Edible Flowers and Jelly

 In the Kitchen

A lot of patrons of the Farmers Market  are intrigued by the Dandelion Jelly that I sell. They look at it and think that it is honey at first until they get closer and can read the label.  I first made Dandelion Jelly several years ago and it is the reason I decided to try and make the Red Sunflower Jelly. Making a flower jelly is not that hard and it can be made from any edible flower. 

First, you make a “tea” by putting flower petals into boiling water and letting it steep. Collecting the flower petals is one of the hardest parts. It takes a lot of petals!  We have some dandelions on our property but I like to go to my friends farm and gather them...they are HUGE and I am able to pick enough flower heads in about 3 minutes to make the jelly.  To get the petals, make sure and try not to get the green part of the flower head.  The green part is a little bitter. You can kind of grab the base of the flower head and twist to release the petals. I have also just used a scissors and cut off the petals. 

For the Dandelion Jelly, I use 2 cups of flower petals into 4 cups of boiling water.   I have also seen some recipes that call for 1 cup of water for each cup of dandelion flowers.

Let this steep for an hour. I usually just let it sit all day. I pick the flowers in the morning, make up the tea and then come back to it and make the jelly in the afternoon or evening…whenever I find time. Making the jelly is pretty similar to other jellies…add lemon juice and pectin, boil, add sugar and boil again. Put in your jars and process. 

All parts of the dandelion are edible. I have dug up the roots, dried them down, and ground  them to make a tea/coffee. I know the greens can be eaten in a salad or cooked but I have never done that.  I recently found a recipe for Dandelion Syrup and this sounds really intriguing to me.  Basically, you make the tea and add sugar and then boil it down to thicken it up.

Back to the flower jelly…you can make jelly from any edible flower. Here is a pic of some edible flowers but there are much, much more than what is listed here…

Here is a link to a comprehensive guide to edible flowers. It says what part of the flower is edible, how they taste (flavor) and best ways to prepare them.  

Dandelions are so much more than just a weed.  Here is some information from We Don't Deserve This Planet regarding dandelions:

Here are some interesting facts about the dandelion flower:

The dandelion is the only flower that represents the 3 celestial bodies of the sun, moon and stars. . The yellow flower resembles the sun, the puff ball resembles the moon and the dispersing seeds resemble the stars.

The dandelion flower opens to greet the morning and closes in the evening to go to sleep.

Every part of the dandelion is useful: root, leaves, flower. It can be used for food, medicine and dye for coloring.

Up until the 1800s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful “weeds” like chickweed, malva, and chamomile.

The name dandelion is taken from the French word “dent de lion” meaning lion’s tooth, referring to the coarsely-toothed leaves.

Dandelions have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant.

Dandelion seeds are often transported away by a gust of wind and they travel like tiny parachutes. Seeds are often carried as many as 5 miles from their origin!

Animals such as birds, insects and butterflies consume nectar or seed of dandelion. .

Dandelion flowers do not need to be pollinated to form seed.

Dandelion can be used in the production of wine and root beer. Root of dandelion can be used as a substitute for coffee.

Dandelions have sunk their roots deep into history. They were well known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for over a thousand years.

Dandelion is used in folk medicine to treat infections and liver disorders. Tea made of dandelion act as diuretic.

I made Forsythia Jelly a couple of weeks ago and sold out.  The thing with flower jellies is that the flavor is very delicate.  I liked the Forsythia Jelly but I like the Dandelion Jelly more.  My next project is to make Lilac Jelly.  My lilacs are just starting to bud (everything is late this year because of our cool wet spring).

Do you enjoy eating flowers?

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise

The first blog post...

 On the Farm

This has happened kind of suddenly but I don’t feel like I have a lot more to say in my blog posts anymore!  I have been blogging our journey for just over 6 years now. There have been over 200 blog posts in that time. Also, I am just feeling a little stress from spring planting and expanding the cut flower business. This is just a crazy busy time of year so maybe that is why I cannot focus on what to blog about.  In fact, I didn't even really get around to taking a nice pic in honor of Mother's Day but I had this pick of the geese from this past week so I just decided to use that... 

