We were so EXCITED to find this Plant while Foraging!!

[Music] foreign [Music] here's the scissors yeah [Music] ready yeah we're gonna go I'm grabbing my stuff we're gonna grab this one for our tools and then this one for the basket to Brown she's so smart we're gonna go foraging we found something that's quite exciting so come on let's go let's go do a little foraging [Music] get all the pollen the whole thing oh we got it we've got a stop here all right let's go show you this plant look what we found growing down near the creek and we've got a bunch of it on this side and a whole lot of it already starting to establish on that side mom and I were walking down here by the creek and I was super excited when I found a plant for the first time here on this property and it's one that we're we're actually familiar with in herbal in in herbal medicine and using it but the the exciting thing that we both are very I guess what drives us is the the regenerative aspect of everything and then discovering these plants that we wildly yeah that we use and this plant was not here right it was here last year but I had never seen it here before and and I think that's I think that's the beauty of it all I mean we're in an area where so many different Wild medicinal property plants grow oh yeah and then when you find the plant on your property and they say that you know if if you need it the land will provide it for you as far as a as a plant medicine goes so isn't this interesting that we've talked about horse tail oh that's it and boom here it all is this is horsetail um and it's there's two different a few different I think there's two different horsetails but this is the variety that we have which is called a field horse tail right and we're going to talk about the medicinal properties about when we go up to the Apothecary because we do need to do a good harvest and and make a tea with this and then also preserve it I know it's everywhere but we started trying to figure out you know it's growing here cool we can identify it how do you identify it has a tan let me see if I can get it it kind of has a tan stem and there's actually no leaves but actually more nodes that it has and I think there's about what eight eight to twelve what would be considered a leaf on each node but the botanical name is equism R Vents and I'll put that down below for you guys to be able to read it as well The Tap Room that Center root can shoot down 150 feet from this little plant yeah 150 feet so it's reaching down for nutrients and minerals right and there's a ghee one right deep from within the Earth so very interesting this was a nice little find I know I was excited this is a small patch I know and we have more so we are when we're harvesting all we're going to do is um we are going to just snip it we are not going to pull the root you don't want to disrupt the root system and then that way next year or next season next growing season this plant will come back again now what's really interesting about when you're going out and you're you're starting to identify the plants and each season that we go and and take our walks there's a new plant that we're going to start familiarizing ourselves with but we don't always Jump Right In and and harvest it as soon as we identify it I think that's the biggest problem because there are seasons to harvest just like with your gardening and your your when you're growing your vegetables their Seasons to harvest it's the same concept with plants that are growing in your area and spraying there's such an abundance so when we go out and we start familiarizing ourselves with plants and identifying them we don't necessarily just jump right in and harvest it we allow ourselves an opportunity to kind of familiarize yourself get to know the plant and we watch its growth for a you know we like to watch its growth for a whole year because this plant now looks like this but come fall and winter it might it's going to be different it could look different for to us and that's on any plant right you know and that's where even the flowering understanding not every plant we want to harvest unless we really need it you know we have blood root that grows on this property that we were actually just talking about we've never harvested bloodroot because there's not been a need so there's a there is it's here it is here and that's that's the other part that's exciting um but just having that ability to allow for the regenerative aspect of your Forest Apothecary this this is an apothecary it's outside so when you're learning a new plant really get to know it but find out when its season is to harvest and after doing some research I'm glad I didn't harvest the first year that I really identified it because it was in the summertime and not that it would have been bad but you want to make sure that you harvest the plant in the most ideal time so we found out that there's actually two seasons to to harvest for the horsetail right and the first one was right about now you know early or mid well it was spring kind of late mid to late spring so but you wanted to look and be able to see that the green portion of the plant that the shoots were all growing straight up right or the other notion is if they're laying completely down yeah and in the second portion of the Season we found out about is in the fall what's interesting because of the root system being 150 feet and what is it going it's going for the minerals it's going for the nutrients but one of the main properties that it it actually has is is silica and then when we found out okay yeah you can harvest in the spring you can actually eat the shoot itself it's very much like a experience yeah it's not too the darker it gets the harder it gets it's a little Woody but the lighter the green it's it's actually pretty tender but what we were finding is that the silica is most concentrated in the fall up here so medicinally if I was really going for it medically yes you can you can Harvest now you can eat it you can make it as a tea but come this fall we're coming back but for right now I'm still gonna I'm still gonna Harvest a little bit you've got my boots on if you fall I'm getting it on camera you