Benefits of Growing & Preserving Teas + My Toddler Tea Recipe!

Hello friends we just got in you're at that 1870s Homestead my name is Rachel and we just got in with our big basket of herbs and wild edibles that we are getting prepared for both herbs and teas so I wanted to share this process with you because it's the first time I am freeze drying my herbs normally my processes which is totally fine I've done it for the last seven years hang my herbs are wild foraged greens or whatever and just hang them from we have like a light fixture in the dining room and I would just hang them from that to dry and that's what I've done forever but freeze drying is going to just retain a little bit more of those nutrients so what did we pick together just in case some of you weren't here so we got a lot of violets the violets are just going to be for fun pretties and cheese really truly the benefits and the medicinal properties would have been in the leaves of the Violet plants but since the flowers are edible and they are so pretty they're going to be absolutely gorgeous in teas and should add a yummy flavor because if you didn't know you could actually make violet syrup and violet jelly out of these and we have these just growing all over you probably do too and some of you may pull them as weeds because they're growing in places where you don't want them but I think they make just lovely little perennial plants and I told Todd space that we're growing these this year is actually going to get redone so I need to harvest these and Transplant them somewhere else as well so and then we grabbed a bunch of Honeysuckle and most of the flower petals are the bulbs themselves aren't open so we're going to be doing some honeysuckle flowers and the honeysuckle leaves themselves and I made some cheap notes to look it up for you because like guys I don't have this stuff memorized to either like remembering exactly what every plant is good for off memory so we're gonna look this up together and I will I've already done that homework and I'll share with you what some of these beneficial properties are of these plants that we harvested and [Music] [Applause] get them freeze-dried and they'll be ready for awesome things in the future so honeysuckle urinary health uh headaches diabetes rheumatoid arthritis supposedly cancer which take that with a grain of salt but hey I'm willing to try anything [Applause] um as a topical ointment you could use it to treat inflammation of the skin itching and just germs a general you know disinfectant so great benefits of honeysuckle so we are going to add this and a lot there's a lot of research out there on health benefits of natural foraged products like this from some very very reputable sources you know you might read an article from say Susan and you don't know Susan's education background her testing background or the resources she has to come up with and I'm using Susan as a generic name but you don't know exactly you know are they just repeating something that they heard but if you find [Applause] I guess for me if I find articles from a university that has resources and has had years of testing capability or you read research articles from like I'll find a lot of them from like the Mayo Clinic or something like that I feel a little bit better about [Music] [Applause] just you know people that have funding that can go and do good quality research for us now do I necessarily believe the FDA when they say that there's no proven health benefits so therefore you can't sell anything with the proven health benefits no so so that's to government involved in my opinion um to give us accurate information so I'm going to this isn't that just gorgeous already so stinking beautiful all right so this tray is just going to be the Honeysuckle and leaves and flowers let me bring dice down so you can see and then we've got this big old basket just filled with mint strawberry leaves and raspberry leaves so stay tuned because I'm gonna share with you guys all those beneficial properties of all these things and I have used these before guys I think the honey the only thing that I haven't used is the honeysuckle leaves before I have used the honeysuckle flowers so now most of these flowers are still closed some of them are open [Applause] still have all the good sweet flavor in them [Music] [Applause] and almost everything you're going to harvest you would want to do it like this earlier in the season before things flower the young spring bulbs the young the Spring Leaves but to be honest with you when it comes to my herbs and stuff I'll even Harvest those during the flowering season [Applause] [Music] you're just probably not going to ever get as sweet of a flavor once things go to flower all right I just wrapped up the tray of Honeysuckle and so beautiful just so beautiful and the violets I was thinking while I was doing this that oftentimes when I'm doing this like I am right now I'm thinking about getting a head start on some amazing Christmas gift ideas maybe it's a new mom so some of these teas are going to be great for new mothers so just taking the time getting the kids out there the grandkids whoever you have and participating and collecting these and then dry them however you choose like in my past I always just um hung them to dry but maybe you have a dehydrator and you would prefer that or you have a freeze dryer like myself that we're using today and you could have some just really super thoughtful gifts ready to go so now we are moving on to Mint absolutely beautiful we have lemon balm Mmm delicious so mint basically think a cure-all for stomach like malaise you know if you have stomach aches belly aches colic for babies um it's good for allergies and asthma you could put it make it like a tincture and use it for mouthwash um it's really good for your oral health that's why a lot of toothpaste come with that mint flavoring probably not good mint like this and then topically it is good for skin Health too oddly enough I didn't know that I just learned that when I was doing this research this morning so we're just plucking all these I mean these are big big mint leaves so we're gonna probably have a good solid tray of just mint and I probably will not have room to freeze dry all of this this first round but I'll at least get through sharing with you guys um