Elderberry, the Herb of the Year for 2013

Elderberry blossoms have many uses.

Ozarks Gardening
Copyright© Jim Long, 2012

Every year since 1994 the International Herb Association has designated a specific herb as the official Herb of the Year. Both the IHA and the Herb Society of America spend an entire year creating articles, books and educational materials around that specific herb, publishing the material on-line and in books for schools and businesses to use.

Elderberry clusters are often 14-18 inches across with hundreds of berries.

The elderberry is an excellent choice for next year’s focus. This native plant grows across Missouri, Arkansas and many surrounding states. Additionally, related varieties grow in Europe, North Africa and Asia. The berries are popular for their unusual taste in jellies, jams, syrups and pies.

Elderberries have many medicinal uses, both in folk remedies and in modern medicine. The berries are good antioxidants, meaning they help lower cholesterol, as well as boosting the immune system, fighting coughs, colds and flu and fighting off bacterial and viral infections. Elderberry syrup was always a reliable for coughs in olden times.

In addition, elderberry flowers are used in making wines, syrups and the old-time Ozarks favorite - elderberry flower fritters (much like a funnel cake, but better). Elderberry bark salve is an old-time folk remedy for cuts and bruises.

Birds and many animals also like the berries.

Elderberry extract can be bought on-line or in most whole foods and health stores. You’ll find it listed as, “Black Elderberry” or “Sambucol.” (Sambucus is the Latin name for elderberry). While buying elderberry juice, tincture or “extract” might sound more official, you can just as easily grow your own berries and make your own extract, juices or syrups.

Elderberries, in their natural setting, grow in ditches along country roadsides. The plant will grow in full sun or part shade and likes somewhat moist conditions but will also thrive in a regular garden setting. It’s also a good edible-landscape plant for growing at the back of the garden. The plants generally bear fruit the second or third year after planting, and when they start fruiting, will produce bushels from just 5 or 6 plants (that’s bushels of the clusters, you won’t have that much if you were to pluck off the individual berries).

If you’d like to grow your own elderberries, I recommend Pense Nursery, a family operation that offers a wide variety of berry plants. The plants are already acclimated to our Ozarks conditions. They’re located in Mountainburg, AR and you can reach them by phone: 479-369-2494 (call and leave a message, they’re good to call back). You can see what they offer on-line but you’ll have to call to place your order: www.pensenursery.net.

Elderberries growing on the Taberville Prairie, near Taberville, MO.

What we do at Long Creek Herb Farm

Long Creek Herbs

I'm constantly startled when someone who follows me here or on FaceBook or Twitter, says to me, "Oh, I didn't know you had a website or wrote books." Really? How can you miss my blatant, self-serving advertising down the right hand column of this blog page? :-) I list some of my books, my Dream Pillows, my famous Herbal Nail Fungus Soak, with links to my web pages along the side of this blog page. But, friends who've asked those questions, have finally convinced me, it's time to tell you more about what I do. So here goes.

One view of part of my garden.

I garden and collect rare and unusual culinary herbs from my travels in places like Thailand, India, Indonesia, etc. I grow around 200-300 varieties of culinary and medicinal herbs each year, along with many Native American and Asian vegetables, along with 30 varieties of hot peppers, figs, muscadines and lots of other things. Those not only provide the photographs I use for the magazines I write for, but food for our table and inspiration for my books. You'll find my books in several seed catalogs including Pinetree Gardens, Richters Herbs, Lehman's, Baker Creek Seed and others. Or you can see them here, on my website, http://www.LongCreekHerbs.com I have 24 books in print with 2 more coming in the next couple of months.

Here are a few of my books. You can see more of them by clicking this link: http://www.longcreekherbs.com/products.php?cat=7

You'll also find my best-selling product, Herbal Nail Fungus Soak. I created the formula for myself almost 20 years ago to cure cracking heel, a kind of athlete's foot. It was only by accident that I discovered how well my formula works on nail fungus, thanks to my father who developed a case of fungus on his nails. His doctor told him there was no cure and to be prepared upon Dad's next visit to the doctor, to have his nail removed. (Imagine going to that doctor if you had a broken arm!!!)

Over the years lots of doctors, pharmacists and even some Veterans Administration podiatrists, recommend my product.

One of 3 books I have with Storey Publishing

It works, I guarantee it!

You can read more, including comments from customers, our guarantee and more about Nail Fungus Soak by clicking this link:  http://www.longcreekherbs.com/products.php?cat=12
You may see my ads for Nail Fungus Soak in Mother Earth News, Countryside, The Heirloom Gardener and The Ozarks Mountaineer magazines as well as in many state electric magazines and elsewhere.