you're gonna you know you just jinxed me now move oh so when you're harvesting your horse tail You're Gonna Leave a couple of inches um for it to come back don't pull that root not worth it and I'm also thinking I might cut in between to allow for a little bit more uh growth but we're basically just going to cut cut a good bit of the tops bring it back and then preserve it so it's very much like asparagus it's like a green bean and an asparagus made of baby you got the green bean bite no I got the pure asparagus very interesting I've never got bad I actually had it like this not wrong but you can saute it up that's what I was reading I was like this is cool you know look at this one this really looks like the horse I know portion of the tail that's a nice tan root right there for horses it is toxic to horses look at this one which I think is kind of interesting because it's called horsetail [Music] I also kind of do forget to add so I'm just gonna insert this right here but when it comes to foraging we are in Grow Zone 6B of Virginia we are kind of the northern area of Virginia so I want you to kind of take that in mind when it comes to foraging because I don't want to be like look what we're finding and then forget to tell you where I found it uh horsetail actually tends to grow from everything that I read um kind of in Wetlands we've got really sandy soil right here along the creek so I'm I'm from what I've gathered we've got a perfect a perfect habitat for horsetail to uh to survive to survive and become pretty pretty prolific here so I'm very excited about it now we went ahead and harvested just enough there will be more but come this fall we're gonna we're gonna come back and harvest a lot more but let's go let's go up to the Apothecary Brew up a tea and then talk about this sweet plant [Music] s [Music] okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] now we pulled a few of our books to to one for identification as well uh this is Liz neeve's um the North East medicinal plants and she's got a lovely little section in here that talks about talks about horsetail and then of course we always go back to our good old-fashioned Peterson Field Guide uh which I like I like how Dr Duke works with Stephen Foster on not only plant identification how to identify it and how they share all the information about the growth of it but then they also go into the history of right of this plant and how it was used and it's got a quite a rather long history um one the Native Americans Cherokee yep the in this in the Peterson Field Guide it states that's the Cherokee used the plant for kidney and bladder ailments and constipation the chip used the leaf tea for dysuria the Iroquois and I'm I'm not gonna potto what tell me Potawatomi Potawatomi and if I if I botched that I apologize used plant tea to treat lumbago Asian Indians considered the field horsetail a diuretic uh the root was given to teething babies and folk remedy for bloody urine gout gonorrhea stomach disorders poultice used for wounds um and because because of the high silica content it was also used in a tea for tubercular lung lesions wow wow that was kind of interesting we also but I want to backtrack though because even though there aren't that many contraindications about horsetail there are some other findings that we we do want to bring up and this is where I I want you guys whenever we talk about plants and take you guys foraging with us or blending something do your due diligence and learn the plant and and research it yourself because yes this book is great he goes into detail about how it was used in the past and and is still used today but there are things to be cautious about most books that we'll share some type of precaution um the precaution that they mainly for this plant is mainly the toxicity level for your livestock for horses for your your horses but we we also found out that this plant you can't uh it's not recommended for children um because it contains nicotine yep and I was blown away by that and if the increase amounts well Trace Amounts but if the Indians were using it if they were using it on their the gums of their teeth you know what I'm saying like it makes me want to I would like to learn more about that not necessarily use it um but then we also found out uh you have to be careful certain and then the Peterson Field Guide said that that one Indian tribe used this with gout but then we found a contra uh contradictory information in another book saying maybe people with gout shouldn't use this because and that's going to be that silica that crystallization it might create that crystallization which people who have gout suffer from formations of the uric acid crystals taking the horsetail on a regular basis and probably in large amounts because it didn't specify right it did not specify so there's a difference between using a plant medicinally and the quantity that you drink versus using a plant that you're using to help support your body for a specific need so drinking a tea and having that that's one thing but if we are going in and if it's in your protocol for you know a quart a horsetail or infusion every day then you're gonna want to there's other things that you'll have to be aware of horsetail can cause uh your vitamin B1 your thiamin level specifically to drop low so if you have a problem with vitamin B one maintaining that level in your body then this may not be a great herb or you need to make sure that you take a really good multivitamin um and a vitamin B specifically be one to help kind of offset there are other people who will share that maybe you don't want to take this for a long period of time right and that's something else to consider I also was reading you don't want to take this plant if you are using alcohol or nicotine or any of that nicotine patch especially in the gum the nicotine gum because it might actually enhance so you have to be careful about that but overall this plant has some pretty oh there was one other one too it was the potassium level oh yes you want so some people have low potassium levels and that a low potassium level will mess with a lot of things in your body right especially your heart so if you're