Back to the blog posting...I thought it might be fun to take a look back at where we started on this journey 6 years ago. Here is my very first blog post:

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

The Dream

Mark and I want to have a small farm that is open to the public.  We will have pastured eggs in the spring (and hopefully, all year), you-pick berries in the summer, a pumpkin patch in the fall, and a Christmas tree farm in the winter.  I am wanting to document our journey.  We are collecting lots of information right now...hopefully, will be looking for land and a home next year (2016).
~Denise

That is it!  The whole post.  I guess you have to start somewhere.  Of course, this was before we even had a mailing list that I would share this through. The blog was mostly for my own reference to document our journey and help me remember back to where we began.  Let’s look at this first blog post and see how things have changed. 

First, we are not really aiming for a farm that is open to the public anymore. There are a lot of liability (insurance) issues with this. I am happy to give a family a private tour but it is just not feasible to have lots of people coming and going all the time. 

Pastured eggs…yes!

You pick berries…no

Pumpkin patch…no 

Christmas trees…no

I still continue to learn new things and this has changed the direction of our farm dream.  Keep in mind that this blog post was written before we even moved to our farm property. We moved to the farm in June 2017.  Since we bought a smaller property (4 acres), we don't have the room for a Christmas tree farm and pumpkins require quite a bit of space too.  We have adapted to the farm space that we bought.

Okay…what does the future of ReMARKable Farms look like?  Of course, Mark will still have his egg business. 

Here are things that I (Denise) continue to work on:

Meat chickens - each summer for our family and a select group of people that help with harvest day

Cut flowers - started with sunflowers and now expanding to everlasting flowers

Preserves - jams and jellies that I make from items that we grow on the farm or forage for in the community/mountains 

Apple Cider Vinegar - newest venture to utilize the apple from the 50 apple trees on the property. I will be experimenting with different flavored vinegars. Made the pine needle vinegar and have sold out so I am feeling hopeful about this new product!  Obviously, I could not foresee that we would be moving to a farm with old apple trees so this was not part of the original "dream".  

I think that all this is going to be enough to keep me busy!

Yesterday was the first Farmers Market of the season! I always sell some type of flavored lemonade at the Market. This week, the featured lemonade was Rhubarb Lemonade.  I gave a statement to the newspaper and you can read it here:

Of course, we just got the geese and they are so fun and have grown so fast!!!  They really like to “talk” with you! We have plans for other poultry in the future...maybe turkeys and guineas...

I think I may try to do just little update blogs every couple of weeks to let you know what we have going on. When I have something to write about, I will do a more “involved” post about that…we will see how this goes…I know this post has been all over the place but I just keep thinking about getting out on the farm and getting some stuff done today!

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise

Why geese?

 On the Farm

After learning that geese can grow to full size on grass only, I was fascinated and knew that we just had to get some.  Talk about a pasture raised animal!  We have about 4 acres of grass and geese seem like they might be good little lawn mowers!  Geese are herbivores which means that they only eat plants.  They don't really care to eat insects like chickens and ducks.  They even have little teeth on their tongues to help them bite off blades of grass.  Let me back up and explain our journey to get goslings...as with most everything else, it has taken a few years...

Before we even moved to the farm, I did some research about using geese for guard animals.  I had followed a farm on YouTube and they had a goose with their chickens.  The idea is that when a predator approaches the chicken yard, the goose would squawk loudly and scare them away.  To do this, it is best that the goose is raised with the chickens so it accepts the group of chickens as its own flock to defend.  If you have 2 geese with the chickens, they will just stick together and not really develop the guarding instinct.  I didn't think this idea would work for us because geese can live for many years and we would be rotating out the older laying hens on a regular basis.  I was unsure of how it would work to put a goose with a new group of chickens, especially young chickens.  Also, I found out that you can really only purchase goslings in the spring and we were getting our chicks in the fall so they would not have the opportunity to grow up together.  We decided to go with the guard dogs for guarding the chickens, ducks and farm!

