Wild Appalachian Medicines ~by Erica at High Rocks

Janet Kent

Dave Meesters

This Sunday at the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace we were treated to a presentation by Medicine County Herbals about 10 Appalachian plants and their medicinal uses.  Janet Kent and Dave Meesters passed around and discussed preparations that they had wildcrafted from plants available locally:  yarrow, stinging nettle, joe pye weed, to name a few.   Wild grown medicine used to be the only medicine around, so we got a Ancient Greek history lesson as well.  Achilles was said to have learned from a centaur about using yarrow to staunch the bleeding of battlefield wounds.  (Hence the genus name of yarrow, Achillea.)

 Walking in the Appalachians is good medicine in and of itself.  Janet explained that an important part of wild medicine is actually the act of collecting it yourself.  Going out into the environment where these plants live can begin the healing process.  We learned about warding off allergy attacks (ragweed tea), dissolving kidney stones (joe pye root), and calming coughing fits (black cherry bark tea).    We also learned about collecting the wild medicines safely and responsibly: ensuring proper plant identification, leaving sustainable stands of the plant in the wild, and avoiding polluted areas while collecting.  Our participants now know they can look beyond the boundaries of their vegetable garden to nature's wild garden for better health and nutrition.  

Saving Seed: Good for your Budget, Good for the World~ Pine Mountain, Kathleen Powers

    Whether or not you can it believe September is in full swing and the tempo in the garden is greatly reflecting that. Days have been spent pulling up corn, and tomatoes, clearing out summer squash plants, and tearing down bean vines. Yesterday I spent 2 hours sitting on a bucket in a bean patch by myself picking seed bean off spent vines , next week I will probably do the same for another 2, 3, maybe even 4 hours. Why should you care that this is the way I’m spending my days? Because saving seed is an important aspect of building community agriculture and a significant step in working towards self sufficient locally driven food economies.

    Why is saving seed so important? Well I wrote a bit more in depth about it in a post earlier this year, but some of the most important reasons for saving seed include that the practice saves money, promotes sustainable gardening, helps ensure seed that is well adapted to regional growing climates, and protects the “bank” of heirloom seeds in circulation. As many large companies take over the sale and distribution of seed to growers, crops become more genetically uniform and the risk of losing vast amounts of crops in one fell swoop of disease becomes much greater. If no one took the time to save seed we could easily loose many types of crops that we know and love and that have been passed down through many generations of small farmers and gardeners throughout the U.S.

Here are 2 videos that address that larger importance of saving seed for a healthy world:

Saving Seed:Conserving Agriculture’s Diversity

Banking Diversity

Thankfully saving seed is quite easy!

This PDF is a great guide to saving seed from the crops of most small farms and gardens:

http://www.southernexposure.com/growing-guides/seed-saving-home-use.pdf

This link will take you to a great diagram that we came across in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog for saving tomato seeds, we as well as some of our participants have tried the method out and it works wonderfully!:

Here are 3 more organizations focused on seed saving that have some great resources:

Saving Our Seeds

Organic Seed Alliance

Seed Savers Exchange

If you are looking to get your garden started with some heirloom seed, or if you just enjoy learning about seed saving and the seeds of Appalachia attend this great annual event:

Bill Best of Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center

Seed Swap and farm tours

Saturday, October 6^th

1033 Pilot Knob, Cemetery Road

Berea, KY. 40403

Find out more about SMAC at http://www.heirlooms.org/index.html

ATTN: All Grow Appalachia Sites -- Abingdon, VA

Historical and current evidence reveals that those who belong to a middle class bracket and above at times believe low-income people are lazy. How can we address this issue through our work? What techniques do Grow Appalachia sites employ to build bridges between various low-income groups and others, and examine issues that are interconnected with low-income situations—issues such as health and transportation? 

For example, participants may want to garden more and volunteer more or regularly attend workshops. But sometimes they won’t get there because they literally cannot get there—no access to reliable transportation, work or childcare schedule conflicts, or illness and disability prevent involvement or inhibit successful participation in the program.

We will be leading a discussion program with community garden programs for low-income residents throughout the Appalachian region. We are interested in what other Grow Appalachia sites are doing so we can improve our own performance and impact of our own program, and also help remove road blocks or build resilience into other community gardening programs that focus on meeting food needs immediate and otherwise and teaching skills. 

One idea we had was for working groups for low-income residents and people belonging to other socioeconomic class groups- safe situations where people can learn from each other each getting something out of it—attitudes can change. We have not held workshops with program participants and others, so we would love to know you all's experience with that. 

Our goal is to  create opportunities for change, growth, and examination of perspectives while simultaneously creating multifaceted connections between healthy people, a healthy planet, and living consciously. 

So, in a nutshell, how do you combat the categorization of low-income people as lazy and unreliable? And if the unreliability is admitted to be linked to larger issues such as health, how can we help people live healthier? 

What a fascinating way to grow -- Abingdon, VA

Heather here.


