By Linda Conroy

Relocation, as a bioregional herbalist (one who chooses to incorporate the plants that grow nearby) has proven to be an opportunity to connect with new plants on an intimate level.

One of those plants is Monarda fistulosa, commonly known as Bee Balm or wild bergomot. While I grew Monarda didyma in my garden while living in Seattle, I did not harvest very much, as there were only a few plants. I occasionally harvested petals for salad and that was the extent of it. I had of course read about the healing qualities but was utilizing other more abundant plants for the purposes that I have since applied to bee balm.

Since relocating and getting to know the ever abundant midwest native Monarda fistulosa, I have begun harvesting this plant in abundance. I incorporate her spicy leaves and flowers into salads, vinegars and honey. I dry the plant for infusions (steeped 2 hours for flowers) and enjoy her ever fragrant flowers in sachets. 

Monarda is a plant in the Lamanicea or mint family. The plant is aromatic and grows in what botanists call a subshrub pattern, in other words large clusters.

Wild bergamot was also considered a medicinal plant by many Native Americans including, (but not limited to) the Menominee, the Objibwe, and the Winnebago. It was used most commonly to cure colds, and was frequently made into a tea. Today, many families still use wild bergamot during the cold and flu season. It is often sweetened with honey to subdue it’s strong flavor.

Bee Balm has strong antiseptic qualities which stem from the fact that this plants contains thymol, or thyme oil. It can be applied for cleaning minor wounds and/or skin infections, as a mouth rinse for throat and mouth infections and it has been used as a carminative (an herb that reduces or expels gas). This plant also contains anitfungal qualities. While living in the Pacific Northwest, Red Cedar was one of my favorite plants for clearing fungal infections including athlete’s foot. Today Mondarda is my choice.

In many of the talks I offer, I speak to the need for choosing plants that grow around us. Many of us are familiar with the concept of local food, yet few of us stop to think where our remedies come from. Historically people had everything they needed right around them and we can too. Many of the plants that we use, which come from afar can be replaced with plants that grow right in our own bioregion. Take the challenge. Here is a link to a wonderful article on this topic written by Rose Barlow Local Herbs. 

Recipe for Monarda Vinegar

-Harvest the flowers of this plant when they are in full bloom. Follow the bees they will lead you there. Ask permission, if granted thank the plant. I like to thank the plant by breathing and singing with it. Sharing breath is the greatest gift we can offer our green allies, acknowledging and keeping in our consciousness our dependence on them for every breath we take.

-Place the flowers in a jar. Filling and packing the jar lightly.

-Once the jar is full, pour apple cider vinegar over the plant. I prefer organic raw vinegar.

-Place a lid on the jar. I have been using plastic canning jar lids, as they will not rust.

-Label the jar, with the common name, botanical name, date and any other pertinent information.

-Place the jar in a dark place.

-Strain in 4-6 weeks. Store in a dark place.

-Enjoy this on salads, in water to create a refreshing beverage and/or soak your feet in a diluted foot bath to clear up athlete’s feet. Many wonderful uses!

Awhile back we put out a video on youtube where I rubbed Lemon Balm on the inside of a bee hive. Lets talk more about that wonderfully fragrant herb. Lemon balm or Melissa officinalis, a member of the mint family, is very easy to grow in Wisconsin (sometimes too easy!). The name Melissa means “Honey Bee” in Greek, so that should give you a clue why I rubbed it in the hives. Honey bees are attracted to lemony scents because it mimics their natural pheromones. There are commercial lures that can be purchased to attract honey bees and most of these lures contain a varying amount of lemon grass essential oil. Lemon Balm is a very good plant for bees as its flowers are a great source of nectar. We humans can enjoy the benefits of this plant in many ways. Its good in salads, teas, homemade ice cream and its been suggested that it might be a good preservative for sausage. A tincture of this plant is commonly used to treat Graves’ disease or hyperthyroidism. The extract of lemon balm was also found to have exceptionally high antioxidant activity. With all of those virtues, how could you not grow this plant?

And yes grow this plant, harvest it and make a fresh plant tea. This tea is cooling, refreshing and calming-the perfect thing as the warm weather approaches those of us in North America. 

