward in our ever-changing world! 

In the next 20 years, farm and food communities world-wide will bring earth back to our medicine, strengthening the health and restoration of what we value most. Hawthorn is willing to grow with us, how can we grow with her?

Dandelion Wine Recipe

I love making country wines with flowers, fruits and even roots. Each one is so straight forward and a delightfully complex ferment at the same time. What a wonderful way to get outside and in the kitchen for some dandy fun!

Brightness Herself

Last Monday, I headed out to the Sno-Valley Tilth farmer's potluck to share food with valley farmers and listen to a talk on native pollinators. Getting to know this valley in so many different aspects.

On the way, I happened upon a bountiful field full of the harbingers of spring and realized there was just enough time to pick a basketful of flowers and get to the potluck. 

Dandelions, the sun come to earth…have you noticed how they hide their faces when the sun goes behind a cloud or begins its descent into the western horizon? I delight in the way the fine rayed petals (each a separate flower in a community of many) shine the light right back up at that golden sky orb…

Oregon Grape flowers, delicious and tangy

My mom was a knitter, always kept her hands busy when she went to meetings. I fell in with the roots and barks and flowers and keep these hands busy moving plants along in their journeys through time and place.

It never ceases to amaze me that when a woman sits down with a basket of herbs and starts doing something with them, any other women in the near vicinity mozey over and wonder what she's doing! Before you know it everyone is plucking and visiting and having a good time. And so, the basket of flowers became a basket of petals in no time at all.

A basket full of sunshine

Of course, that's what I love about country wines, they're a social thing. Like eating and dancing!

Here's the recipe for one gallon of Dandelion Wine for all to enjoy…

Dandelion Wine Recipe April 2014

Pick a basketful of dandelion blossoms. About 1 gallon for a gallon of wine. 

Pick petals from the calyx…this is the second picking! This year the Oregon Grape was blooming, so 2 big handfuls of their flowers went in and the Lungwort was not to be left out so a handful of lungwort was added as well. Sometimes, cowslips are abloom when the wine is coming together and they go in too!

Be daring, mix it up a little, see what happens! 

I like making one gallon of 3-4 different wines each summer. This quantity is easy to put down in an afternoon. Uncorking sunny flowers and fruits, vitamins and minerals in dark and rainy times sparks winter cheer.

Raw materials

• Place petals into a stainless steel pan
• Add 3/4 gallon boiling water  
• Add 2 1/2 # sugar or honey, your choice
• Stir to dissolve
• Slice 1 organic orange and 1 organic grapefruit into thin slices toss them in the kettle
• Stir and cover with a cotton dish towel
• Cool down to blood heat
• While the brew cools mix 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon yeast into warm water with a double pinch of sugar or small spoon of honey to make a nucleus, this quickens the yeast so it hits the tea ready to work on the sugars sparking an eager ferment
• Pitch the yeast into the tea mix and cover again with the cotton dish towel

Pitching the yeast!

• Now, the primary fermentation takes place, let the kettle bubble and spark until it settles down into a quiet state
• Boil 32 ounces water with 16 oz sugar, remove from heat and add 2 black teabags, let cool
• Strain out all plant material and rebottle liquid into a 1 gallon glass jug (apple cider jug)
• Add as much of the simple tea syrup as needed to bring liquid to the shoulder of the jug, don't fill too full, ferment will be active to start
• Close top with a fermentation lock or a balloon and watch the secondary fermentation begin
• Let the ferment go until it stops, make sure the wine is in a place that stays the temperature that will allow a yeasted dough to rise
• Once fermentation has ceased the wine is ready to bottle

The wine can be bottled once the sediment has settled and cleared to your liking. I often leave mine until the first freeze of fall. Something mysterious happens about this time which helps clear the wine a wee bit more.

A delicious finish to enjoy and share with friends!

Enjoy!

This is just the tip of the iceberg…want more great ways to include Dandelion's wealth of health giving properties into your life? Her leaves and roots are nature's storehouse of nutrients and how she works in your garden will blow you away!

Be sure to check out this summer's classes, Rambles Around the Salish Sea and events on the 2016 Schedule...