In addition, I travel and lecture from Coast to Coast throughout the year. I've spoken for a wide variety of flower and garden shows, regional herb conferences, State Master Gardener Conferences, Perennial Plant Assoc, Garden Writers Assoc. and many, many more. My programs are reserved about 9 months in advance. To see the programs I offer or to download my programs brochure, click here: http://www.longcreekherbs.com/workshops.php

I have 6 other blogs - the links are on the right hand column of this blog. I write for 17 newspapers, as well as The Heirloom Gardener, Missouri Gardening, and The Ozarks Mountaineer, have written for The Herb Companion since 1990, The Herb Quarterly for several years, and do free-lance work for  several other magazines.

So there you have it, a bit of what I do. For those who already knew, my apologies; for those who asked, I hope this is helpful and that you will visit my website! (There's also a place on  my website where you can download photos for your desktop/wallpaper if you wish, and a garden tour, as well).

Another view of our garden at Long Creek Herb Farm.

Thanks for checking my blog today!

Pickled Peppers

Peppers of all kinds can be pickled.

Before we had the first hard frost here on the farm, I pulled up all of my pepper plants and brought them into an unheated room. The peppers continue ripening, drawing strength from the plants, and I can collect the peppers as I need them. 

Hot sauces and pickled peppers.

I’ve been working for several months on a new book about making hot sauce, including how to can and freeze homemade hot sauces. I’ve been testing the recipes for several weeks and the kitchen counter is stacked with little jars of varying kinds of sauces. I’ve also been playing around with pickled pepper recipes and if you still have peppers, try this recipe and tell me your opinion of the flavor. I think it’s pretty good. I like to mix sweet and hot peppers for this and these pickled peppers are good on sandwiches of all kinds.

Pickled peppers, the flavor improves with age.

Pickled Peppers 

(hot or sweet peppers, either one)

About 30 jalapeno peppers, stem removed and peppers slit open on one side

2 cups distilled white vinegar

2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon whole yellow mustard seed

1/4 teaspoon turmeric 

1/3 cup sugar

*Pickle Crisp (available at Wal-Mart, and makes crisper pickles)

1 - Combine all ingredients (except peppers) and heat the liquid in a non-corrosive sauce pan (stainless steel, glass or enamel, not aluminum nor cast iron). When the mixture begins to boil, lower the heat and add the peppers then continue simmering for about 5 minutes.

2 - Pack the peppers tightly into sterile, hot, glass jars. Pour in liquid and leave 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1/8 teaspoon *Pepper Crisp to each jar. Wipe jar rims with damp cloth and screw on new jar lids to finger-tight, then lower into boiling water, with enough water to cover the tops of the jars by an inch.

3 - Start timing when the pan of hot water begins boiling. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Remove and cool on a towel on the kitchen counter for the jars to continue sealing. Don’t re-tighten or bother the lids as it will break the seal and cause the pickles to spoil. This makes 4 pints.

Click here to visit my website for my books and products.  Our special blend of Chili Seasoning is on special this month. 

Click here to see our specials. You won't find it fresher, or more tasty anywhere, and 1 pound for $12 is a great price!

Ozarks Gardens, Not So Bad After All

Sometimes it’s good to visit other kinds of gardening to make you appreciate your own. Our soil in the southern Ozarks is rocky, with lots of clay and yet we manage to grow pretty good gardens. Farther north in Missouri, and farther south in Arkansas, there’s actual soil to be found, more fertile, less rocky. But not all gardeners have the luxury of either kind of soil for their crops.

Last week I was in southern Arizona, Tucson to be exact, for a garden writers conference. Each year our conferences are held in different parts of the U.S. or Canada, exposing our membership to a wide variety of growing conditions and plants. Tucson was an area many of the 400 people who attended the conference, had never been before.

Pretty to look at, impossible to touch.

Imagine if you will, soil that looks like a hard, gray, gravel road. Any gravel road, anywhere in our area, looks pretty much like Tucson soil. Now imagine that the hard, gray, gravel is the only soil and you have to dig it with a pick to loosen it enough to make some sort of hole for your plant. Now imagine getting only 9 or 10 inches of rain in a year, and in a place where the summer daytime temperatures regularly reach 120 degrees.