Spring into Summer Blessings,

John Holzwart

www.broomsbylittlejohn.com

I am very excited about spring and all the possibilities. We have seeds planted in the greenhouse and we installed bees onto their hives earlier this week. We have mushrooms fruiting and have inoculated an area under the elder bush with more. This was a very good year for syrup, the maples were very generous this year, yielding 375 gallons of sap. Alot is happening, it is difficult to know where to start.

So, I thought I would start with the picture above of my favorite spot to harvest watercress. Last week an apprentice and I ventured to the springs and harvested watercress. I made a salad that contained this as well as spinach from a local greenhouse, along with chickweed and lambsquarters. What a salad it was.. I could feel my cells jump with glee. Eating fresh young greens alerts my body that yes indeed spring is here! The wild greens offer this experience in a magnified way! I so look forward to the coming of violets, wild leeks, nettle and all the other spring plants that grace the landscape and my plate.

Watercress (Nasturtium officinale) is an amazing plant. Greening in ice cold water, when there is still snow on the ground is a feet that many green plants do not attempt and so it is worth paying respect to this green ally. Watercress is considered a semi-aquatic plant and is a perennial, native to Europe and naturalized in the United States. Watercress is a member of the Brassicaceae or mustard family. Members of this plant family, including watercress have a very predictable flower pattern. The flowers have four sepals and four petals arranged in a cross like pattern. The stems are hollow, allowing the plant to float and the leaves are pinnate (having multidivided features).

Eating watercress is a nutritional paradise. The plant contains significant amounts of iron, calcium, folic acid and vitamin C as well as vitamin A precursers. Watercress is a digestive aid, an expectorant and appears to have cancer fighting properties. It contains iodine, and thus is supportive of the thyroid.

When harvesting watercress it is wise to have bare feet or wear waterproof shoes, as you will inevitably get your feet wet. That said, watercress is a damp herb and so in some traditions it is used to treat dry, irritating coughs.

Below is a recipe for a watercress salmon spread that is delightful and deeply nourishing. Enjoy!

Happy Spring, Linda

Salmon/Watercress Spread

Begin by poaching (cooking technique) or baking the salmon.

Salmon 16 ounces (of course you can use any fish that you have available for this recipe)

8 ounces of Thick Yogurt (homemade is ideal) or cream cheese (homemade is ideal)

chopped fresh watercress (as much as you would like to taste)

1 tsp. lemon juice

powdered kelp or salt to taste

Mix together, place in a bowl or jar and garnish with fresh watercress-flowering if possible.                       

“At least three green leaves a day for 30 days” I declared as I stood in the center of my overgrown “weedy” garden. I was planning to undertake a personal experiment. I was preparing to test the hypothesis of wild forgers, herbalists and the practices of traditional cultures around the globe. I wanted to know personally what would happen if I ate three dandelion leaves every day for thirty days.

When I first met Dandelion as a food herb I was not at all impressed with the biting taste of the leaves. When I talked with other people about this I heard many ante dotes for disguising the bitter aspect of Dandelion. Everyone has a theory about the best time to pick the plant to avoid the strong flavor. Yet everything I read about Dandelion and my experience tell me that this is one of the most important nutritional attributes of this plant.

After thirty days of deliberately ingesting the leaves I felt an affinity for them. I felt connected to the many cultures across the globe that ingest bitter greens on a daily basis. Many cultures ingest dandelion or other bitter greens in a salad or as an appetizer. This bitter aspect prepares the body for digestion.

The wisdom of herbalists, foragers and indigenous people is well regarded. Dandelion and other bitter greens do assist digestion. Ingesting the leaves increases hydrochloric acid in the stomach, sends messages to the liver to prepare for digestion, increases the appetite and prepares the liver to break down fats. The more bitter the better for these functions!

Personally, I began to desire the bitter greens once I had completed my experiment. My quest to embrace the bitter aspect of Dandelion was successful. I actually found myself looking for the larger leaves which people had cautioned me to stay away from because of the strong flavor. Inviting this bitter aspect into my diet has lead to more than a decade long relationship with this important ally. It was one of many experiences that have inspired me to continue to expand my repertoire of wild foods.