on medication that naturally drops your potassium or if you're a person that just has a problem maintaining um a stronger or a higher level of potassium than horsetail may not be a great herb for you but um many herbalists will share in a lot of the books you know the the reason of use is for connective tissue that is kind of the the main and it's it's interesting looking at the plant and seeing seeing how it grows and you know understanding the the connective tissueness I don't know I just think it's very interesting I also did read that it has some benefits if you have kidney stones um bladder kind of all works together you're also pregnant or breastfeeding this one would not be for you and then yes if you have a low potassium already this one could potentially wipe out your potassium just like that and then also if you're on a diuretic because this is a diuretic right so these are things to kind of look at when you're researching and don't just always rely on one book because I think that's what we found is you know dig a Little Deeper dig a little deeper and that's what makes studying herbs and seeing all the different viewpoints that the different herbalists have to offer that's what makes this so fun like even this right here Liz Neves will share horsetail horsetail because her precautions um which you know these are always good good to look at this is why I really think that it's good to have as many books as possible because you could really like open them all up and read something different from every single herbalist it's a different perspective or a different time period too and more has been learned about the plant but she says there was a precaution horsetail uptakes minerals from the earth including lead so consider the Waterway the soil of the horsetail which is growing in whether it is a place where runoff or Industrial Waste has settled which is a very valid point because most of the time when we're foraging for plants you know they always say never forage from the road you know you don't necessarily think Waterway as a potential contaminant for your the place of harvest we're fortunate enough to have it growing right here which we know we can track the Waterway so we're we're okay on that sense but yeah it's very it's a very good plant to consider looking into especially for the support for your connective tissue but maybe not one that you're going to drink on a on a long term basis because of what else that it could could cause or what what else what the other things that taking horsetail on a longer period of time could right could bring on now there's a few different ways that you can actually you can prepare this plant to be used medicinally um tea would be the most common form uh you can go ahead and you can air dry it you can you could dehydrate it I prefer air drying over dehydrating in all honesty but we have the the harvest rate freeze dryer and that's one of the things I want if we're foraging for the plant I would like to get the most freshest capability uh to be able to to preserve this beautiful little plant and so we're gonna freeze dry this but you can also tincture it I I think I would prefer to keep this one as of right now for for my use I would prefer to keep this one as a tea uh but but there are other forms and we didn't Harvest a huge amount so just keeping this for in a tea form I think is going to be great and then the fact that we're going to the intention is to put it in the freeze dryer and then it's going to preserve everything that's in it I'm I'm excited to see what this one does and I have a lot of people that ask about the freeze dryer and you know everything that we have uh read and experienced with the freshness of the material that we put in there whether it's food or whether it's fruit or whether it's herbs the noticeable difference between what freeze-dried plant matter looks like versus regular dried plant matter it's it's crazy and then also I'd like to really kind of start diving into the comparison between what freeze-dried plants what they what they they still offer versus drying you do lose properties when you try that is why and not everybody needs a freeze dryer if you hang dry your herbs that's great right the biggest thing is is what I don't want is you not harvesting the plants because you don't have the freeze dryer correct that right there no this thing has been a dream for a dream for like five years and we have it and we're gonna use it but if I didn't have it I would still air dry my place and so that's what I wanted you to I want you to get at um but an air drying has proven been proven to work for even even dehydrating so even dehydrating but we just want to we want to harness all of the goodness as it is right now exactly right and I also like the fact that this could last for 25 years when we Harvest this absolutely crazy [Music] do you want some honey she asks a beekeeper we'll you know if if I want honey in my in my tea sometimes so I did go ahead and do a little rinse of the horsetail um I'm not going to pre-freeze this I want to just pop it right in as it is but we did it runs we got torrential downpour rain yesterday so I'm not like I'm not too too worried and it really didn't need that much of a that much of a rinsing but it is always good practice to go ahead and clean clean your clean your plant matter before you go to preserve it bring that up there it's hot that's what I was trying to say yeah it's burning okay hold on here Cheers Cheers it's the horse kill me it looks pretty it's not bad it's very light ooh that's not bad I mean I taste a lot of the honey but it really doesn't have too much of it it's got a little bit of like that asparagus yeah when we tasted it it's not bad mmm interested in taking horsetail I experienced a lot of like hair breakage wait wait and my nails and so reading about this this plant and and what it can offer to help kind of strengthen that I think is why I'm more interested and uh definitely uh definitely taking it now uh the parts that we harvested were the above ground parts and see if you can can you see it can you see ah okay we harvested the above ground Parts um and then I tried not to get too much of the