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leslienky

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Neighbor
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
4
Location
Kentucky
As I have revisited my property trying to "see" what my property offers, I have found tons of jewellweed, passionflower/maypop, persimmons, and green milkweed. These are all things that I have self-identified thanks to Google, so I could be incorrect on my identification.

What can I do with my native plants?

Part of my new homesteading adventure is to see what is around me and discover ways to use.
I did dry some passionflower leaves to make tea. I read that it is to help sleep. I don't have a problem sleeping but was trying it because I know so many people that cant sleep. The tasted like I was drinking grass. Maybe that is what it supposed to taste like!

Does anyone dry anything and put in capsules to take?

Thank you,
Leslie
 
I have not grown and dried my own medicinal herbs. I have grown such, but my plants had not gotten big enough to harvest much and then had to move...I'm a lazy herbalist for now, and I buy dried herbs and capsules and encapsulate them.
Some herbs made into tea taste very tea-like (red raspberry leaf) and others grassy tasting (oat straw grass and horsetail grass tea come to mind).
Passionflower is also good if one is nervous or high strung. I had some growing here. If yours is growing wild, it most likely will self-seed and continue growing forever. I've read it can be invasive.
The green milkweed I would let grow for the butterflies and other pollinators.
There were wild persimmons all around where I lived in Virginia, delicious. Maybe you could make jam.
 
1st a warning… In about 30% of the population jewelweed will cause a burn on the skin similar to a chemical burn, be careful, test it first on a small spot of skin. Crush a leaf and rub it on a spot and monitor what happens over the next 30 minutes. I’d take bets that there is something growing in your lawn that is far superior to jewelweed as a useful plant… look up Plantago lanceolata aka Lanceleaf plantain.

https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/plantain.4393/

Passionflower… use the blooms to make a tincture, lots of youtube vids available. The blooms contain the active chemicals. It makes a great sleep aid, I use it weekly.

Persimmon… if you scrap a spot of bark down to the inner bark you’ll see and smell the other plants, medicinally speaking, that it is very similar too. Too see how to use the inner bark of persimmon look up the medicinal properties of…

Xanthorhiza simplicissima – yellowroot

Hydrastis canadensis – goldenseal

Mahonia aquifolium – Oregon grape

Berberis vulgaris – barberry

All of these plants are commonly called “The Berberines”, though only 1 is actually a berberine.

There are over a dozen species of milkweed in the southeast… they are NOT interchangeable. If you identify the actual species you have and post the latin or botanical name I can tell you if it’s useful.

Although I do grow medicinals on my porch… there are over 100 species of medicinal plants within 200yds of my front door… If I need a plant I go and find it. There are over 1200 species of medicinal plants that grow here in north Alabama.
 
So far the Passionflower is not taking over but now that I am looking it is everywhere. I discovered it by trying to clean the honeysuckle out of all the mulberry trees I found. I really hit the mulberry jackpot if I can keep them cleaned out.

Thank you for all the information. I am going to research now,
Leslie
 
What to do with.... Acorns!
There simply must be a way to make biodiesel with them since they have such high caloric contentgaah.
If there is, I should be able to fuel a fleet of semi's after the apocalypselightbulb
 
@leslienky I’ve a friend in the desert southwest who makes and sells a lot of passionflower tincture. He trained his passionflower to grow on a wall. I can’t get it to grow reliably here so I get tincture from my friend.

Anyway, you might want to go down to the local farm supply and get some hog wire, make a trellis of sorts and train all your passionflower to grow on it. It’ll provide a few extra bucks and keep it manageable so it doesn’t take over everything.

I’ve tried to grow it on a 75ft section of a corral fence, the perfect location, to no avail.

Oh, honeysuckle is also medicinal…

I’d keep an eye on those mulberries. Japanese mulberries are grown not to bear fruit, its strictly an ornamental, hope you don't have any of those. Also, there are several tree species out there that are male and female. In other words, you have to have both to get fruit. Mulberries are one of them. Hopefully you don’t have all female or all male trees.

Persimmon is another species that require both male and female trees. The males produce blooms/pollen and the females bear fruit.
 
What to do with.... Acorns!
There simply must be a way to make biodiesel with them since they have such high caloric contentgaah.
If there is, I should be able to fuel a fleet of semi's after the apocalypselightbulb
Get some pigs and use them to make bacon. Our pigs loved acorns.
 
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