In December 2019, I started to research about geese.  I knew that I wanted some but I didn't know what breed might be a good fit for our farm.  Some geese are louder and more aggressive than others and different breeds lay differing amounts of eggs.  Here is a link to a great chart that compares the different breeds.  I did a lot of reading and, after weeks, finally decided to get some American Buff geese.  Now, this gets a little confusing because Buff is actually a color of feathers and the breed is called American.  For some reason, on a lot of websites and books, they are often just referred to as "Buff."  I started looking for a goose breeder.  One of the books I was reading was called The Book of Geese A Complete Guide to Raising the Home Flock by Dave Holderread.  It just so happens that Holderread Farm is in Oregon.  I looked onto their website and found that they had American geese in Blue and Lavender colors!  These are more rare colors and I thought they would be so interesting to get some of those.  

I contacted them and they only sell adult birds.  See, geese only lay up to about 20-40 eggs each year in the spring.  The Holderread Farm sells show quality geese.  They raise up the geese through the summer and then sell the lower quality geese as "utility" geese and the show quality geese for a much higher price.  They actually ship full size geese through the mail but it can cost up to $300 for the shipping for one goose!  I looked it up and the Holderread Farm is about 7 hours from our house.  I decided that we would drive there one day, spend the night, then get the geese in the morning and drive the 7 hours back home.  I asked if they had any geese available and they were already sold out for 2020.  I waited and then inquired again in fall 2020 and got on the list for some geese the next year (fall 2021)!

We waited and waited.  In October 2021, I finally contacted them and they said that they would be going through the geese in early November to separate the utility and show quality geese.  Finally a few weeks after that, I got an email.  It said that they did not have any utility grade Blue or Lavender American geese but they had some show quality geese available for sale.  I wanted a male (gander) and 2 females (goose).  The price for the utility geese was $75 each.  The show quality geese were $250 each.  I was like...no thank you...I wasn't going to spend hundreds of dollars on an animal that I have never raised before.  It almost felt like a bait and switch situation.  I am sure it was not but it was so disappointing to wait for months and months and then not get the geese.  Back to the internet for goose breeders...

Since it was fall, 2021 at this point, I was just in time to place an order for spring goslings.  If you want goslings, you pretty much HAVE to order them in the fall for a spring delivery.  Almost all hatcheries will sell out over the winter.  Since I was going to have to put in an order for geese with a hatchery, I decided to take another look at different breeds and switched to the Pilgrim breed.  This is an auto sexing breed.  See, geese are not like chickens where the rooster is bigger and showier than the hen.  OR the ducks where the drake has a different quack and a curly tail.  Male and female geese look identical.  There are only 2 breeds that are auto sexed which which means that you can sex the goslings when they hatch.  Pilgrim geese are one breed that autosexes.  The male goslings are light yellow colored and the females are gray.  As they grow, the males develop white feathers and the females stay gray colored.  They are good for meat and may lay up to 40 eggs a year.  They are a medium sized breed and fairly docile.  Don't worry, if you come to the farm, they will be kept in a fenced area and not allowed to roam all over the farm and attack people!  Here is a pic of a male Pilgrim goose and a female Pilgrim goose...super easy to see the difference!

Why geese?

