Learn how you can use foraged herbs to increase your homestead income!

My husband and I moved from New York to Georgia in 1991 to live on a 7-acre farm, if that’s what you would call it. We were no farmers! I wanted a horse farm so we got a couple of horses, a barn, and a small vegetable garden. It stayed that way for years while we worked regular 9 to 5 jobs for other folks until we had our son when I began to work part-time jobs on and off.

Eventually, I decided to open a horse tack store and go into business for myself. That was a good goal, right? It lasted all of 4 years because the economy started to tank about 2009. People no longer wanted to purchase tack, they were selling their horses just to pay their bills!

Creating Our Homestead Income

My good friend and seasoned homesteader, Cyndi, encouraged me to work from home, from my “farm.” We now had chickens, sometimes a cow or two, and, at one time, a couple of goats but I was still not a typical farmer. She made me realize that I was, instead, a homesteader, and could use my new skills to make money from my homestead. I could bake bread, teach riding lessons, sell eggs, and make herbal remedies. I needed to learn more and so I did! I wanted to add value to my little homestead business and make a real living doing so.

A decade later, we acquired more land to make our farm 24 acres. We put it into conservation so that we could save money on our property taxes. Now, I finally started adding value to my homestead by teaching classes on foraging, identifying mushrooms, growing mushrooms, baking, herbalism, and more.

How Can You Create Income on Your homestead

Now let’s talk about how you can do this, how you can think out of the box and grow crops and animals to create products with your surplus or teach what you know. For example, how about if you turned a $10 pound of greens into several products that would increase your $10 to $50 or even $100?

Here are questions to ask yourself:

What do you grow or raise right now? Make a list.

What do you do with your extra vegetables, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, meats, and dairy?

If you are a farmer or offer a CSA, do you utilize your wild weeds, flowers, and mushrooms? If not, why?

Foraging Herbs like chickweed to add to your homestead income

Foraging from the wild can add an incredible amount of food to your homestead, your CSA basket, and your natural beauty products.

One common wild weed that can make an array of value-added products is chickweed (Stellaria media). It was my gateway herb. I dreamed and prayed for this little herb and it is now everywhere on my farm. Stellaria means little star as the flower looks like a star with 10 petals but actually has only 5 when you look closely. Shallow-rooted chickweed is a very juicy plant with opposite leaves and is nutritious and helpful for skin conditions. Cost-free!

Here are a few ideas showcasing how you can use chickweed to add value to your homestead offerings:

Sell fresh as salad greens
Make smoothies or fresh juice at the farmer’s market
Add to breads, biscuits etc.
Make pesto kits with chickweed, sunflower seeds, salt, nutritional yeast, garlic clove – the customer adds olive oil
Make the fresh pesto to sell, it freezes well (Recipe below)
Dry and add to tea blends or seasoning blends
Infuse to make an oil that can be used as is, in a lotion, a salve, or soap

Cost Analysis of Chickweed Salves

3 cups chickweed, $0
4 cups of olive oil, $8
5-6 ounces beeswax, $5
16 – 2 ounce screw top tins, $16.
Approximately 130 total drops of essential oil, $4 varies.
Labels, $5
Total = $38 plus time

If you made 16 tins and sold them for $10 each, you made $160.

Any excess of greens, wild or cultivated, such as kale, spinach, collards, or nettles, can be dehydrated and mixed with sea salt to make seasoned salts or mixed with spices to create a rub, taco seasoning, or salad dressing. Just a note here, when you dehydrate your massive amount of greens and powder it, you may be shocked to see how little it is. But just one teaspoon of powdered kale equals one full cup of fresh kale.

Legalities of Selling Value Added Products Like Chickweed pesto

Depending on where you live, you may need a special license, permit, or insurance for your value-added product. Start by asking your farmers market manager. If they don’t have the answers, ask another market or your department of agriculture. If you are selling food products that are not in their raw form, most likely a cottage food license will need to be applied for. In the case of “prepared” foods like pesto, salsa, and dips a food service license will be needed or it can be prepared in a shared kitchen where you pay a yearly membership and per-use rental fee.

Salves, Soaps, Etc.

For salves, soaps, or any topical product, as long as there is no medical claim on the packaging, you do not need any special license. I do recommend product insurance for topical products. If you are already a farmer and have a farm policy, ask your agent, a product rider can be added to it for about $300 per year.

Marketing Mushrooms

As a Certified Wild Mushroom Forager, there are times I have an abundance of mushrooms, more than I can sell! Chanterelle mushrooms get turned into Teriyaki Mushroom Jerky, Brandied Chanterelles that are water bath canned, and Chanterelle Peach Jam.

Chickweed Pesto

Ingredients

2 cups fresh chickweed
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 TBS Raw Sunflower Seeds
2 TBS Nutritional Yeast or Parmesan
2 Cloves Fresh Garlic
1/4 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Lemon Juice

Instructions

Mix everything in a food processor. Pulse until desired consistency. Keep refrigerated or freeze.

Get out there, get those creative juices flowing, and make yourself value-added!

Anne-Marie Bilella is the Forager Chick at Bella Vista Farm in Georgia. She is certified as an Herbalist, Wild Mushroom Forager and Seller and instructor for the Wild Mushroom Safety Course with Mushroom Mountain. Anne-Marie creates products with her Forager Chick line and teaches homesteaders and preppers about herbal medicine, medicinal mushrooms, and wild plant identification in person and online at the forager-chicks.teachable.com school. She is a homesteader, author of Wild Eating with the Forager Chicks and Forager Chick’s Wild Mushroom Journal, writes a blog, and has written articles for Aroma Culture Magazine and for Mother Earth News – Herbal Living blog. Find her online at www.foragerchick.com on IG @foragerchick on YouTube @foragerchick