{"id":156,"date":"2022-07-16T19:05:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T19:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/?p=156"},"modified":"2022-09-11T17:45:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T17:45:08","slug":"week-3-comfrey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/week-3-comfrey\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 3: Comfrey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Learning Highlights<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Harvesting comfrey<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This week marked the end of the lemon balm processing, which meant we were finally able to move on to the comfrey fields. It was way past the desired harvest point for the comfrey, a lot of the plants were molding or beginning to send out flowers, so this harvest was more about speed than about getting every single plant. Using harvest knives, we grabbed handfuls of leaves at a time, chopping at the base and picking out any moldy leaves or flower stalks. Mold is obviously undesirable when creating a medicinal product so it was important that we picked these leaves out while harvesting as it would be harder to distinguish once the plant was dried. The flower stalks are undesirable because the plant is sending all of its energy into creating the flowers instead of into the leaves where we want it when creating medicine from comfrey. In the drying room, we also discovered that the thick flower stalks immensely slow down the drying process for comfrey, so a lot of this week was spent sorting the flower stalks out from the desired material as boxes of comfrey were delivered to us in the drying room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Baby snail!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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So many snails in the drying room!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the comfrey harvest was the biggest focus of this week, Moon Valley owners, Kim and Aaron, also wanted us to help with cleaning up around the farm for an event they were hosting Friday evening. I helped to clean the outdoor kitchen, picking up trash and sweeping up piles of dirt, along with miscellaneous weeding around Aaron’s front yard and the production barn. The work week ended with a quick calendula harvest and the spreading of manure in the freshly harvested comfrey fields. We were instructed to spread the manure by hand using buckets, so by the end of the afternoon, we were covered in sweat and manure and were very ready for a restful weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Freshly harvested calendula in my harvest bag<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This week was a big lesson in letting go of perfection. When harvesting comfrey, it was hard for me to focus on getting it done quickly instead of making sure to harvest every leaf. Once I let perfection go, however, the harvesting process went a lot faster. I also feel as if I am really getting in the groove of working in the drying room due to the amount of time I have spent up there and letting go of perfection. Because of the amount of space and time available for drying, the process will never be able to occur perfectly; the best we can do is get things done as efficiently and quickly as possible. I really enjoy this process though, the meditative groove of sorting through fresh or dried plant material, moving the screens around, consolidating plant material to create more space. Working in the drying room never really gets old for me, none of this job does, but the drying room has definitely been the most intriguing and enjoyable part for me. I am super thankful for the opportunity to get to learn and grow there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Relaxing around a fire at the end of a long day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My homemade curry for everyone’s lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning Highlights This week marked the end of the lemon balm processing, which meant we were finally able to move on to the comfrey fields. It was way past the desired harvest point for the comfrey, a lot of the plants were molding or beginning to send out flowers, so this harvest was more about … Continue reading Week 3: Comfrey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/ilc-su22-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}