As I mentioned earlier, when I found out that geese can eat grass and grow to produce a large amount of meat, I just found it very intriguing.  To be fair, I have never eaten goose.  Maybe we won't even like it.  Also, I hear that it is challenging to pluck the feathers clean on the carcass on waterfowl because of all the down feathers.  It is recommended to not let geese raise goslings the first year they lay eggs.  So, we won't even have any of our own goslings for 2 more years.  If you think about it, geese seem like an amazing animal for the homestead.  They lay eggs in the spring and then graze on grass all summer and fall and then you can harvest them in early winter before it gets super cold and you have a Christmas goose!  Easy peasy!  We would like to get some turkeys at some point.  The downside of the turkeys is that they have to mostly eat grain and it gets very expensive to feed them but they will probably be easier to clean.  We plan on feeding the geese grain also, but we really want to be able to move them around the farm and take advantage of their lawn mowing capabilities.  Also, geese can live up to 20 years and turkeys live about 10 years.  

I think most people probably know that geese are pretty territorial and can honk and make a lot of noise when strangers come onto the property.  This makes them great guard animals for the farm.  Now, a goose is no match for a coyote and I heard on a podcast about a lady that watched as an eagle carried one of her geese off (so sad) but they are quite noisy and make keep small predators away.  They are mostly aggressive in the spring when it is mating season.  

If you didn't know, as with ducks, most domestic geese cannot fly well.  They have been bred to produce meat so they are too heavy to really get off the ground.  At one point, I was looking at a different breed of geese called Cotton Patch geese.  They are actually a landrace so there is some variability among different strains and they are the other breed of geese that autosex.  Cotton Patch geese were used to weed cotton fields in the south.  For this reason, they had to be able to get away from predators so they have retained the ability to fly and they are a smaller goose.  I really was interested in the Cotton Patch geese but I didn't want to worry about them flying away.  

To be clear, the geese are mine (Denise) and not part of Mark's flock.  I have been working for the past 3 years to get Mark's egg business going and it was time for something fun and different.  We may have goose eggs for sale next spring but they are mostly for our family to enjoy.  

So...we have one gander (male) and 2 geese (females)...and they need names!  Let me know if you have suggestions to name them!

~Denise

Spring seed starting...cold frames...

 In the Garden (soon)...

We have a new big surprise coming to the farm but it did not arrive when it was supposed to!  It should be coming this next week...fingers crossed...  Since the new surprise is not happening yet, I thought I would spend a little time explaining how I start seeds for the garden.  I like to start seeds indoors and then harden them off in a cold frame outside.  

To begin, I start the seeds in the Stack and Grow Light system that we purchased from Gardener Supply.  I have purchased seedling heated mats to put under the plants so the soil is warmed up so that seeds will sprout.  Here is a pic of the Stack and Grow...it was not cheap but we purchased it over 3 years...3 years of Christmas gifts to be exact...it has 4 levels of lights...

Here are some tiny greens!  Aren't they cute!  I think they are adorable.  I started them inside and then I plant them out into the cold frame.  I am so happy to say that all these greens are from seeds that I saved last year!

I actually put some soil into one half of the cold frame and then plant some of the greens directly into the soil in the cold frame.  I know this is not the best pic but you can see them starting to grow.  In this pic, there is spinach at the top and then one I call Crispy Green and then some red leaf lettuce.  Then, there are a few rows of green and red leaf lettuce and the bottom row is arugula.  I should have lettuce to eat in early May from the cold frame.  I also planted greens directly into the garden and they will grow slower because they do not have the warmth that is generated from the cold frame during the day.  This is kind of like staggering the plantings...as soon as it gets too hot for the greens in the cold frame, the greens in the garden should be ready to eat.

Here are some seedlings that I have in the Stack and Grow.  "Egg" stands for eggplant (because I am too lazy to write the whole word)...I won't put these out into the cold frame until there are no freezing temps at night.

Here is a pic of the 2 cold frames I have.  I just ordered another one...I just LOVE these things!  I only use them in the spring to get things started and then when I am finished with them, I put them away for the summer.

