Learn how to choose the perfect pumpkin for pie-making, plus how to make, store, and freeze pumpkin puree! Choosing a pumpkin No matter if you’re buying a pumpkin or growing it yourself, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got the right kind before you turn it into pie! The sort of pumpkin you’d pick out…
Learn how to grow Antler Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum sensu lato) using an indoor grow kit. It’s a super easy way to produce your own medicinal mushrooms at home! While we selectively forage wild reishi mushrooms from our land, and also grow them on inoculated buried logs down near our creek, we can’t resist buying indoor…
Learn how to identify and harvest reishi mushrooms, plus how to dry and use for tea and tincture. Reishi’s distinctive look makes them friendly for the beginner mushroom hunter! There are multiple species of reishi worldwide – all are thought to have some forms of medicinal properties and none have poisonous lookalikes. Here at our…
Learn how to forage, identify, and harvest black walnuts (Juglans nigra) plus how to dry and cure the nuts, and use the hulls and leaves for remedies! ID Tips for Black Walnuts It’s fairly easy to identify a black walnut tree in autumn, when the ground beneath is littered with fallen nuts! Here are some…
Make a delicious jam using fresh or frozen maypop fruit! It tastes light, tangy, and tropical, and can be stored in your freezer. (No canning required!) Identifying Maypops Maypops are the green, egg-shaped fruits produced by our native passionflower (passiflora incarnata). Be sure to check out our article: Growing & Foraging Passionflower & Maypops to…
Our native passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) is a plant with many uses: it produces edible fruit called maypops, the leaves and buds have gentle calming properties, and the beautiful flowers are adored by pollinators! In fact, one specific butterfly, the Gulf Fritillary, relies on species of passionflower for its continued survival- it’s the only host plant…
This spicy pain salve recipe features pain-blocking cayenne, warming ginger, plus herbs to help your aches and pains. Spicy Salve is pretty much the most popular and oft-reached-for salve in our house. We especially love using it on sore muscles and back aches, leg aches from working at a computer for too long, or any…
Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), sometimes called Autumnberry, is an invasive shrub that produces loads of tangy but tasty berries each fall. When perfectly ripe, we like to eat them right off of the bush (you can chew the seeds or spit them out) and turn them into a delicious seasonal jelly. In this article, we’ll…
Learn how to make delicious autumn olive jelly! The flavor is unique and hard to describe, but we think it tastes somewhat like peach or apricot, with a hint of cherry. Around here, we have acres of invasives, including autumn olive, kudzu, Japanese knotweed, oriental bittersweet, and more. It’s a constant effort to keep their…