Milpa is a crop-growing system used throughout Mesoamerica. It has been most extensively described in the Yucatán peninsula area of Mexico. The word milpa is a Mexican Spanish term meaning “field,” and is derived from the Nahuatl word phrase mil-pa “to the field” (Nahuatl mil-li “field” + -pa “towards”). Based on the ancient agricultural methods of Maya peoples and other Mesoamerican peoples, milpa agriculture produces maize, beans, lima beans and squash. The milpa cycle calls for 2 years of cultivation and eight years of letting the area lie fallow. Agronomists point out that the system is designed to create relatively large yields of food crops without the use of artificial pesticides or fertilizers, and they point out that while it is self-sustaining at current levels of consumption, there is a danger that at more intensive levels of cultivation the milpa system can become unsustainable.

The word is also used for a small field, especially in Mexico or Central America, that is cleared from the jungle, cropped for a few seasons, and then abandoned for a fresh clearing.

Charles C. Mann described milpa agriculture as follows, in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Knopf, 2005, pp. 197-198):

“A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jícama, amaranth, and mucana…. Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin;…. Beans have both lysine and tryptophan…. Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; avocados, fats. The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, “is one of the most successful human inventions ever created.”

It should be noted that the concept of milpa is a sociocultural construct rather than simply a system of agriculture. It involves complex interactions and relationships between farmers, as well as distinct personal relationships with both the crops and land. For example, it has been noted that “the making of milpa is the central, most sacred act, one which binds together the family, the community, the universe…[it] forms the core institution of Indian society in Mesoamerica and its religious and social importance often appear to exceed its nutritional and economic importance.”^[1]

from the El Pilar Forest Garden Network:

Home to the advanced ancient culture the Maya, humans have lived under the majestic canopy of the Maya Forest for thousands of years, influencing the forest as we know it today.

We often think of the rainforest as untouched by humans, or “virgin forest.” In reality, it can be understood as the garden of the ancient Maya: the product of millennia of management by forest gardeners who cultivated the cycle of milpa, forest garden, and forest. In fact, 90% of plants in the forest are useful to humans, indicating considerable human influence. The Maya Forest remains the second most biodiverse place in the world (the Amazon forest is the first). The legacy of the ancient Maya forest gardeners is continued by the Maya farmers of the El Pilar Forest Garden Network.

Alfonso Tzul, a modern Maya farmer and retired agricultural extension officer, describes how forest gardens came to be: “God created plants and animals and the world around us. Trees grew in the forest, seeds spread, birds sang, and animals flourished. All was already there. Man came along and preferred this plant, favored that seed, enjoyed those birds, and supported those animals, creating and using the forest as a garden to sustain those plants and animals. The job of the forest gardener is to manage the forest by adding, removing and nurturing plants, to make sure that certain species grow where they will be most viable.”

The milpa cycle is the conservation method of farming and managing the Maya forest. It goes through four main stages over the course of approximately 20 years: from the forest to the milpa; from the milpa to the forest garden; and from the forest garden back to the forest.
The traditional milpa and forest garden is an unplowed, multi-crop field that sustains biodiversity and animal habitat while producing plants for food, spice, shelter, medicine, ornament and profit. It can be fertilized by household refuse (compost), organic material (dead weeds), ashes from kitchen fires, and manure, enriching the soil and increasing productivity without the use of chemically manufactured fertilizer.

STAGE 1: From the Forest to the Milpa
In the first stage of the milpa, a piece of forest is cleared of trees, and then burned to prepare for planting. For the first two to three years the Mesoamerican trilogy of maize, beans, and squash are cultivated in the full sun. Amidst this low canopy of maize is a dynamic ecology of herbs, tubers, and other plants that we might consider weeds, but are actually cultivated by the forest gardener to detract pests from the main crops, enhance the soil with nutrients, and help maintain moisture in the ground.

STAGE 2: From the Milpa to the Forest Garden
In the second stage, the milpa evolves into the forest garden. Quick-yielding fruit trees, like plantain, banana, and papaya, are planted and begin to produce within a year. Fruit trees that need more time to produce, such as avocado, mango, citrus, allspice, guava, cherimoya, ramón, and others are planted amidst the maize, beans, and squash to bear fruit in five years.