In the cold frame on the left, I have mostly brassicas...broccoli, cauliflower, kale, swiss chard, and cabbage.  I put the cover on them at night.  They can withstand the cold temperatures at night so they can stay out here.  If it would get really cold (in the 20'sF), I will bring them inside for the night.  It usually works out that I can plant these out into the garden about the time that the eggplant and pepper plants will be ready to come out to the cold frame so I just rotate the plants through the cold frame to harden them off. 

Another project I have going in the house is the propagation of sweet potato slips.  This is my last attempt to grow sweet potatoes!  We don't really have enough heat in north Idaho to grow them but I keep trying!  The first year we moved to the farm, I ordered sweet potato slips.  I got them planted and they grew but we did not really get any sweet potatoes.  The second year, I ordered slips again but they were half dead when I got them.  I got my money back.  Sweet potato slips are quite expensive!  Last year, I decided to make my own slips.  That worked fine BUT I neglected them when I got them planted out in the garden.  I decided to see if I could grow the sweet potatoes in the cold frame but it was WAY too hot and I didn't get enough water to them because I was just busy with everything else.  

The fourth time is the charm...maybe?  I got the slips going again this year and I am potting them up so they will be good sized plants to transplant as soon as the weather warms.  I am much more hopeful this year.  I know they look a little yellow in this pic but I think it is mostly the lighting.  I am going to give them some fertilizer here soon.  I tried 3 different kinds of sweet potatoes to make the slips but really only the purple skinned sweet potatoes made good slips.  I am glad I decided to get several to try!

Back to the cold frames, last fall, I planted spinach in the garden.  It started growing and then the cold weather came.  I put the cold frames OVER the spinach in the garden for the winter.  I did not harvest the spinach in the winter, it was just to give the spinach a layer of protection and now it is starting to grow again...here is a pic of the spinach in the cold frame in February.  I have taken the cold frame off now and I cut back the spinach and I am waiting for new growth to happen...

I am starting flowers and more vegetables each week.  I am going to expand the flower growing area.  Here is a pic of the grassy area that Henry sprayed for me to help kill the grass.

I am going to plant "everlasting" type flowers here...we will see how this goes...I may be biting off more than I can chew...

Next, I will be starting tomatoes and the sunflowers will also be happening soon!  Also, some trees started showing up in the mail.  I had ordered these last fall and kind of forgot about them but now it is time to get them planted!  What are you growing this spring?

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise

Quarantining a sick or injured chicken...

 In the Coop    

When a chicken gets sick or injured, it is important to try and quarantine it right away.  Chickens are good at hiding their sickness.  They cannot show weakness or they will be at the bottom of the pecking order and may even be killed by her flock mates.  The flock cannot appear to have any weak members or it puts everyone at risk of attack by predators.  We have a quarantine cage in the chicken barn.  If a chicken gets hurt/sick, we put her in the cage so the other chickens can't get to her.  

We actually have a couple of quarantine cages, just in case we need to separate a couple different chickens at one time.  A sickness can spread through the coop quickly so it is important to remove any infected chicken right away.  Here is a list of symptoms of a chicken that may be sick: runny or liquid poop, wheezing, rasping, sneezing or ‘coughing’, pale comb, lack of appetite, bad smell, or swelling of the wattles or comb.  Of course, some of these may be hard to identify if you have many, many chickens.  We have been pretty lucky, knock on wood, mostly we have had to use the quarantine cages for injuries and not illnesses...maybe that is not so lucky...I don't know...

Make sure that the sick/hurt chicken has plenty of water.  This is a pic of Atilla the Hen, she was attacked by a raccoon in November 2020 and I thought she was as good as dead but she healed and is back with the flock!

