Lemon Balm

Melissa officinalis, or better known as Lemon Balm, is a refreshing herb largely overlooked! With its mild lemon flavor and many medicinal properties, this little jewel warrants inclusion in your garden. 

Lemon Balm aids in digestion problems- upset stomach, bloating, vomiting, colic; pain relief- headache, toothache; and has a calming effect that is good for- anxiety, restlessness, sleep disorder, nervousness...and the list goes on, to include high blood pressure, tumors, and insect bites.

On these hot summer days, what's better than some refreshing ice tea! This time I made my ice tea with Lemon Balm! 

It's easy to make...but beware, it doesn't last long! First, heat up hot water on the stove, while it's heating up go grab a handful of Lemon Balm. Rinse the leaves and steep them in the hot water for 5-10 minutes. 

You can use a tea infuser to hold your leaves, but I just toss them in loose. 

Discard the leaves, add sweetener (with sugar or honey), and enjoy either hot or cold! 

Enjoy!

This was shared at The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, The Creative HomeAcre Hop, and what i am eating!

-Live Simple, Be Happy- 

Magnolia Holler

Bee n Garden Updates

It's been three weeks since we received our first bee hive; and we've preformed three inspections.

1. The first inspection we didn't see the Queen, however she was out of her queen cage and we found eggs in the burr comb (or wild comb, the comb bees make not on the frames)! That was not only exciting but promising. Though, we did found many (like close to 100) dead bees in the hive top feeder...so that's a mystery!
2. Just before the second inspection I saw hords of ants entering and exiting the hive! I was so worried for our girls. I also found lots of dead bees immediatly in front of the hive. However, during the second inspection all looked good, we saw the Queen, and they had drawn out three frames.
3. Then we had all that rain! Which I'm sure wasn't good for our colony. Yesterday we performed our third inspection and found several adult small hive beetles (SHB) and their larva! We saw the Queen, though no larva or capped brood. We think the SHB larva must have ate them! Now I'm very concerned!

Fingerscrossed they're strong enough to survive until the first batch of bee eggs hatch, which will not be at least 3 weeks!

Now on to a more positive topic! Our Garden...
Though our garden has been a bit neglected, it grows! This is the Traditional row garden, with Potatoes (far left), tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans, winter squash, and cucumbers. Also mixed in are a few herbs and flowers (basil and calendula).

Surprisingly our Eggplant, which had a terrible Flea Beetle problem, is producing fruit! And I may have found a solution to the flea beetles -- 1 cup fresh lemon juice, pulp and seeds strained; mixed with 1/4 cup water. Put in spray bottle and spray leaves liberally! So far, they're staying off!

All of our tomato plants are blooming, and one is already producing tiny fruit -- Mortgage Lifter!

The peppers are blooming, and the Cherry Pepper is producing tiny fruit!

The lettuce is holding strong! Our favorite is the Crisp Mint, and by cutting it back to about 2-inches, it'll grow back! (And we have a little friend protecting it too!)

The snap peas are blooming!

Baby Boo pumpkins not only have blossoms, but have female blossoms!

And my son has found several toads around the yard, so we transplant them all to the garden!

How is your garden growing?

This was shared at The Country Homemaker Hop and Share Your Cup Thursday!
-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler

Clover, a hidden jewel!

Many of us, myself included, always thought of clover as a weed.
Recently, watching how much our bees LOVE it, I started finding out more about it...yes, it's good for the garden by putting nitrogen back into the soil. But, did you know it's also full of sweet honey-like flavor? I had to try jelly...

I needed two cups of flower heads...so I enlisted my husband and sons help. (The white clover is much smaller than the red clover flower. We picked both, but didn't mix them. Two separate batches.)
Red clover flowers. (Isn't it funny that these are called "red" clover, yet they're actually purple...)
Next, I steeped them in two cups hot water overnight. (I covered the bowl with cheese cloth, to let a little air in, and my cats out!
The next morning I strained the mixture, with the cheese cloth, and squeezed as much water out of the flowers as possible! Hoping for as close to two cups as possible, adding water to reach it if needed (but I didn't need to).
I was left with a pretty mucky looking liquid. I froze the white clover liquid, to be turned into jelly at a later date. And I used the red clover liquid for my first batch.
 The recipe I followed called for four tablespoons lemon juice; (it was good, but next time I'll probably try only two.) And interesting...when I added it, the liquid turned a beautiful soft pink color! Amazing...

I added one packet pectin and four cups of sugar. Processing as usual.

I ended up with a beautiful jelly! Tasty too. Not too sweet...perfect!

Do y'all have a yard overrun with clover? Don't overlook this precious jewel!

This was shared at the Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, From the Farm Blog Hop, The Country Homemaker Hop, and Share Your Cup Thursday!

-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler

A wonderful surprise...the mulberry!

We found a mulberry tree in the back, however it's never produced fruit so we thought it a male. Many Mulberry species are dioecious, which means their is a male and female tree, and you need both within a certain distance in order to produce fruit.


Just last week we were talking about taking it down, it is partially dead and grew very high (almost too high for berry harvest).

Well, much to my surprise (and enjoyment) I found berries on it this year! It is a female! There aren't too many, not nearly enough for jam...but just enough for teasing the taste bud! I picked a few ripe ones to sample! They are lightly sweet, and perfect for eating fresh!


Now we're debating pruning it this winter and trying to revive it. Or still taking it down and planting new ones, which we can control the height...decisions, decisions!

-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler

Breaking Ground

My husband is building us a new garage! WooHoo!
So first the old one had to go...


This is the old one, and the site of the new one! (Above)


Demo of the old one.


Progress so far...
And now we have all this rain!

-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler

First harvest of 2013

We had our first harvest of 2013...lettuce and radishes!

They were peaking out at me, like Easter eggs hidden in the garden! (Now I know where they got their name from!)


And my husband doesn't like radishes, but he said these were pretty tasty!


The lettuce needed to be thinned...so why not have a salad!


Have you harvested anything from the garden yet?

-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler

Eggplant and Flea Beetles

HELP! The flea beetles are eating my eggplants!


Im declaring war! I've tried several things...
1) Plain soapy water
2) Cayenne Pepper and soapy water spray
3) Diatomaceous Earth (DE)
4) Crushed mint leaves

The only thing, so far, that has seemed to work (other than the DE, but it washes off with rain, and I worry about our bees), is the crushed mint. That worked instantly, however, only about 12-hrs. I was thinking about making a soapy water and mint spray to see if that does the trick.

Do you have any tricks to deter this pesky little guy?


-Live Simple, Be Happy-
Magnolia Holler