wood the woodiness we did not Harvest a whole lot this will be very I think a quick freeze dry for this tea I only did about three kind of three smaller fresh sprigs of horsetail to what how much water would you say maybe 14 to 16 ounces of water if that like two two ounces a plant matter maybe about two ounces of plant matter I did for this [Music] [Music] [Music] so my mom and I were gonna finish this video and then start a new one and show you guys the process um in the next video but this actually processed a lot quicker than what I anticipated it was only about 10 I think it was like well all in all I believe it was about 11 hours roughly uh for for the horsetail to be processed so I'm gonna go ahead and show you the comparison of what freeze-dried uh horsetail looks like versus cut and sifted dried just regular dried horsetail because this is the part that just truly gets me excited about the freeze dryer and why it's such a blessing to have not only for food preservation but for preserving preserving the herbs definitely cold right now um I didn't hit the button that warms the trees up it it's actually not that bad I shouldn't shouldn't be yeah it's a little cold get some frostbite in the process seriously it looks just as fresh as what it looked when when we picked it and and put it in the freeze dryer I've had a few people ask about our freeze dryer and what model what what do we have as well as our pump I have the medium Harvest Right freeze dryer they make a smaller one and then they make a large and then I've even seen like the extra large which I was like oh that's exciting that is probably going to be on my bucket list next go around but the the medium freeze dryer works perfect for for herbs just like we're doing as well as you know for my family for for food preservation and then the pump that I have is the premiere pump it's not the oil-free pump I don't necessarily mind changing the oil in in this one it's really not a lot of work I think it's every 20 like 20 to 30 batches um is roughly when you would need to change it so not bad not bad at all and you can filter the oil and reuse it so that's just something I want you to kind of take into consideration I know that the oil free pump one is very nice and I have a lot of people that do have that so and they love it but this is what we have and it has been it has been a blessing now if anyone is interested in purchasing a freeze dryer for themselves I do have an affiliate link it it lets them know that we were able to send people to them and it supports the things that we are doing here on on our Homestead um but this is just it's crazy I mean this honestly like the texture of it it's very dry but it's so fresh and so green so I'm gonna get this in a mason jar as soon as possible and uh go ahead and do an oxygen absorber it kind of looks like Pine like pine needles these are the little oxygen absorbers my hands are clean I did wash them but I did bag them before I you know did that just to Not freak anybody out but this this is going to be consumed by us now check out how green that is I have some dried horsetail up top and ABCDEFG [Music] finder holy baby [Music] Hawthorne of course I need a step stool but I'm gonna use my bench okay this is horsetail um that was that was purchased because I had never actually had an opportunity to to harvest um this right here is a blessing I just want to show you guys the difference between the two I'm not knocking this at all like I'm not knocking this at all I I purchased this from Frontier Co-op great great supplier a lot of people always ask where do we get our herbs we forage we grow as well as Source uh ethically source so some of our sources that we use are Frontier Co-op star west Botanicals Mountain Rose Botanicals and then Pacific Botanicals also is is pretty good they've got a really good selection as well and their price is pretty nice so but I just want to show you guys the difference between the two because to me I mean yeah it's very exciting it's very exciting now if I were to air dry them obviously they would lose a good bit of the color as well and I prefer air drying hang drying in our our hanging basket that I have and I'll show you guys that that I did actually put on our Amazon storefront because it's easier and I think it's easier for people to find it if I have it up there and I think now the hanging baskets they actually sell two to a package which is it's great but this is just truly I think I mean to me this is astonishing so I've got to take it outside and shake it and Shake It Out um but this is the hanging basket that we have it holds quite a bit um this is some of the English ivy some of the leaves that we had harvested but this is very convenient we're just in the beginning of the foraging and preservation season and I cannot wait my my next plan is to go ahead and harvest a lot of violet and freeze dry a good bit of violet that is something that my mom has been wanting to do so we will be taking you guys and showing you and talking to you about Violet this beautiful beautiful purple flower heart-shaped leaves one of our favorites and I'm excited to introduce you to the plant show you how to forage and then we're going to we're going to process some because I actually don't have any Violet other than what I have growing outside and my dog my dog's name is violet so we're not processing her I promise it's just gonna be the plans um but now I'm gonna take you guys back because my mom's not with me right now closing this portion of the video but since like I said this didn't take very long at all um instead of turning this into two videos we just went ahead I just went ahead and just brought you up here and and showed you the difference so now back to closing the video with my with my mama so yeah as always she hears cheers don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and learn something old bye guys bye

Channel: The Honeystead

Views: 79,785

Keywords:

Id: J493WTTs4vk

Length: 34min 21sec (2061 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 20 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/whitelightstorm]

lol, it's funny how all our kitchens and gear look similar.