If a chicken gets hurt and there is blood, the other chickens will peck at it.  They LOVE to peck at red things.  In fact, the nipples on the nipple waterers are always red colored to encourage the chickens to peck at it and that is how they learn to get a drink.  I made up some antibiotic ointment to put on the chickens if they are hurt.  Here is the recipe from Backyard Poultry magazine:

Antibiotic Ointment

3 oz calendula infused oil

0.5 oz beeswax

10 drops tea tree essential oil

10 drops oregano essential oil

10 drops Vitamin E

1 Tbsp honey

Melt the beeswax in the oil.  Turn off heat and add essential oils, vitamin E and honey.  Stir well and then quickly pour into tins to let set up.  

I also keep some Vetericyn Plus Poultry Spray on hand in case an injury is larger and a spray would be better than rubbing ointment into it.

Keeping this blog shorter. Spring has sprung this past week and there is MUCH to do.  I was busy yesterday on the farm and then took a minute to look around and noticed that the grass is really starting to green up!  I am expanding the flower area and we have a BIG surprise coming to the farm next week!  I will post about it on the Facebook and will have a blog post all about the surprise in a couple weeks.  So eggcited!!!

Getting seeds of vegetable and flowers started!  Here is a pic of some lettuce, arugula, and spinach that I have started.  I am so excited that all these plants have been started from seeds that I saved from last year!

Looking forward to longer and warmer days!

Have an eggcellent day!

~ Denise

Using Beeswax and Herbal Salves

 In the Kitchen

In the fall, after growing and drying herbs and flowers, I like to make up some herbal infused oils.  Then, I use these oils to make salves.  It is relatively easy to make an infused oil.  All you need is some dried herbs and a carrier oil.  I usually just use olive oil.  Place the dried herbs in a jar and then pour the oil in and make sure to cover all the herbs.  Also, make sure that the herbs are super dry.  If there is any moisture in them, they may cause you oil to go rancid.  Here is a jar of dried calendula flower petals...

I added the oil.  Make sure all the herb/flower is covered by the oil.  Then, let it sit for 6 weeks.  

Strain and you have an herbal in fused oil!  I used some of this calendula oil to make an antibacterial ointment salve for the chickens and ducks.

To turn your infused oil into a salve, you need to add something to "thicken" it up.  You can add beeswax to do this!  For every 8 ounces of oil, add 1-ounce beeswax (by weight).  Beeswax has its own medicinal properties!  Click on pic to read more about beeswax...we use beeswax from the bees on our farm!

Here is a pic of the calendula oil and pieces of beeswax in a make shift double boiler.  Then, once all the beeswax is melted, you stir it well and pour into containers.

I use the calendula oil to make a Wound Healing Salve...

This infographic explains some of the benefits of calendula.  If you click on the pic, it will take you to an article about calendula.  I like it mostly for its antimicrobial properties.  We use it on minor cuts and scrapes.  Also, I had a pain in my shoulder and rubbed some in and it really helped the pain to go away...maybe that was its anti-inflammatory properties working...

I also make a comfrey salve in the same way with dried comfrey leaves.  Comfrey has been used in traditional medicine for at least 2000 years. It is also called bone knit or knitbone because of its amazing healing properties.  Comfrey is used to heal injuries such as sprains, strains, bruises, and burns.  You should NOT use comfrey on puncture wounds or the surface will heal too fast, not allowing the deeper puncture to heal properly. 

I have also used our beeswax to make chapstick.  It has some shea butter and coconut oil in the chapstick to make your lips nice and soft.  

I just added these items for sale in our online store.  You can click on this pic to go to the store...

Spring is in the air!  Get outside and enjoy!

~Denise

Foraging for conifer needles...

 On the Farm and in the Kitchen

I know spring is right around the corner but I have something to say about winter and foraging before the season is over.  For several months, I have been thinking about what else I could take to the Farmers Market to sell.  I enjoy making the jams and jellies.  I also enjoy growing sunflowers and I am thinking of expanding the flowers BUT I keep thinking about something else to offer and it has to fit in with everything else I am already doing!  I posted a blog about Apple Cider Vinegar in November.  I started thinking more about doing flavored vinegars.  I started "googling" flavored vinegars.  I found a post about pine needle vinegar and it said that it was similar to balsamic vinegar.  I LOVE balsamic vinegar so I just had to give this a try and this led me down a rabbit hole of conifer needle goodies...