I add dandelion to salads, stir fry vegetables as well as soups and stews. I wilt her with organic bacon grease (she takes care of the fat). I infuse her in vinegar to put up for the winter months. I make Dandelion Flower Wine and Lacto-fermented soda. I make pesto from her leaves. I roast her roots; pickle her buds and much more.

As if improving digestion is not enough, ingesting Dandelion helps support the body in many other ways. Dandelion is high in carotenes, vitamin C, potassium, calcium. Iron, B vitamins, and protein. Dandelion increases circulation and fluid waste elimination in the body, without depleting the body of important nutrients. The flowers have pain-relieving qualities and the sap is a folk remedy for vanishing warts.

At every stage of growth Dandelion offers the body dense nutrients while at the same time encouraging the absorption of those nutrients. As with many of the nutrient dense
herbs dandelion can be ingested lavishly throughout the lifespan with nothing but
beneficial effects!

Today, gardeners and farmers are often quite surprised that people eat dandelion. One of my gardening neighbors was no exception. When I asked if I could have the dandelions she was “weeding” from her garden she asked what I would do with them. When I told her that I planned to eat them she suggested that sending them through the digestive system would be the ultimate revenge.

The following Dandelion song calls for more of this important food source. I learned this song from a grade school teacher who attended one of our wild eats dinner a few years ago. She learned it from her students. This song is sung in praise of this seemingly abundant plant. It has become one of the popular blessing songs for our spring meals. Children are so wise!!

Dandy, Dandy, Dandy, Dandy, Dandelion.
There’s something pretty Dandy about you.
Doodly Doodly Doo
Dandy, Dandy, Dandy, Dandy, Dandelion,
I wish there were more of you!

Linda Conroy is an herbalist as well as whole and wild food enthusiast. She dedicates her life to connecting with the green world and to supporting the strong feminine aspect of nature to bloom. Her primary mentors are the plants who never cease to instill a sense of awe in her daily life. She is the founder of Moonwise Herbs as well as Wild Eats: A Movement to Promote Whole and Wild Foods in Community. Linda work with women and spans over two decades and has inspired hundreds of people to connect with themselves and the natural world. To find out more visit www.moonwiseherbs.com

Our kitchen is a very busy place. We make the majority of our food from scratch and cultured milk products are a big part of our kitchen rituals. Kefir, yogurt, piima, tara, viili, these are all varieties of cultured milk that we enjoy.

Ingesting and creating these at home is one of the ways that we support our digestive health. By offering our body the probiotics that are abundant in cultured food products we increase our ability to digest and assimilate food. Digestion is at the heart of immune health and supporting the immune system helps our entire system. Not only do these fabulous tasting beverages support immune health, but we can turn them into soft spreadable cheese and add herbs to them. When we add herbs we can increase the bioavailability of the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, thus increasing their nutrient density.

Culturing milk and fermenting food in general is a food preservation technique first and foremost. Since the domestication of animals making cheese and culturing milk has been a common way of preserving milk. Today in the west we enjoy cheese and cultured milk from around the world, yet few people make cheese and cultured milk at home.  This time honored way of preserving food is a way to store food without refrigeration. If you have a cool place in your home, you can store the finished product outside of the refrigerator. Milk left on it’s own will eventually sour, but by adding specific bacterial cultures we create a unique product with a flavor and acidity that is pleasant and enjoyable.

I began making cultured milk products and cheese in my kitchen close to two decades ago. And while I am lucky enough to have access to farm fresh raw milk, I am aware that not everyone has access to milk directly from the farm.  If you do have access to milk directly from the farm, definitely use that for culturing. If you do not have access to farm fresh raw milk, try to find the lowest heat pasteurized milk available in your area, avoiding milk that is ultra pasteurized and thus highly processed. And when working with pasteurized milk it is ideal from a health perspective to ferment it. Fermenting or culturing your milk, will bring nutrients to the milk which were lost during pasteurization. The fermentation process leaves in it’s wake vitamins, enzymes and beneficial bacteria.