We've been saving seed and studying flower drying around these parts. Celosia is dropping seeds like mad. We've also been doing a lot of work on our project model/plan/toolkit. It really is a lot to think about.

Look at that little idea!

Our last three workshops of the season will be:

Cover Crops and Talking About Next Year

We hope to have a good lesson on putting your garden to bed for the year and also want to evaluate this season with participants and find out who wants to participate next year. This will influence our recruiting for next season, which we hope to begin in October.

Garlic Planting

We'll be planting a softneck and a hardneck variety. We'll have to make sure participants leave one chunk of their gardens free of cover crop for garlic. I'm excited to plant a crop that I can just let do it's thing over winter. We hope that people will continue to save their garlic over the years.

Dried Flower Wreathe-Making

There is a surprising amount of money to be made with cut flowers and dried flower arrangements. Plus we'd like to talk more about the importance of flowers in the garden and all their different properties. Drying flowers properly and saving seed will also be discussed.

Fasciation-- The spreading of the apical meristem, or growing tip, in a perpendicular direction. Results in cresting and gives cockscomb that intriguing shape. 

Until next time.

White Oak/ Henderson Settlement~ Aaron Gaylor

Potatoes, Potatoes,Potatoes everywhere.........

When I visited Billy's garden he was proud to show me what he had harvested in his potato patch.
He said this was only a small part of the potato harvest, he has given alot of the potatoes away to friends and family.

 

It's Not Always Buisness At Our Meetings...: Tina

 

At our last meeting Tuesday night, we discussed our garden's progress and compared our produce stories with each other. Wayne, the Laurel Co. coordinator discussed high tunnels, fall gardens, and cover crops. Everyone turned in their produce sheets and discussed any problems or concerns that they have been having.

We also were treated with  a 28  pound watermelon that Ricky, one of our participants brought to share, it was a Florida Giant variety.

 Herman, one of the members told us of a old time method to tell if a watermelon is ripe and proceeded to show us.

Most of us had never heard of this before but it sure was true of this watermelon, it was so sweet and delicious. We were also treated with warm homemade Hawaiian banana nut bread. Despite learning so much at our meetings, we have also acquired many great friends along the way. Many of our members stay after the meetings just to talk and share stories with one another. We are going to share our heirloom seeds with each other sometime this Fall.

 

 

BARTERING: A ELEVEN YEAR OLD'S ADVENTURE

Hello everyone. This is Alex from Project Worth Outreach in Menifee County, Ky. Hope everyone is doing well this week.

My nephew, Ben Hall

A few weeks ago I told you about how my eleven year old nephew was trying to barter with some of his classmates. Well, he came to me this week and told me that he had finally reached a deal with one of his classmates. He said it had taken a little while but he had reached a agreement with a girl in his class. At first they discussed a lot of different vegetables before making a decision. The girl, according to Ben, had kept changing her mind about what vegetable she wanted to barter because her parents kept changing their mind. Ben said he didn't think it was her parents changing their minds because this girl was always changing her mind about everything. Ben said he had told this girl that he wanted to receive corn and she started out wanting tomatoes, then cucumbers, the green beans, then back to tomatoes before she finally decided that she wanted green beans. Ben said she told him that she wanted a bushel of green beans for 6 ears of corn. Ben then said, I told her that she was crazy and that my uncle would never agree to this trade. Besides, my aunt and uncle have learned to can and they have gone nuts canning everything they can get their hands on. They have canned green beans, tomatoes, pickles, pickled corn, green tomatoes and tomato juice. So, I know they will never agree to your offer. Ben told her I will give you a bucket of green beans for a dozen ears of corn. Ben said it took her almost a week to accept this offer because she changed her mind like 100 times. Ben told me, "Girls are like that". Ben said it took a while but it was fun to finally agree on what and how much to barter. Next year I hope I can do a lot more bartering, said Ben. But I think I will try to do my bartering with the boys in my class instead of the girls because they change their minds to much.

I hope you enjoyed Ben's bartering adventure as much as I did. I think he'll make a good business man someday. I told him that next year he will have a small garden and he can barter, trade , give away or sell his own produce. I beleive he liked that idea because he told me that he was going to get some great deals next year. I wish him luck.

                                                                                                

Ben and his brothers Zach and John                 

Well, that's about all I have for today. This week's recipe is listed below. I hope everyone has a great week.

Country Casserole

1/2 lb. ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/3 cup diced green pepper

1 {16 oz.} can pork and beans

2 cups cooked elbow macaroni

1/2 cup tomato juice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 slice {about 1 oz.} sharp process cheese, cut into 4 triangles

In a skillet brown beef and cook onion with green pepper until tender; stir to separate meat. Pour off fat. Add beans, macaroni, juice and salt. Pour into 1 quart casserole dish. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until hat; stir it up. Top with cheese. Bake 5 minutes more or until cheese melts. Makes about 4 cups. Enjoy.

Geneva Powers

I submit these recipes as they are given to me. Please feel free to substitute healthy ingredients whenever possible.