For the vinegar, I started collecting conifer needles around the farm.  We have several types of conifer trees around our home.  I found this article to help with identification: How to Identify Conifer Trees: Pine, Fir, Spruce, Juniper & More  It was still pretty challenging to identify everything.  One big "take home" message for me is to stay away from Yew trees (they have red berries) and can be poisonous.  Luckily, we don't have any Yews.  I think we mostly have pine, spruce, hemlock, and junipers...but I could be wrong.

Making a pine needle vinegar is super easy.  Here’s how herbalist Susan Weed does it (from the article Pine Keeps You Fine):  “I preserve all the vitamins found in fresh pine needles by soaking them in apple cider vinegar for six weeks. I fill a wide-mouthed jar with pine needles and pour room-temperature, pasteurized apple cider vinegar over them until they are completely covered. A plastic (or non-metal) lid and a label with the name of the plant and the date completes the preparation. I call this tasty vinegar “home-made balsamic vinegar” and you will be surprised at how much it tastes like the store bought stuff —’Only better,’ say many, with a smile” (Weed, 2008, para. 4).

Here is my jar of pine needle vinegar.  I was surprised to see it fermenting away so there must be a good amount of sugar in the pine needles?  Side note for this next winter: You can also infuse vodka or gin with pine needles the same way and use to make winter cocktails!

Some uses for pine needle vinegar:

Pour a spoonful or more on beans and grains as a condiment

Use it in salad dressings

Add it to cooked greens

Season stir-fries with it

Look for soups that are vinegar friendly, like borscht

Put a big spoonful in a glass of water and drink it

Use it as a hair rinse to add shine to your hair!

Something else you can make with pine needles is tea.  Just pour boiling hot water over the needles and let them steep.  I did make some tea with a couple of different needles but I have to say that I just did not really enjoy it that much.  I will just stick to my own peppermint herbs for a tea.

I even found a cookie recipe that uses pine needles: Pine Needle Sugar Cookies  

Here is an article with 30 Uses for Pine Needles...everything from syrup and pastries to beard balm!  If you infuse a carrier oil with pine needles, you can use it to make a lip balm.  I am seriously thinking of doing this...just put pine needles in a jar and then fill it with oil and let it sit for 6 weeks. Voila!  You have a conifer infused oil to use in making salves and balms.

Some benefits of pine needles include: lifting your mood, dispelling worry and fatigue, relieving the pain of sore muscles, relieving headaches, soothing frazzled nerves, and relieving skin irritations.  I did see a recipe for a Headache Balm made with the infused oil.  

The great thing about conifer needles is that they are not seasonal!  You can go out and pick them any time of year.  BUT...Did you know that you can eat the bright new growth at the end of the branches in the spring?  They are called "tips" and spruce tips seem to be the most popular.  They have a bright, citrus flavor that works well in both savory and sweet dishes.  Almost all conifer tips are edible, and the only exception is yew trees.  Pine and fir tips have their own unique taste, and as an added bonus, all conifer tips have medicinal properties.  I had never really paid attention to tips before but the bush right by our front door always has some bright green tips and now I see it as a sign of warmer weather!

Conifer Tips ~ From left to right:
Hemlock Tips, Spruce Tips, Young Fir Tips, Older Fir Tips and Pine Shoots
Taken from Foraging Spruce Tips

I just love finding new uses for something that we have lots of and there are a good amount of conifer trees around our property.  I am hoping to make a gallons of apple cider vinegar (from the 50 apple trees we have) this fall so I can make lots of fun, flavored vinegars next year!  I just need to get some bottles and I should be able to get started.  I am going to put some pics of bottles in a Facebook post later this week and would love some input!

Have an eggcellent day!

~Denise