It apparently is possible to grow some food crops there. Native Americans grew squash, beans and corn, as well as tiny hot peppers and some wild herbs. Since it doesn’t freeze in the lower areas, winter crops of lettuce and even some tomatoes can be grown. But what does best of all, are cactus. Hundreds, maybe thousands of kinds of cactus grow everywhere. They grow out of the rocks up into the mountains, they grow out of the cracks in the pavement along the road. They’re the only plants in the landscapes of yards and businesses. Grass is virtually non-existent.

Note the soil around the prairie dog.

Cactus are interesting to look at. Some produce beautiful flowers, some even produce edible fruit. But if you have 400 people, loaded onto 5 buses, and walking around in the gardens, what you soon learn is to watch where you walk. With that many people, at every turn in a garden, you are getting poked, stuck and prickled with cactus thorns!

In our Ozarks gardens, you can safely reach out and feel the plants you grow. Tomatoes and peppers and herbs don’t attack you every time you look away. But in a desert garden, you have to watch for rattle snakes, cactus with long thorns, cactus with thorns that look like paper, some that look like fuzzy puppies, all which will do painful damage to your skin.

While it is interesting to visit other kinds of gardens, this one in particular, made me especially grateful for our soil, our climate and most of all, for the wide variety of plants we can grow here.

Preventing Insect Pests for Next Season

Ozarks Gardening
Jim Long; 10/10/12

Bugs Coming Inside for Winter

I’ve not been prying into persimmon seed to see if there are spoons, forks or knives yet, to determine the kind of winter we’ll have, but if the invasion of bugs into homes is any indication, we may have considerably more cold this winter. Of course it wouldn’t do any good for me to open persimmons and pry open the seed as there’s no over-all agreement whether a spoon means a winter of plenty, or that it means you’ll be digging out of snow. Or that a knife means a sharp, cutting winter, or one with plenty, like spreading butter on bread.

Flies have been hanging onto the screens ever since the few nights of near-freezing temperatures, darting in at every opportunity. The Korean ladybugs have been finding their way inside and crawling behind baseboards to hibernate. I even saw a television story this week about scorpions making their way into houses, although I’ve not seen any evidence of that.

The local television photos of the scorpions made them look like they were the size of a person’s hand, when in actuality our local scorpions are closer to the size of a garden spider. In Thailand where I visited some time back, people collect their native, giant hand-sized scorpions and deep-fry them for snacks. I’m not ready to do that, but if you do have garden pests invading the house, the spider sticky-traps do a pretty good job of catching all kinds of unwanted bugs.

As far as the garden is concerned, October is a perfect time to clean up old dead plants and burn or dispose of them. Clean-up is especially important for tomato plants. Any of the tomato diseases you may have had to fight with this season, are likely still present in the dead tomato plants. They should be removed from the growing area and either burned or put in the trash and not left in the garden.

Now’s a good time, as well, to till the garden soil. Turning it over exposes grubs and insect pests’ eggs, allowing birds to eat the insects. Another tilling in mid-winter is a good idea, too, turning the soil over again to expose things like grasshopper eggs so they will freeze and not hatch so many next year.

Cover crops such as winter barley and annual vetch can still be planted. Buckwheat, which is a good nitrogen-fixing crop, does better if it’s planted earlier and has a good foothold before cold weather hits. Such kinds of cover crops are usually left until early spring then turned under to allow the material to decompose and add nutrients to the soil. That early tilling also accomplishes turning up insect eggs and exposing them to cold weather and birds.

Visit my garden adventures blog, too. http://jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com

Book Contest

In a recent survey of readers on my gardening blog (http://jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com, followers told me you like contests. I receive lots of books in the mail to review, so I'm going to pass them along to followers here. This contest is for folks who follow my regular gardening blog. 
If you're not a follower, sign up today (see the button on the right that says, "Join this Blog"? Click it and you'll be entered in the contest as soon as you leave a comment). You must be a follower, and you must leave a comment in the comments section to enter the contest. Details for leaving a comment are also on the right side of the page of that blog. Again, the contest is open to everyone who shows up as a follower on the right side of the blog page of jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com In a recent survey of readers here, you told me you like contests. I receive lots of books in the mail to review, so I'm going to pass them along to followers here. This contest is for folks who follow that blog. 