STAGE 3: From the Forest Garden to the Forest
In the third stage, the fruit trees mature and begin to produce. The fruit trees provide a new canopy, blocking the sun and inhibiting undergrowth. Maize, beans, and squash are no longer viable in the shade. Amidst the fruit tree canopy, hardwoods, such as cedar and mahogany, are planted to mature over the next decades.

STAGE 4: Forest Regeneration
In stage four of the milpa cycle; the forest garden is transformed into a hardwood forest. The hardwoods rise above the fruit trees to create a high canopy. The milpa has now regenerated to look much like it did before the forest gardener cleared and burned it two decades earlier. It is now a managed forest with little to no undergrowth. The forest gardener will let the hardwood trees grow and mature. He or she can harvest the trees for personal use or sell them when they again clear, burn, and plant the field. The cycle of the milpa begins again.

It is a trailing plant, growing to a maximum of 40 cm in length, but mature plants can be as small as 1 cm. The cotyledons are usually bright green (rarely purplish or brownish-green), succulent, long and narrow. The first true leaves form a rosette at the base of the plant, and are 0.5-4 cm long, with an often long petiole (exceptionally up to 20 cm long). The small pink or white flowers
have five petals 2-6 mm long; they appear from February to May or June,
and are grouped 5-40 together above a pair of leaves that are united
together around the stem to appear as one circular leaf. Mature plants
have numerous erect to spreading stems that branch from the base.

It is common in the spring, and it prefers cool, damp conditions. It
first appears in sunlit areas after the first heavy rains. Though, the
best stands are found in shaded areas, especially in the uplands, into
the early summer. As the days get hotter, the leaves turn a deep red
color as they dry out.

Highly variable; subspp. difficult because of environmental
plasticity, genetic mixing among polyploids, and geog overlap of
distinct, self-pollinating forms.

There are three ill-defined geographical subspecies:

• Claytonia perfoliata subsp. perfoliata: Pacific coastal United States and southwest Canada
• Claytonia perfoliata subsp. intermontana: interior western United States
• Claytonia perfoliata subsp. mexicana: coastal southern California and Arizona south through Mexico to Guatemala
• Claytonia perfoliata subsp. utahensis: recognised as local subspecies in Utah.

Uses

The common name Miner’s lettuce refers its use by California gold rush miners who ate it to get their vitamin C to prevent scurvy. It can be eaten as a leaf vegetable. Most commonly it is eaten raw in salads, but it is not quite as delicate as other lettuce. Sometimes it is boiled like spinach, which it resembles in taste.

It is widely naturalized in western Europe, where it was introduced in 1749.

Other Names : Sweet Clover, Yellow Melilot,
White Melilot, Corn Melilot, King’s Clover, Plaster Clover, Sweet
Lucerne, Wild Laburnum, Hart’s Tree, Hart’s Clover, Ribbed Melilot.

Family : Fabaceae

sources: wikipedia:Melilotus officinalis , herbalclinic , Plants for a Future

General Properties

The name of
this genus comes from the words Mel (honey) and lotus, a term for
clover-like plants. There are four common species in this genus of
Eurasian origins: Melilotus alba, M. indica, M. officinalis, and M.
altissimus. The Melilots (Sweet Clovers) were formerly known as Melilot
Trefoils and assigned, with the common clovers, to the large genus
Trifolium, but now are grouped in the genus Melilotus.

Description:
Yellow sweet clover; biennial herb; 2 to 4 feet high at maturity;
2nd-year plants are bushy. The smooth, erect stems are loosely
branched. The leaves placed on alternate sides of the stems are smooth
and trifoliate, the leaflets oval. The plants bear long racemes of
small, sweet-scented, yellow or white, papilionaceous flowers in the
yellow species, the keel of the flower much shorter than the other
parts and containing much honey. It flowers from May to August. Broad,
black pods, transversely wrinkled, each pod containing 1 to 4 seeds,
ripening in July-September succeed them. All species of Melilot, when
in flower, have a peculiar sweet scent. The scent becomes stronger and
more pleasant upon drying, somewhat like that of the Tonka bean. This
similarity comes because they contain the same chemical principle,
coumarin, which is also present in new-mown hay.

