For all my herb students

Purple Henbit

Another example of a plant with a million confusing names:Red Nettle, Red Dead-nettle, Red Henbit, Purple Henbit. So its not the dead nettle we are familiar with that grows in my garden, stinks! & looks like nettle. This one is shorter & has the red & green leaves.

Latin name is :  

Lamium purpureum

Use fresh & eat the new leaves or add to your spring infusion. It is good for kidneys, a bit laxative, a tonic, styptic, diaphoretic, tonic, full of iron, antioxidants, vitamins.

Another good spring green !

Nettles are up !

The nettles here are quite tall. For those of you who have taken my herb course remember how well it works as a pain killer when used externally -- Urtication.  I used it on my back & shoulder yesterday on sore muscles, works so well !

Also nettles are great in your spring infusions, and juiced. I had not tried that until just this week, but its true, it tastes great & doesn't sting when juiced raw.

Today I am trying raw vegan pesto with nettles.

Raw pumpkin pie with chocolate mousse on top

I get a fresh pumpkin & take out the seeds. The hard part is cutting it up & taking off the skin. I cut it up into strips & put it through the juicer with the blank disk in it to homogenize it. You could also just cut it up small & put it in the food processor, just make sure it is well blended.

After it is homogenized I just put it through the juicer again with some fresh ginger, some cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, canned coconut milk (The organic coconut milk is super thick & good for stuff like this.) and some dates. Then I just stirred it up & put it in a pie plate. Decided to not make crust this time. 


For the chocolate mousse, I put soft ripe avocados, cocoa powder, bit of canned coconut milk & honey in the magic bullet & whipped it up into delicious softness & spread it on top of the pie.


Freeze the whole thing & thaw it a tiny bit before cutting it & eating.

EATING WITH THE SEASONS

Remember that since the weather has changed, so should your diet.

I am feeling that more this year than ever before because I am eating mostly raw food.
I have been adding a mixture of powdered ginger, cinnamon, and garam masala to my shake some mornings. These spices have warming qualities.

I made some raw pumpkin pie for some friend recently, once again, everybody like it.

I get a fresh pumpkin & take out the seeds. The hard part is cutting it up & taking off the skin. I cut it up into strips & put it through the juicer with the blank disk in it to homogenize it. You could also just cut it up small & put it in the food processor, just make sure it is well blended.

After it is homogenized I just put it through the juicer again with some fresh ginger, some cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, and some dates. Then I just stirred it up & put it in a pie plate. Decided to not make crust this time. I poured some thick coconut milk on top & froze it. We'd just thaw it a bit & cut pieces off to eat. mmmm....

I have also been having raw soup for dinner most nights. I just take some leftover salad, or green, peas in the pod, a few tomatoes, whatever other veggies I want to have & blend it with some water added. I sometimes homogenize a few carrots through the blender. Then I add some himalayan salt & some lemon. I put this in a pot & just warm it. It is still a raw food as long as just heat it until its warm. Sometimes I add some thinly sliced pieces of veggies in there too. Really good, tastes different every time & is warming.

ST. JOHN'S WORT SEED HEADS

St. John's Wort in in seed now, and since it is sunny & warm out still, it is a great time to harvest some.

I usually strain out the flowering heads from the tinctures I have made, and then add the seed heads, to double tincture it. So you are using the same alcohol.

I also infuse several quarts of oil with St. John's wort flowers & seeds heads to use in skin products. That's basically all I use as moisturizer.

And put some up in apple cider vinegar too for use as a mouth wash, it is very  healing to the gums & strengthens them. You can also use this vinegar on skin problems.

The stinky plant from our herb class: Rhinanthus minor

Rhinanthus minor

Yellow Rattle

 I think this is the stinky plant that was brought to our herb class for identification.

I don't see any medicinal uses, although the smell is enough to keep me away from it!

This plant might be poisonous to livestock. You can get a yellow dye from

the leaves.

You can see the small leaves in this picture.

I can't find any references to the bad smell, but I am pretty sure this is the plant.

ST. JOHN'S WORT VS. WOOD GROUNDSEL

ST. JOHN'S WORT FLOWER

Another plant causing some confusion is St. John's Wort & Wood Groundsel (aka Tansy Ragwort).


The St. John's Wort is pretty much past its blooming stage, its leaves are small & pointed.


The Wood Groundsel has larger blooms, it is a bigger plant, and its leaves are different.

Please be absolutely sure of what you are picking, especially if you are making a tincture & taking it internally. If you are taking my class it is probably best to just pick the plants during class.

WOOD GROUNDSEL: LOOK AT THE LEAVES

WOOD GROUNDSEL AKA TANSY RAGWORT

ST. JOHN'S WORT: LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE IN THE LEAVES

ST. JOHN'S WORT FLOWERS