Cultured milk is created by adding bacteria to milk. The bacteria consume the milk sugar and change some of it to lactic acid. Yogurt is a popular example of cultured milk. Another example that is increasing in popularity is Kefir.

Kefir is similar to yogurt in that it is created by introducing a certain variety of bacteria to milk. The bacteria added to kefir create a low curd tension, which means that it is more fluid that yogurt. Kefir is typically ingested as a drink due to the consistency, whereas yogurt is often eaten with a spoon. Kefir tends to have a sour-bubbly taste and is sometimes called the champagne of cultured milk. The bacteria culture for Kefir actually contains some yeast which leaves a variety of cultured milk that has slight alcohol content.

Below are a couple of examples of milk products you can make in your kitchen. The starter cultures can be found in natural health food stores, on the internet and/or from friends. Just ask and anyone who has a kefir culture going will eventually have too much and be glad to share it with you!

One final note: I do teach cheese making classes and classes on Fermentation . If you are interested in these you can visit our website class schedule by clicking here.

Enjoy,
Linda

Yogurt

This recipe creates 1 gallon of yogurt and can be adapted to create smaller batches. This recipe can be made with goat, cow, sheep or whatever milk you have on hand.

You will need:

-a pot that will hold one gallon of milk
-one-gallon glass jar or other glass container with a lid that will hold one gallon of milk.
-1 cup plain yogurt for starter (check the content of the yogurt you purchase and be sure it contains 3 or more live active cultures).
-glass measuring cup (holds two cups)
-a thermometer
-a long spoon (one that fits to the bottom of the glass jar)
-a cooler (or other insulated location to incubate the yogurt)
-a towel

1.    heat milk slowly (being careful not to scorch)
2.    measure 1 cup of starter in the glass measuring cup
3.    add ½-3/4 cup warm milk to the starter and mix thoroughly
4.    pour this mixture into glass jar/container
5.    In 2-3 cup portions add warmed milk-stirring thoroughly each time continuing until all of the milk has been added. (Stirring well assures your yogurt will be smooth)
6.    check the temperature several times during this process
7.    The goal is for the milk to be 110 degrees F when all the milk ahs been added. The mixture will incubate at 110 degrees. If the mixture is too hot it will kill the bacteria-if it is too cold the bacteria will not completely culture the milk. Under cultured yogurt may be stringy.
8.    Place container wrapped in a cooler that contains 120 degree water and/or other insulated place (the oven can be used just be sure it is not turned on during the incubation period) for 24 hours.
9.    Enjoy and store unused portions in a cool place or refrigerater.

Kefir (pronounced: keff é-er)

Kefir is a variety of cultured milk. It is similar to yogurt in that it is created by introducing a variety of bacteria to milk. The bacteria added to kefir create a low curd tension which means that is more fluid than yogurt. Kefir is typically ingested as a drink due to the consistency whereas yogurt is often eaten with a spoon. Kefir tends to have a sour-bubbly taste and is sometimes called the champagne of cultured milk. Its fermentation actually leaves us with a variety of cultured milk that has a very small alcohol content.

To make kefir from the “grains” (note this is a matrix that the bacterial culture live on and is not a grain) or culture:

Place grains in a jar
Pour milk over the grains
Let set at room temperature for 24-48 hours (until the curd coagulates)
Strain grains and enjoy the remaining liquid. Place unused portions in the refrigerator.
Either place more milk on the grains or refrigerate for later use.

Kefir and Yogurt Cheese

You can create these when you have excess yogurt or kefir. Both of these make wonderful cheese spreads. You can add salt and/or fresh herbs. The yogurt cheese is delicious in recipes calling for ricotta and kefir cheese is a good choice in recipes that call for sour cream. I often top my beans and rice with Kefir cheese. Yum!!

Directions:

~To create these: line a large strainer with cheesecloth.
~Pour or scoop yogurt or kefir into the cheesecloth.
~Tie the corners of the cloth crossway and hang in a place where the whey can drain for 2-12 hours-the amount of time will depend on the consistency you are looking for.
~Once the cheese has reached the desired consistency scrape the cheese from the cloth and place in a jar.
~Add salt and/or herbs as desired. Store unused portions in the refrigerator for up to a week.