Melilot seems to have
been a very common crop in the sixteenth century, seeding freely and
spreading in a wild condition wherever grown. A new kind of Sweet
Clover, an annual variety of M. alba, has been discovered in the United
States. To distinguish it from the other Sweet Clovers, it is called
Hubam, after Professor Hughes, its discoverer, and Alabama, its native
state. Some five or six years ago, small samples were distributed by
Professor Hughes among various experimental stations, with the result
that the superiority of the plant has been generally recognized and its
spread has been rapid, over 5,000 acres now being cultivated. The plant
has especially valuable characteristics – great resistance to drought,
adaptability to a wide variety of soils and climates, abundant seed
production, richness in nectar and great fertilizing value to the soil,
and has been grown successfully in the United States, Canada,
Australia, Italy, and many other countries. The quantity of forage
produced from a given acre is second to no other forage plant, and the
quality, if properly handled, is excellent. It is of very quick growth
and blooms in three to four months after sowing, producing an unusual
wealth of honey-making blooms. The flowers remain in bloom for a longer
period than almost any other honey-bearing plant, and in the matter of
nectar production it is equal to that of any other honey produced in
the United States, and the quality compares favorably with the best
honey produced. It is considered that this annual Sweet Clover will one
day stand at the head of the list of honey plants of the world, if the
present rate of spreading continues.

Habitat: Grows well in
direct sunlight and in partial shade, but it cannot tolerate dense
shade. Common places include roadsides, abandoned fields, railroad
ballasts, pastures and any unflooded, open natural community such as a
prairie. The White Melilot found in waste places in England,
particularly on railway banks, is not uncommon, but apparently not
permanently established in any of its localities. It differs from M.
officinalis by its more slender root and stems, which, however, attain
as great a height, by its more slender and lax racemes and smaller
flowers, which are about 1/5 inch long and white. The standard is
larger than the keel and wings, which alone would distinguish it from
M. officinalis. The pods are smaller and free from the hairs clothing
those of M. officinalis.
Grows with: Other varieties of Clover, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Goldenrod, Tansy and other plants of abandoned fields and pastures.

Plant Uses

Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis) is an introduced
annual or biennial whose root system extends as far down as 20 feet .
In this manner, the plant can serve as both a soil stabilizer and a
dynamic accumulator during the early years of a young forest garden.
This plant is often used in organic agriculture rotations as a cover
crop. It can also be used in combination with a fast-growing grain crop
for livestock feed over winter months.

This plant must
be allowed to flower if you wish to keep it on the lawn. It can be cut
regularly until early summer but would then have to be left uncut until
it had set seed. It could grow up to four feet tall so you may decide
not to put it in the lawn. Nevertheless, its flowers are very
attractive to bees, its leaves can be eaten in salads, and its flowers
and seeds cooked with other vegetables. You could mow it regularly to
prevent flowering of course, and sow fresh seeds every year.

Edible Uses

Root. Consumed as a food by the Kalmuks.
Young shoots – cooked. Used like asparagus. Young leaves are eaten
in salads. The leaves and seedpods are cooked as a vegetable. They are used as a flavouring. Only fresh leaves should be
used, see the notes above on toxicity.
The crushed dried leaves can be used as a vanilla flavouring in
puddings, pastries etc. Caution is advised, see the
notes above on toxicity.
Flowers – raw or cooked. The flowers and seeds are used as a
flavouring. The flowers also give an aromatic quality to some
tisanes.