NOTE: The contest will run until Oct. 17. I will announce the winner of the books shortly after that.
If you're not a follower, sign up today (see the button on the right that says, "Join this Blog"? Click it and you'll be entered in the contest as soon as you leave a comment). You must be a follower, and you must leave a comment in the comments section to enter the contest. Details for leaving a comment are also on the right side of the page of my regular garden blog. Again, the contest is open to everyone who shows up as a follower on the right side of that blog page, and who leaves a comment about today's post. The contest will run for a week and the winner will be chosen at random from the number of comments posted. I will announce the winner in about a week, here, and that person will have to contact me by email to give me their address so I can send the prizes. (If you aren't aware, I have no way of contacting those who are listed as followers, there is no email address or other information posted anywhere that I or anyone else has access to). Here are the books that will go to the lucky winner:

248 pages, this is a wonderful gardening guide.

The Non-Stop Garden, a Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices and Four-Season Designs, is a comprehensive guide to year around color using perennials, shrubs and blooming plants. I've known Stephanie Cohen for many years and she's a columnist for Fine Gardening magazine. Co-author Jennifer Benner is a former editor of Fine Gardening and an experienced nursery designer. Both of these folks know plants and design very well. $14.95, available from most bookstores and on-line.

224 pages of great landscape ideas.

Stone Landscaping guides you step by step through creating stone pathways, walls, patios and other projects made of stone. The photographs are from Rosalind Creasy (author of Edible Landscaping) so you know it's beautifully illustrated. This is a wonderful guide to creating a stunning landscape using stone and creative design ideas. $19.95, from Better Homes & Gardens, and available at bookstores nationwide.

Home Remedies That Work, $6.95.

And last but not least, the winner of this contest also receives a copy of my newest book, My Favorite Home Remedies That Work. You'll find many of my own home remedies formulas as well as lots more from trusted sources and research. It's 40 pages of valuable, useful information for saving money and healthy living with natural remedies. My book is available from my website, as well as from herb shops nationwide.

So become a follower, Join my garden blog, and leave a contest and you will be entered to win these 3 books!

Drying Herbs for Winter

A dark, airy attic is the perfect place for drying herbs of any kind.

Copyright©Jim Long, 2012

Last night while I was making a pot of spaghetti sauce, I reached into the spice cabinet for my jar of Italian Seasoning. It was nearly empty, which reminded me I had not dried many herbs to replenish it. Fortunately there were plenty of fresh herbs in the garden to season the sauce, and those taste better anyway. But I will get busy this week putting together the ingredients for another jar of Italian Seasoning.

Lemon balm ready for drying.

Italian Seasoning, from my book, Great Herb Mixes You Can Make, needs (all dried): 2 parts marjoram, 4 parts basil, 2 parts oregano and 1 part crushed rosemary. Depending on the volume you want to make, parts can mean tablespoons, cups or pounds.

Springs of herbs ready for drying.

My method for drying herbs is to harvest stems with leaves, about 6 inches long, and tie 6 to 10 stems in a bundle, holding them together with a rubber band. I hang those in my drying room which is dark, airy and well-ventilated (an attic works well for this). I sometimes use my food dehydrator, which works really well, but this of year it’s filled with hot peppers drying.

You can put about twice this amount in the paper bag.

The other method that works well is to put 15 - 20 stems, a big handful, of the herb you want to dry into a brown paper bag. Fold the top closed, held with a clothespin or large paper clip, and toss it into the trunk of your car (or back seat if you don’t have a trunk). The paper slowly wicks away the moisture in the herbs, the paper keeps out sunlight, and the trunk of your car is often hot for much of every day. Give the bag a shake every 2 or 3 days to keep the herbs from compacting, and in about a week to 10 days, your bag of herbs will be crispy-dried and ready to use.

Herbs ready for drying in the car.

What not to do: Don’t hang herbs for drying in the kitchen. The light from household lighting breaks down the colors of the leaves, and when that happens, the essential oils that give the herb its unique flavor, will be lost. Additionally, drying this way leaves the herbs open to absorbing all your cooking and household smells - you end up with rosemary that smells more like bacon or pot roast, or even the family dog! Also, drying in the microwave isn't a good idea, either. Microwaves, by their design, vaporize moisture out of whatever is put in them. When the moisture is vaporized, so are the essential oils that give the herbs their flavor. You’ll have a great smelling microwave, and dried herbs that taste slightly better than hay.

Recipes and formulas for over 100 seasonings and projects.

Once the herbs are dried, crush the leaves from the stems, then measure the amounts to make the Italian Seasoning. Store your mixture in an airtight container in a dark place, like the kitchen cabinet or pantry. More seasoning mixes can be found in my book, Great Herb Mixes, which is available from my website (LongCreekHerbs.com) or from a store near you. Happy seasoning!