Tyrone, alls I can say is this place smells wonderful.

(Peggy laughs) >>Thank you, thank you.

A little piece of the farm here.

>>Yes, they do.

So what do you have for us here?

>>So we brought some herbs from the farm.

We have some mint, we have some rosemary, some echinacea, some lemon balm, some sage.

Just clipped some herbs from the farm that we use for our bouquets in a bottle.

>>Oh, bouquets in a bottle.

So how do you put that together?

>>So the first thing is repurposed bottles.

>>Mm-hm, excellent.

>>You know, definitely can just repurpose that from home, from a bottle that you used at home.

We developed a relationship with a local hotel in Petersburg.

So we receive their bottles.

>>Excellent.

>>So it turns into the community, you know, being able to contribute to that.

And you start off with your bottle.

We like to recommend using rainwater.

That's the only water that we use with our plants.

It's the most nutrient dense.

So rainwater.

And then I tell the little lights that come to the farm to choose the herbs that are choosing them.

So if the echinacea is getting your attention, it's attracting you 'cause of the color, go ahead and clip you some.

>>Yeah, go ahead.

>>Take the leaves off, throw it in the rainwater, give it a little drink, and then see what else is talking to you.

So before I got here today, what was talking to me was the sage and the sweet mint.

That's probably what you smell now.

As well as a little bit of lemon balm.

>>Love lemon balm, yes, yes.

>>Yeah, yeah.

So once you clip those, you've got the leaves removed from the bottom of those, you can go ahead and place them in your bottle and you've got a bouquet in a bottle.

>>Nice and quick and easy and not complicated.

>>Super simple, yeah.

>>And it's gonna last a long time.

>>Exactly.

Yep, I tell the youth, like, the things with, like, the sage and the mint, you get them going in this rainwater, they'll start growing roots and now you can start your own plant as well.

>>Easy to propagate.

>>There you go.

>>Pretty and useful, we'll say.

>>Yeah.

>>But what else can you do with the herbs?

>>So I'm working with youth, right?

And all kids like to eat, you know, like to drink.

And we're trying to encourage them to do it in a healthy way.

So after we experience them through the smell and the sight and maybe even watching, like, the pollinators do their thing with it, we talk about how they can use it at home.

So, and the best way for that is infusions.

It could be something as simple as pulling some mint leaves off and throwing them in your bottled water or your water at home.

Or it could be making an actual tisane or a tea, right?

So grabbing two or three tablespoons of fresh herbs, boiling some water.

I tell the youth we're looking for fish eyes, not fish eggs.

So when those bubbles come in that water, you want the real big bubbles.

Once you got that, you put your herbs, your leaves, inside of your pot or inside of your cup, pour that hot water over, let it steep for at least five minutes, let it sit for at least five minutes.

The longer, the stronger.

So the longer you let it go, the stronger the infusion will be.

And then after that, you enjoy it.

>>Sounds great.

Now, here we have some dried herbs.

And so, here, I'll take the bottle, yeah, and I'll swap you that.

>>Yeah, that's actually for you.

>>Thank you.

Isn't it lovely?

So with the dried herbs, how is that different from the fresh herbs then to be able to make an infusion?

>>Good question.

So it doesn't take as much.

So with the fresh herbs, we're probably going for like two or three teaspoons to make a cup of tea, to make a batch of tea.

With the dried herbs, it's only gonna take you about a teaspoon.

>>Ah.

>>Right?

So I brought some of the fresh just to, you know, show you what they look like once you've clipped it.

And what we teach the youth to do is, you know, strip the bottom leaves off just like when you're making the bottle, the bouquet in a bottle.

And then what we do is we wrap, you know, when I first started, a shoestring.

I would wrap a shoestring around here, put a thumbtack up on the wall, hang it up.

You just wanna keep it out of direct sunlight.

Once you do that, all the energy will go to the leaves, 'cause that's what we're trying to store, the energy.

The energy will go to the leaves, they'll dry out, and before you know it, you'll have something, you'll have dried herbs.

>>Yeah, and what people don't realize is because the moisture is, of course, leaves of the plant, you have nothing but the concentrated oils that are left.

>>Exactly.

>>So you don't need as much dried as you do fresh.

>>Sure.

>>So, yes, very, very good.

Now, finally, though, we have another one that I'd like to share.

>>Yeah.

>>So we've got another little project you can use with these herbs that I think most people don't think about.

So let me swap this out with you.

>>No problem.

>>And where do you wanna start?

>>So this is our JADAM liquid fertilizer.

The way that we teach the youth to do this, we're all about regenerative agriculture.

We're all about saving money.

We're all about supporting the environment.

So when the kids come to the farm and they're talking about weeds, we tell them that there's no such thing as a weed.

Just might be something that we didn't plan on growing.

So those things that maybe we didn't plan on growing or those things that are done growing, we could use those to make liquid fertilizers.

So I grabbed some of the herbs that we weren't gonna use for the bouquet.

We've got some lettuce here, some kale here that we didn't feed to the chickens.

So if we put those in a bucket with rainwater and then we add a little bit of leaf mold, about a handful of leaf mold, and that's super simple to get.

Move some leaves out the way.

You'll see the white.

Throw it in there with that rainwater and your green material, let it sit for a week, you have a liquid fertilizer.

And every week after that, it gets stronger.

>>Excellent.

Do you just keep adding rainwater as you use it?

Do you keep adding herbs?

How do you keep perpetuating that?

>>So what you're, honestly, these things keep growing.

The weeds keep growing.

And it could be, it could be the grass that you're cutting at your grandma's house.

It could be the chickweed that you're pulling up around your grandma's garden, right?

Any green material.

So we just continue to make more fertilizer, yep.

And that one bucket, that five-gallon bucket, you're gonna cut that, you're gonna dilute it with water, so that goes a long way.

>>Oh, I can only imagine.

And all of that wonderful nutrients that are in that water as well as the microbes.

Because we need to feed our soil with microbes.

>>Exactly.

>>You know, people don't realize that our soil is alive and that it's not just dirt.

>>Exactly.

>>It's actually a living entity, and that biome is so rich.

The richer it is, the better our plants.

Better our plants, better our gardens.

>>Exactly.

It's how it should be.

>>Well, Tyrone, thank you.

>>No worries.

>>I think you've given some people ideas on what they can do with the herbs that they have in their garden, or maybe inspired them to go out and get some herbs to grow on their garden.

That would be great.

>>Yeah, yeah.