Homemade Potting Soil

Wow, the first warm/hot day of spring arrived, the temperature hit 73 degrees in the garden today. And, the flurry of spring garden activity surely satisfies a longing that lingers through the cold, dark days of winter.

Getting pots ready for summer plantings means preparing potting soil. Here's a recipe I mixed up this morning and have been filling pots and planting all day while humming a sweet song to all our women ancestors who cared and tended earth for soooooo long before we got here.

2 - 5 gallon buckets peat moss
1 - 5 gallon bucket aged goat manure, any kind will work
1 - 4 gallon bucket worm castings
1 - 4 gallon bucket maple leaves (thoroughly scratched by chickens all winter)
2 - 1 gallon buckets perlite
2 cups lime
2 cups kelp
1 cup bone meal

Mix all ingredients together well. Fill pots and plant. Enjoy!

Using as many garden offerings as possible, reducing the import loop and finding new ways to use everything!

• Do you have a favorite homemade potting mix? 
• How have you moved toward local ingredients? 
• Any favorites?

Here are some pictures of a wine barrel being prepared for dwarf grey sugar peas. A delicious snap pea with edible purple flowers. The central  upright stick is an elder cutting which looks like she just might grow!

Sun dried sheets, too! What a glorious day…I hope yours was fine and as much outside as possible.

Tacamahac

EagleSong E. Gardener

Tack-a-ma-hack. Tac-a-ma-hac  Tacamahac

I love the word’s sound in my ears; it’s stacatto feel on my tongue.

Tacamahac. Tacamahac. Tacamahac

 Murmuring, I slip away; to other places, other times.

Tacamahac Hack-ma-tack. Tacamahac

“Nobody will know what it is or what you mean if you call the oil Tacamahac!” they said. They were right but this understanding deepened my sadness, it did not relieve it. “Maybe if more people were just to say, Tacamahac or Hackmatack, we might remember something!” I muttered. And so it has been over the years, private and public, my love affair with the tree called Black Cottonwood, Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa, balsam poplar, Balm of Gilead, Tacamahac by the Eastern native tribes, the Menominees and Forest Potowatomis, the Ojibwas. Gigantic member of the willow or Salicaceae family of plants, she is chief of all the trees in the Northwest and resides beside North American rivers across the continent. She is the tree of life; cut her down and she spawns 1000 children.

October 8, 1998. The first wind of fall is gusting, blowing this way and then that.  Daily temperatures are in a state of flux 72…58…67…63… Hot, cold…dry, wet signals to the great queen tree in the hedgerow behind RavenCroft, to button up her overcoat. All of a sudden, a great gust blows through her branches and she lets loose! Not just leaves, branches and twigs plummet to the ground as well. Some plunge with enough velocity to impale themselves 3 to 4 inches into the earth. I stand clear watching, amazed and grateful at this forthright offering!

This one, this great tall old woman, will leave us sometime soon. She will give way to new houses. Bulldozers will wrench from the earth the web of roots holding this tree intertwined with her alder and maple neighbors. Even if we could get a reprieve for the queen herself, without that tangled mass of roots, she wouldn’t make it through any wind of consequence.

 At over 80 feet, she towers above every living thing on top of this hill. Her trunk, 20 feet in circumference at the base, pushes up from the earth. First to the southwest, then realizing the extent of her lean, she corrects and pulls herself back to the northeast in a sweeping curvaceous arch. Three human homes are within the strike zone of her full crown. Countless creatures live in her spreading branches and endless root system. It is estimated that she drinks several hundred gallons of water each day from the earth she stands rooted within.

Her leaves sing a new song each season. The bursting song initiates early spring, when warming temperatures of the vernal equinox raise enough energy for her to shatter the tight casings of her sweetly held leaves. Fairies use the scented bud casings littering the ground as hats to stay dry while dancing in the rains of spring. Next comes the unfurling song. A quiet, almost silent voice, it requires meditative repose to hear. Enter such a state beneath her spreading limbs and you will hear a sensuous chorus, a million voices opening their throats to the sky. Vibrating in pulses of life, they perform the dance of unfurling, with it comes the song… Listen… Leaves opening, preparing the task, soon to be theirs, of photosynthesis. That holy meeting ground where leaves use sunlight’s energy to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water in such a way that this cottonwood tree is the only possible result.

