Green Leaf Inspirations

On this Black Friday, I am preparing herbal goodies for the Small Business Saturday Sale Tomorrow! I will be at Revolution Martial Arts in Trenton from 12-3pm. Stop by, they have incredible specials happening and other small vendor tables!

On this tasty holiday, let our hearts be full of both Thanks & Giving. 🦃🥧
At Green Leaf Inspirations, we are thankful for all of our amazing friends and customers.

I’ve been playing with herbal honeys. Super easy to make! Sage Honey.

Sage is good for inflammation and sore throats. Honey coats the throat to soothe and stop coughs. I also added ginger for the antiviral benefits and some lemon.

Clean jar with tight fitting lid. Fill half full with fresh, chopped small, sage. If using dry sage, fill 1/4 of the jar. If you add other herbs like ginger or lemon, you want to keep the proportions so the overall jar fill is the same. I put 1tsp lemon and a little over 1 tsp ginger. You then fill the jar with honey, mix it up, cover and leave in a sunny window for about 4 weeks. I’d say shake the jar when you walk by, but it is honey. So just turn it over.

I let my honey warm gently so it would liquify some, it helps the infusion process and i will only leave it infuse for a week. When i am ready, i will gently heat to turn it liquid and strain out the herbs.

Enjoy!

PS…yes, i still make my elderberry. But i have an abundance of sage and wanted to make something yummy and useful.

Late summer/early fall has been in full gear here. Making balms, teas and select herb packages for the Trenton Fall Bash this weekend. Harvesting from the garden as well.

This is a fresh batch of our skin balm. Look at that beautiful color!

🪴🪴🪴🪴. Happy Labor Day 🪴🪴🪴

May you spend it doing something you love.
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

Packing up the last of the Mullein Leaves from this year. 16 cups in this bowl and it will go to near 24 when I finish. These are 2nd year leaves and will be labeled as such. I know some people say they have no value (because the plant puts energy into the flower stalk) but I disagree. That stalk puts out these leaves before the flowers. My personal thoughts: While first year might be best, I don’t experience a big difference; maybe because I only harvest the healthy leaves? No yellow, no brown, no spots…just green and healthy.

Going to be a busy day harvesting the Mullein stalks and root. The flowers are about done, seeds have started and time for the second year plants to give up the last of their gifts.

Seeds: are ONLY for scattering for new plants next year. They have no other use.

Flowers: found on second year plants only and are amazing. Pain killing, cut inflammation, anti microbial, smell sweet, tried and true (with garlic) for an ear ache. Many other uses

Leaves: yes, I use 2nd year leaves as well. I honestly don’t see the difference in my own lungs. First year is best, but why waste what is perfectly good and at your service? We use the leaves for upper respiratory help. Soothe irritation, bring up mucus, helps me immensely after allergy induced asthma (and a relative uses it to help her asthma). Again, more uses for the leaf than I am sharing here.

Roots: good for pain. The back, the knees, my joints in general. It provides pain relief and cushioning (this plant is mucilaginous). So far I’ve only tintured it. Again, first year is best, but I have no problem using 2nd year roots. I don’t sell my tinctures and I haven’t seen a difference between my first and second year tinctures. There is most likely is a difference though.

The stalks: they can be dipped in wax and used as a candle oe fire stick. I intend to try this out this year!

Truly one of my favorite plants. I’ve used it for years, but started growing my own several years ago. If you are foraging for it, please do so responsibly and make sure you have permission to enter someone else’s property.

Pictures for interest

Geekily happy to order new labels and bags.

Interesting…anyone tried this?

Zucchini flour.Might be old news to some, but you never know right. With rising concerns on wheat costs just thought I’d share it.There’s probably fancier ways of doing this out there, but here’s how I learned. Easy peasy. Nothing to it.We love and make tons of zucchini flour every year. You may have heard it called Amish flour or troops flour before. It’s a Staple in Amish and Mennonite household for generations here. It was also embraced in the 1940’s during rationing.You let your zucchini grow, oversized is actually better. Large to extra large. Marrow sized. I peel mine with a carrot peeler, into thin even strips for less drying time. Or slide it through a mandolin for speed of prep.Run it through the electronic dehydrator or just thread it. . No large seeds if possible for finer texture. Everything else is fine. It must be absolutely dry. It’s essential. If in doubt always dry it more, any moisture will ruin it during storageThen run it through a food processor or hand grinder until you have a powdered consistency. It will be a marbled green looking power. Texture is similar to a good quality whole wheat flour. That is zucchini flour. Three large zucchini is about four or five cups for me finished.It can be used to replace 1/3 of flour in most recipes without any change to the finished products, acts as a thickening agent for gravies, great for breading fish but we really tend use ours for tortillas and bannock since those are our quick go to breads. It also makes great dumplings and brownies.Store in air tight jars , or we often vac pac oursFor us, we still purchase grains from a local family owned grist mill. So this is free, sustainable, easily produced on site and it has a mild taste. Most people wouldn’t pickup on it. It cuts our flour usage by a third . You can do the same with sweet and regular potato, other squash acorns, and pumpkin. I just find myself zucchini is the least flavoured. Plus we get overloaded by the darn things

Today’s harvest was good: basil, stinging nettle, mullein flowers and leaf, sage.

I also cut up several aluminum pans and strung them up throughout the yard..recycling win if it chases the rabbits away. I will let you know!

Aside from liking the original poster, this is a really great idea!

Herbal Ice for your July 4th holiday parties: add a little water to the bottom of your cube tray and freeze. Go to the garden and gather flowers/ petals of borage, rose, bee balm, lavender, mint, chamomile, anise, dianthus, fennel, viola or rosemary and place them artfully on the newly formed ice. Add more water, freeze, and repeat to insure that the flowers are fully encased in ice. Enjoy in your Summer drinks....from the garden to your lips -herbal ice, ice, baby!🥤
Happy Independence Day weekend, from The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti

Sage, anyone? I let this beautiful plant flower this year and will harvest the seeds for future use. I also happen to think the “dead” flower stalks that house the seeds are really cool looking.

The plant itself will get a proper trimming shortly.

With all the smoke from the wildfires, thought I would share a few pictures of one of the Mullein gardens. All parts of this wonderful plant are useable, currently using it as a tea for my lungs to help the irritation from the smoke.

Harvesting the flowers to make a tincture (for personal use and the poor little strainer is perfect for me) and then just a pic to show a drying tool, yup, the toy nets make perfect drying stations! Pardon the mess in the photo, life happens!

Happy Father’s Day to all the guys out there who fill these shoes.

Updates from life at Green Leaf.....

The Mushroom Coffee experiment...not bad, but needs more work. I do think it led to less bloating and improved digestion, but I need to play around with the strength of the blend for taste.

Tried a new method for oil infusion - while the color was deeper, I don't like the clarity. More research to be done there as well. Or not, I wasn't unhappy at all with what I was doing, just playing around there.

I injured some ligaments in my knee and found the combo of my Muscle Balm and PRO Balm gave me good coverage for pain. It must be working for healing - I busted through PT today with weights on and have gotten through most of the day with minimal pain. Go me!

Karate Tournament this weekend...what is on tap for you? Whatever it is, make it your best!

Thinking of spring on this snowy morning. Sharing an easy recipe to put those beautiful little yellow flowers to use. Coconut oil in your lip balm is wonderful. Enjoy!

This dandelion salve and lip balm recipe are the easiest skin care products you can start with. Made of three ingredients that you may have already at your disposal all you need is to grab a small basket and go to forage some dandelion blossoms https://simplybeyondherbs.com/dandelion-salve-and-lip-balm/