Edible Parts : Seedpod, Root, Leaves, Flowers

Edible Applications : Condiment

Medicinal Uses

Key Words: Antispasmodic, Aromatic, Carminative, Diuretic, Emollient, Expectorant, Ophthalmic, Vulnerary

Melilot, used either externally or internally, can help treat
varicose veins and haemorrhoids though it requires a long-term
treatment for the effect to be realised. Use of the plant also
helps to reduce the risk of phlebitis and thrombosis. Melilot
contains coumarins and, as the plant dries or spoils, these become
converted to dicoumarol, a powerful anticoagulant. Thus the plant
should be used with some caution, it should not be prescribed to
patients with a history of poor blood clotting or who are taking
warfarin medication. See also the notes above on toxicity.
The flowering plant is antispasmodic, aromatic, carminative, diuretic,
emollient, mildly expectorant, mildly sedative and vulnerary. An infusion is used in the treatment of
sleeplessness, nervous tension, neuralgia, palpitations, varicose
veins, painful congestive menstruation, in the prevention of
thrombosis, flatulence and intestinal disorders. Externally, it
is used to treat eye inflammations, rheumatic pains, swollen joints,
severe bruising, boils and erysipelas, whilst a decoction is added to
the bath-water. The flowering plant is harvested in the summer
and can be dried for later use.
A distilled water obtained from the flowering tops is an effective
treatment for conjunctivitis.

Other Uses

Key Words: Green manure, Repellent

The leaves contain coumarin and they release the pleasant smell of
newly mown hay when they are drying. The leaves are dried and used
as an insect repellent, especially in order to repel moths
from clothing. They can be put in pillows, mattresses
etc.
Poorly dried or fermented leaves produce a substance called dicoumarol.
This is a potent anti-coagulant which is extremely poisonous in excess,
it prevents the blood from coagulating and so it is possible to bleed
to death from very small wounds. Dicoumarol is used in rat
poisons.
The plant can be used as a green manure, enriching the soil with
nitrogen as well a providing organic matter.

Heirloom or open pollinated fruit brings our history into the present with flavors and beauty from the past.

Unlike hybrid plants, gardeners can save seeds from heirloom varieties with the assurance that the fruit from each new generation of plants will bear fruit that is similar to the fruit from the past seasons.

New Jersey tea, Redroot

Rhamnaceae (Buckthorn Family)

USDA Symbol: ceam

USDA Native Status: Native to U.S.

New Jersey-tea is a low, upright, deciduous shrub that grows to only 3 ft. tall. Pubescent leaves give the entire plant a grayish cast. Small white flowers occur in 2 in., branch-tip clusters. A low shrub with tiny white flowers in oval clusters rising from the leaf axils on the new shoots. The base is woody, while the upper portion of the plant is made up of herbaceous, spreading branches. Fall color is insignificant.

The dried leaves of this nitrogen-fixing shrub make an excellent tea that was very popular during the Revolutionary War period. Smaller Red-root (C. ovatus), with flowers in a globose cluster and narrower leaves, ranges from Manitoba and western Quebec to western Maine, south to western Georgia, west to Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas. Small-leaved Red-root (C. microphyllus), has tiny leaves, less than 1/2 (1.3 cm) long, and occurs in sandy pine or oak woods in the South.

“Though cucumbers were brought early from the Old World, grown in many a garden, and are mentioned in several eighteenth-century advertisements, nothing is found to be said about varieties until 1806, when M’Mahon, in his Gardener’s Calendar, named eight, all from the Old World. Modern cucumbers gradually evolved from these and other European varieties without planned hybridization, or much selection, until 1872, when Tailby’s hybrid was exhibited. After that, especially from 1880 to the present, much interest has been shown in breeding this vegetable. Most of the kinds now grown by gardeners and truckers have originated since 1900. Modern cucumbers are little like those listed by M’Mahon in 1806.”

B’s Cumber Pages – A Brief History of Cucumbers

Cucumber – Wikipedia

[Caption]. Elecampane. These and other herbs benificial for lungs planted in a patch. also heirloom pumpkin polycultures. get seeds from Baker’s Creek Heirloom Seeds

Mr. Ira Lewis, Harkers Island, NC

Courtesy of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center

LEAF PREPARATION:

Strip the outer, small leaves of the branch
Chop leaves & twigs with hatchet removing any larger twigs
To parch: Heat leaves in medium-to-hot (400 degres) oven in a dry skillet or pan, turning often for about 15 minutes or until leaves turn to light – medium brown color
If leaves start to smoke, remove from heat immediatly.
Remove form oven to cool.