(If you catch the whey you can use it to culture other foods, drink, use as a cooking liquid, feed to your pets or water your garden or house plants!!)

Trees as food and medicine are a predominant theme as the transition from winter to spring becomes apparent here in Wisconsin. The other day willow called as we spent time snowshoeing with friends. We walked across a frozen pond and harvested enough branches for baskets. Willow bark is also a powerful medicine. It is an ancient remedy that is thought to be the original source for today’s aspirin. The peeled bark is dried or soaked in alcohol for preservation and can be ingested or applied topically to relieve pain and inflammation.

The fluctuation between freezing and thawing presents the ideal time to harvest tree bark for food, medicine and/or utilitarian applications. Under ideal conditions tree sap will freeze when evening temperatures drop and during the day the sap will thaw and run freely. This makes harvesting bark easier and is a critical process that maple sap harvesters rely on when they tap trees in order to gather the mildly sweet liquid. 

For the maple sugar harvest to be successful, nature needs to cooperate with her flux in temperatures. Everything needs to be just right in order for enough sap to be collected and transformed into the thick syrup that is often an honored guest at the breakfast table. If she does cooperate 40 gallons of sap will be transformed through evaporation of the water into a gallon of syrup. The resulting yield is entirely dependent on the natural process.

 Maple syrup as a wild food is one of the gifts received when I relocated to Wisconsin. For the past few years I have spent the month of March at our local nature center guiding school groups on tours of the maple sugaring process. I have learned a lot and appreciate the beauty of seeing the cycle begin again as the trees prepare for spring leaf production. The human aspect is inspiring as well. People take great pride in extracting and concentrating the sweet sugar that many of us enjoy at our table.

In addition to the gifts of the Maple and Willow tree, I have started to look for cottonwood trees. For me harvesting the buds of this tree to make a sweet smelling oil has been an annual ritual for over a decade. The infused oil of this plant, often called Balm of Gilead, acts as an important medicine in my first aid kit. The resinous bud of this plant when infused in oil or alcohol counters viral infections as well as inflammation.  

As you can see this is an important time for the trees to regenerate and begin a ritual that is the essence of their life force. All trees contain sap and rely on it’s retention as well as flow to instigate life’s spiral. The gifts that humans receive from the trees provide us with potent food as well as medicine. Below is a recipe combining three of my favorite foods, including maple syrup. Enjoy!

 Blessed be the trees.

_________________________________________________________

Recipe Corner

 Seaweed/Maple Bars

 1/2 ounce of Kelp (my favorite is Bullwhip Kelp (Nereocystis leutekeana)

1 1/2 cups nuts (black walnuts, almonds and/or hazelnuts)

1/2 cup dried fruit (we like to use fruit leather that we put up over the year and/or dried cranberries, cherries or rainsins)

 1/2 cup maple syrup

In a coffee grinder finely grind the kelp, nuts and fruit. Place in a mixing bowl. Add maple syrup and stir well. Spread onto an oiled cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Cut while warm and enjoy

It is the start of our fifth urban maple sugar project. We live in Sheboygan, WI, a city of 50,000 people. There are a whole host of maple trees in our community and in 2008 we decided to tap them for food.

The months of March and April are a time of renewal here in Wisconsin. One of the sure signs of this renewal is the maple sugar season! As the sap runs and the weather begins to pulse between warm days and freezing nights, we are able to capture the sweet liquid that can be reduced to syrup. In early spring people throughout the region gather their buckets and spiles (spouts) and take to the woods.

After assisting our local environmental center, Maywood or officially known as the Ellwood H. May Environmental Park www.gomaywood.org , in their maple grove for several years we decided to branch out and tap trees in the backyards of our neighbors. We were inspired by a young man that we met from the Twin Cities (St. Paul/Minneapolis) who was tapping Maple trees in his urban environment.