the benefits of everything that we harvested together and if you missed that Harvest video we'll link it right here for you guys alrighty so that's a full tray of mint ready to go next up is lemon balm if you never smelled like lemon balm I have a like a delicious childhood memory of pledge sounds disgusting for edible but my mother was a pledge junkie and it smells like punch to me just that limp that lemon scented pledge I just love it so we are doing some lemon balm and I like I said went through all my lemon balms last year so um if you think of the calmingness of lemon mint a lot of things lavender so it's going to reduce stress anxiety it promotes sleep it actually improves appetite that was something new I learned it eases pain from stomach like gas or indigestion and colic in babies so lemon balm is another great thing to add to um that's a strawberry leaf to my mothering teas that I add because especially For A lactating tea that stress reduction that promotion of sleep that ease of gas pains is going to pass through the mother onto the baby the benefits and I think it's a great addition that's where all my lemon balm went to last year and then I used a bit of it with chamomile for my toddler tea that I make for the young grandson so now that he's older same grandson and I'll tell you what that grandson he's 18 months old and he's been drinking tea like from his through his mom they have a nightly tea tradition and so they had their tea and that baby loves his team I make it just like it would normal tea and then I add like three ice cubes to it and a little tea a teaspoon of honey and he loves his tea at Granny's house and the way I make it so here's a good toddler tip tea we do and this is good for probably babies I don't know nine months or older you would just dilute it differently um we do chamomile lemon balm um steep that for like 10 to 12 minutes and then we add a little bit of cinnamon a splash apple cider vinegar some lemon juice and a little bit of honey and that's our toddler tea [Applause] [Music] so we have a ton of limb involved and this might take the last of my trays I can only fit four trays at a time in here but I'm definitely having the grandson now um we need lots more little involvement I had put up last year so I mean that's a nice size lemon balm leaf ah that's what I do that and basil probably my two favorite smelling herbs Lemon Verbena would be next because I just love lemon and I'll tell you what this lemon balm with basil um throws some honeysuckle leaves in there for a good summertime sun tea so good and so I'll show you like mint and lemon balm when you look at the texture of their leaves they look so similar just I have to remember that the mint is more oblong and smooth where the lemon balm is more jaggedy shaped okay we are ready to get these in the freeze dryer so we'll go in first with our two trays of lemon balm [Music] foreign [Music] and our tray of mint [Music] I'm just finding a little bit more mint in here [Music] and then our tray of honeysuckle leaves flowers and violet petals that shouldn't take too long to freeze dry at all right now let me show you what I have left so this is a tray of raspberry leaves I still have to plot so raspberry leaves let me tell you this is a really good one [Applause] raspberry leaves excellent for reproductive organ Health it balances hormones it fortifies breast milk production has iron in it anti-inflammatory and good for hair growth this is like the base for me for the green and my mother's milk tea so excellent one it's going to help them recover after childbirth and it's just going to help with the balancing of the hormones and it's a really really really good one and the next one that we have is this is all strawberry leaves now strawberry leaves are great with vitamin C iron calcium digestion nausea stomach cramps so strawberry leaves is another great one that goes out just because they are damp from early morning Harvest and I don't want them to mildew so just spread those out [Music] lots and lots of strawberry leaves [Music] there's a raspberry leaf so raspberry leaves over here buff those up a little bit to get them nice and Airy and oregano so oregano is so much more than just an herb for culinary cooking one of the natures it is truly Nature's Most Powerful natural source of antibiotics so making yourself an oregano tincture you will have like the best medicine um for free basically just by growing yourself some oregano and so look it up I'm not an herbalist I'm not uh educated or blessed I'm self-taught by going out learning researching what um like I said medical science journals have published I have a recommendation of Amy fuel from the fuel Homestead she is a certified herbalist so I really trust her knowledge um so I think I'm gonna have easily three trays of strawberry leaves I need to go out and do a much bigger Harvest of raspberry leaves and then we have the bulk of the rest of this is oregano so a little bit of time in there this is the best year I deliberately harvested strawberry leaves like this so we're gonna have some excellent excellent tea for giving for ourselves for future mamas so but as always do your own research when it comes to herbs because some herbs can be um not good partners with modern medicine so if you're like on blood thinners and things like that there might be herbs that you should stay away from so I'm finding some honeysuckle buds still in here that's it though guys that's all I wanted to share is kind of the what did we go out and harvest the other day together how am I preserving it and um maybe if there's time before this video publishes I'll show you what they look like in the jars all freeze-dried and beautiful all right I'll talk to you guys later thanks for joining me on today's video and I'll see you guys on the next one

Channel: That 1870's Homestead

Views: 24,203

Keywords: michigan, homestead, farming, organic, farmhouse, herbal tea for weight loss, herbal tea recipe, herbal tea, herbal tea benefits, herbal tea for cough and cold, herbalist, herbal teas and their uses, homesteading channels, foraging wild edibles, foraging for beginners, foraging for food, tea recipe for toddlers, night time tea to help sleep, night time tea recipe

Id: 6xlpB-LnDUY

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Mon May 29 2023