BREWING STAGE:

Add one cup yaupon leaves to 1 to 1 ‡ quarts boiling water.
Cook on low biol until water turns dark amber in color
Remove from heat and strain the mixture into another heat-resistant pitcher
Brewed leaves may be discarded, or used again for a smaller, weaker quantity of tea
Add sugar and / or lemon -to -taste before chilling
Can be drunk hot or cold
Milk may be added to the hot mixture – much like you would drink coffee.

Ilex vomitoria

HISTORY OF YAUPON TEA CONSUMPTION / PRODUCTION:

This tea is made from the Yaupon Holly. The tea-like liquid had been used by the Coree and Poteskeets Indians tribes of the Outer Banks as a sacred drink for rituals and ceremonies and they introduced it to the early settlers. The plant has properties very similar to those of Asian tea and American coffee, including caffeine. It was dried out in hollow cypress stumps (or logs) and stored in dry form; also was stored in a liquid form. When consumed in large amounts, it acts as an emetic (or and internal cleansing agent). It had been claimed by some that it would help a nursing mother have more milk for her baby. Early settlers used it as a tea substitute. Folks in the Outer Banks area continued to use it, especially when times were hard (during war-time, the Depression, etc. when regular tea or coffee was hard to come by). Kinnakeet became the yaupon-producing region of the Outer Banks and exported it to cities north. It was also introduced in some European countries (continuing as late as the early – mid 1800′s). Banks residents continued to use it until the mid-1900′s.

John Lawson’s 1709 account of Yaupon in Carolina

This Plant is the Indian Tea, us’d and approv’d by all the Savages on the Coast of Carolina, and from them sent to the Westward Indians,
and sold at a considerable Price. All which they cure after the same
way, as they do for themselves; which is thus:

They take this Plant (not only the Leaves, but the smaller Twigs along with them) and bruise
it in a Mortar, till it becomes blackish, the Leaf being wholly
defaced: Then they take it out, put it into one of their earthen Pots
which is over the Fire, till it smoaks; stirring it all the time, till
it is cur’d.

Others take it, after it is bruis’d, and put it into a
Bowl, to which they put live Coals, and cover them with the Yaupon,
till they have done smoaking, often turning them over. After all, theyspread it upon their Mats, and dry it in the Sun to keep it for Use.

The Spaniards in New-Spain have this Plant very plentifully on the Coast of Florida, and hold it in great Esteem. Sometimes they cure it as the Indians
do; or else beat it to a Powder, so mix it, as Coffee; yet before they
drink it, they filter the same. They prefer it above all Liquids, to
drink with Physick, to carry the same safely and speedily thro’ the
Passages, for which it is admirable, as I myself have experimented.

[Caption]

StokesCORE : a non-profit community organization based in Stokes County, North Carolina developed by dedicated volunteers, partner organizations, and a small professional staff.

During its first 3 years it has provided financial and technical support to a variety of community enterprises.
Originally conceived to become a community foundation, StokesCORE is currently emphasizing development of the underlying social infrastructure of is region on its path to becoming a sustainable community resource.

a nonprofit organization whose mission is the economic revitalization
of Stokes County from the ground up — by building on its natural resources
and its creative and hard-working people.

Formed in 2002 by the Snow Hill United Methodist Church in Lawsonville, and supported since that time
by the Duke Endowment, StokesCORE has joined with other partners in the
County to begin a grassroots movement to jumpstart a slumping economy,
and to seek new ways to create incomes and business opportunities for
many who are being left behind by the irreversible exodus of tobacco.

To help fill this economic gap, StokesCORE
is developing a shared-use Community Kitchen Program (CKP) that will offer
facilities and support to growers, small businesses and new entrepreneurs
who want to join an emerging food service industry in Stokes County. Growers
that have no way to add value, homemakers who cook in home kitchens but
need industrial space and equipment for more production, and budding entrepreneurs
with great recipes but no way to get their products to market, will each
find the CKP to be of benefit when the program is in place in 2008. StokesCORE’s
Sweet ‘Tater Cook-off will assist in identifying great recipes, and in
seeking potential users for a shared-use Community Kitchen.