This project has been most satisfying in that it has become a community project. It serves to contribute to our local nature center, provides an educational experience for our apprentice students and educates our neighbors about an “untapped” resource in their back yard. And as a bonus it supplies us with sap for cooking and syrup for use throughout the year. We share this syrup with our students and program participants and inspire them to tap maple trees in their communities as well! Maple Sap is one example of the abundance of wild food that is available right in our back yard! Whether you live in the country, city or suburbs you can tap maple trees and have this sweet treat all year long!

To begin the project we distributed flyers in our community asking neighbors, city officials and a local veterinarian if we could tap their trees. We had several people who were excited and readily gave us permission. So we set out to collect the equipment we would need.

Our first year tapping trees (2008) was an abundant year for collecting sap. We collected approximately 263 gallons of sap from 25 taps. We worked with our local nature center who evaporated the sap for us in exchange for a percentage of the resulting syrup. We took 160 gallons of sap to them to be reduced. Our yield was 3 gallons of finished syrup, which we shared with some of the property owners and kept the rest for our own consumption. 

We also kept and froze some of the sap to cook with and to use as a base for tea and infusions. We made maple beans, cooking the beans for hours in our crockpot.  This was inspired by herbalist Rose Barlow. If you do not have sap you can dilute maple syrup in water and have a similar effect. I have made venison stew using the sap as the liquid and the meat was super tender! Any venison or other stew recipe will work. Interestingly enough as pointed out in Scott and Helen Neerings book titled The Maple Sugar Book, there is little evidence that indigenous people evaporated sap into syrup. As a matter of fact the process is way more labor intensive than the energy that is returned in nutrients. So incorporating the sap as a cooking liquid is a traditional and efficient way of using the sap. The only problem is that the sap only keeps for a short period of time.  

One of my favorite things about collecting wild food is the connection to life, to the cycles that it brings as well as the nutrient density that is made available to our bodies. Early March is the time that Jessica Prentice has so aptly identified in her book Full Moon Feast, as the New Sap Moon. Jessica points out that this name is based on the traditional calendars used by the indigenous peoples of the northern woodlands. Tapping trees in this region is a reconnection to the traditions of this land. To know the earth is to participate in this process and to ingest the resulting sweet offering of sap and syrup.

Below you will find pictures of our project. Enjoy!

Drilling

Tapping in the Spile

The Spile is set

Collecting Sap

Wood Fired Evaporator

Maple Oats and Tea Made with Maple Sap

Maple Beans

Maple Lacto Feremented Soda

  The first time I heard of a witches broom on a tree was a few years back when I was talking with Rich Eyre from Rich’s Fox Willow Pines. I purchased a dwarf ginkgo from him called “Todd’s” or sometimes called “Todd’s WB” take a guess what the WB stands for….hint: its not Warner Brothers. So when I told Rich that I wanted to propagate the dwarf ginkgo and I was wondering what kind of rootstock I should use he told me “Oh, any Ginkgo seedling will work.” I was totally confused. I’m used to grafting apples and pears and when you want a dwarf apple you graft it onto a dwarf rootstock. The dwarfing rootstock, usually a kind of crab apple, will keep the tree small. Where do I get a dwarf ginkgo rootstock? No John, you need to look at it from another angle, it’s the scion (aka cutting from the desired tree) that keeps the tree small in the case of a dwarf ginkgo. That scion comes from a witches broom.

  The scion that was collected from a witches broom has a hormonal imbalance and will naturally grow slow. There are selections that will grow at 1/8, ¼, ½ speed, they are classified on speed of growth to categorize the extent of dwarfing on an individual variety. Pretty cool, huh?

  When Linda and I stopped to take pictures of the witches broom in that tree I was pretty excited. Hey, maybe this could be a new selection ready for the nursery trade!! But after a closer look, my thought was “who would want a dwarf box elder? Not me”. If you do, just let me know and I know right where I can get the scion wood! All I would need to do is figure out how to collect the cuttings. I’ve heard stories about old timers who would shoot the branch off with a shotgun. More refined methods would entail having the collector climb up or get a bucket truck to collect the cuttings and not cut the entire branch off. That’s like killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Hopefully with this post you too will be on the look out for witches brooms and when you find one, I hope you are as excited as I was.

Still making a clean sweep,

Little John