The Humble Homestead - Dandelions!!

Another aspect of our homesteading adventure is making my own herbal remedies. I really enjoy learning how things in nature can help heal our body. With spring here and our grass growing like crazy, we also have the welcome guests, dandelions! As others are spraying to rid their yards of these “pesky weeds”, we are excited and planning our dandelion harvest! I have been researching a lot about the benefits and uses of this wonderful flower. I have decided on making a tincture with them, since I still don't think my kids will get on board with eating them in a salad or making them into jam quite yet.

When my now five year old was just learning to talk she used to call dandelions “Daniel lions’' and it's one of those memories I will remember forever. Warms my heart and I think of her sweet little voice saying this every time I see dandelions. My kids still like to bring it up and call them Daniel lions from time to time, especially now that our youngest is named Daniel!

Now, I am clearly no medical professional, I just like to research things until my brain hurts, then usually I still do not do anything since I have too much info and get overwhelmed. The tincture I am making now seems pretty simple and hard to screw up, so I'm going for it! It's fun to be able to get the kids involved and they are developing a love for dandelions as well. They get really excited when they see a yard full of them, and they could not wait to get started digging ours up. About every five minutes they asked if they could go start picking and I kept having to remind them we didn't have our vodka yet! This obviously didn't help since they have no clue what vodka is, so there I was continuing to tell them we weren't ready yet over and over and over. It's fun to see them so excited about something so simple and new that we are trying, even if it is them just trying to get out of their regular school work. Working on our homestead is also just as important to me as their other school work, I love when we can have a hands on learning experience!

This is just based on the research I have done, feel free to look into it more yourselves, just don't rely solely on what I say. Remember, I'm a homeschooling mom of five, running on little sleep and doing research in between moments of chaos so as you read this information take it with a grain of salt.. Things I have learned about dandelions;

• Dandelions contain a variety of vitamins and minerals

  • Iron

  • Zinc

  • Calcium

  • Potassium

  • Vitamins A, B complex, C and D

They contain many other nutritious qualities, being known as a detoxifying herb, they can be used for lethargic/sluggish conditions. Great for gut health, skin conditions, urinary problems, kidney/liver function and to reduce blood pressure. From the leaves and flower all the way down to the root, every part of the dandelion can be used for a variety of different health benefits. People eat them in salads, make jams, teas, and syrups with them, among other things..

Now that we know a little about the benefits, let's get out there and forage for dandelions! We are trying to get the full root, but the little ones are picking just the stem, which is fine with me. Added bonus; to our neighbors it would appear we are just taking great care of our lawn! The kids had a great time finding a variety of different looking dandelions, some that grew multiple flowers 'stuck together'. They wanted to collect them all but ultimately we decided we were too hot and tired and needed to be done. We may have gotten a little distracted weeding a garden bed from time to time.

We weren't able to get too much of the root, but I think it will be just fine.

*UPDATE* I received some tips on using this handy weeding tool, it definitely would have come in handy!

Now we will be cleaning all the dirt and bugs off. I also let them soak in a bowl with salt water.

Left them to dry for a bit, while switching kids closets to different rooms and pulling out summer clothes.. Phew!

Chopped them up and stuffed them into the jars.

We then add our vodka. I haven't bought vodka in a while so we had to make a special trip. Kevin was a little disappointed when he ran in to grab it and they didnt card him.

I put wax paper under the lid since I read somewhere to do that…

Wrote the date on top and when it will be ready in six weeks.

Put them away in my pantry and I will shake them up periodically. I saved our supplement bottles to put the tincture in when it's ready.

In six weeks I will pull them out and strain into a bowl. Then put it into the bottles with the little dropper. Next step is to start using our homemade tincture!

I'm not quite sure how we will use the tincture yet, but I am still doing my research and learning so much! For sure we will be trying it out for the occasional heartburn and possibly daily for skin care. I will have a follow up post on how it turned out and what we are using it for at some point.

If you have made this tincture before and use it, I would love to hear about it. Also if you have any other tinctures that I should try, please share!

~ A "Daniel lion" Mom