With summer comes fullness; the sound in the leaves sated and moist. Warm breezes ruffle them in passing, setting the song free. The great mother exhales warm with satisfaction as the job of growing is realized. Gently, a midsummer breeze caresses a plume filled with seed and releases it from the branch. Ever so joyously one fuzzy puff of summer snow is joined by myriad more until the air is a swirl with millions of Tacamahac yet to be! Tranquilly falling to earth and tumbling together in great fluffy billows, clouds of cottonwood seed fill gutters and scamper across roadways.

 This song, too, is brief. Fullness soon passes. A raspy song, a scratchy song begins. She holds this sound through the beauty and stillness of Indian summer until that day when the gusts come. Those blustery winds of fall initiate the leaving song. It is sung until the last leaf falls to the sweet earth below to begin the journey anew. Dissolving, percolating, nutrient rich, seeping down to the roots to be drunk up, it will feed new leaves the strains of the bursting song in Spring.

November 23, 1998. Temperatures fluctuate from low 30’s to mid 50’s. Four days of strong winds and torrential rains bring the leaves down and the rivers up to nearly flood stage! A handful of golden heart-shaped leaves defy the season, laugh in the face of the raucous wind and hold fast to her crown.

Last week, on the sunny day, we raked golden leaves from the grass. Leathery leaves hid children; bamboo rakes worked in circles gathering piles; piles moved to chickens, scratching, hastening, otherwise, slow disintegration. Yet, just beyond the hedgerow leaf resins slow the organisms that transform these leaves to soil. There, a carpet of golden leaves melts into blackness undisturbed; singing the soggy song, the dark and decomposing melody of metamorphosis.

I have picked Balm of Gilead buds nearly every winter for 31 years. I have picked them from young trees along the banks of Washington rivers on both sides of the Cascades; my young sons acting as weights held limbs within reach. I have picked them from giant trees toppled by the hungry teeth of chain saws. I have picked them from a solitary ancient cottonwood standing in the middle of a hayfield in the Highlands of the Okanogan.  I have picked them from gnarly old trees beside Palmer Lake, while sharp, cracking retorts of breaking ice heralded Spring’s return. This year, my companion and guardian of the hill on which I live shed her limbs, a parting gift I will treasure.

We picked up the broken, scattered limbs of that October blow and heaped them onto a sheet in the living room. A few days later we picked the buds, the truly given buds, from the brittle branches. Next year’s leaf buds formed and tightly wrapped in their resinous coating to wait out winter storms. The unfurling song tucked inside each one. Tacky, propolis scented golden pitch clung to our coated fingers.

In a gallon jar filled with olive oil, the buds now steep, their yearlong maceration begun. A cotton cloth rubber-banded over the opening let’s the moist breath of the buds exhale. (Cover too tightly, the moist exhale sours the oil.) The long, slow marriage of oil and resin is underway. A daily stir the first 2 weeks (remember the beginning of marriage?), then the oil-bud mixture rests and matures in a cool, dark place. Occasionally, I check it, like I check a sleeping child, placing my hand gently on it’s back to feel the breathing. I smell it’s luxuriant, sonorous aroma. I tend its transformation through the dark months of winter. I listen to the songs in the naked; snow covered branches, the ancestors’ voices and dreams.

If, on your journey, you should have occasion to pick buds from the tree called Balm of Gilead and infuse them into oil, remember:

Tacamahac, Tacamahac, Tacamahac

Anoint your skin lavishly.

Breathe deep the rich and resinous oil!

Savor its warmth and resonant scent

To ease your daily toil.

Tacamahac, Tacamahac, Tacamahac

 Anoint your friends and family.

Sing songs of transformation.

Feel seasons dancing ‘round the wheel.

Join heartfelt restoration.

   Tacamahac, Tacamahac, Tacamahac.