How to harvest Echinacea and make an Echinacea Tincture

With Fall upon us it becomes that time to harvest.

I just love the harvest season.

I plant and cultivate all summer long, wait patiently for the plants to come forth with their blooms and and strong root system.

One of my favorite herbs is Echinacea.

Echinacea has been a staple in our home for over 26 years. We use it for colds and flu every year.

We have always bought our herb from a reputable online company and we make our own capsules.

But, 5 years ago I decided to plant Echinacea with the goal of someday harvesting it.

Well, as you know years go by and it doesn't get done.

Until this year. I MADE myself go out to the garden and dig up about 30 stalks. I have over 300.

I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out or how many stalks I would need to make a quart of tincture.

After wrestling with the roots and my shovel (about 30 minutes) I decided that would be plenty and I would get more if I needed.

Working with my daughter, I rinsed the roots with the hose sprayer. I passed them to her and she clipped the leaves and roots off and put them in our basket.

When everything was washed we brought them in the house.

We managed to LOSE all the pictures of this part of the process......ugghhhh!

But we do have them from the chopping stage.

Here goes:

This has been chopped off the stalk. This is VERY dirty. Do the washing outside, but when you have a big clump like this....you will cut in half and realize there are rocks and more mud inside that you didn't even touch with the hose. So...please wash again...you don't want dirt in your tincture. 

 Wash all the leaves...they should be green, not yellow. Then chop and set aside. 

Add to jar with chopped roots and layer. Compact down as much as you can. 

Add 95% proof Vodka all the way to top and seal. Put in a dark place and shake once a day. This will be ready for straining in about 8 weeks. The longer it sits the stronger it will be. 

When our 8 week time is up I will post the finished product! 

Share you favorite tincture recipe. We'd love to hear from you!

Canning Tomatoes, Making Echinacea, Home-made Pizza

We do most everything here by scratch.  Someone walked into my pantry  and said…”Wow, you hardly have any food in here!”

Really…I did, just not the typical boxed food you will find.  Most of my food comes from my bountiful summer garden or from the co-op in large bags and then put in food grade buckets on the floor of my new pantry.

During harvest season we put up (another word for canned…for all you city folk!)  our tomatoes.  So far we have 90 quarts of tomato sauce.  With about 20 more on the way.

Does that look like gold to you? Red gold? I just can’t get enough of lookin’ at these sweet red jars of nutrition…. Makes me wanna smile all day…

 

After we finished our liquid red gold project we moved onto the herbal gold….Echinacea.

We use this wonderful herb for soooo many health issues…cold and flu being the most.

My littlest chick has the job of separating the capsules (which I get from www.bulkherbstore.com) and filling them into my herb filler…can’t remember the technical word for that contraption at the moment.

After she gets the Echinacea or any other herb I may need to encapsulate….into the capsules, she puts their tops on and labels the jar and seals for future use.

We make about 100 capsules at time and keep the dried herb in the freezer to retain freshness.

 

Then after all that hard work of taking care of our family with liquid red gold and herbal health…we celebrate!  The Farmhouse Baker made us 2 delicious homemade pizzas. One was a tomato and spinach pizza with Asagio cheese…the other one tomato and broccoli….and yes my kids like their veggies….except green peppers…could it be any wonder? I don’t like green peppers…they truly eat the way mama hen eats. (except for the swamp smoothies…hee-hee)

 

What kind of healthy livin’ goes on in your home?

 

Farmhouse Chicks

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