Its that time of year that the coltsfoot blooms are up and out on the sunny days, they come out before the leaves and while its a very good idea to dig out the creeping roots in your spring garden clean up, its also time to pick and redo the cough syrup.

I don’t make much as it not something that is used often if at all. I make a pint jar of the flowers steam juiced for future cough candy making and one 8 oz jar of the syrup itself, this gets made and swapped out on a rotation base in the herbal cupboard.

I know, you are thinking why do that if it almost never gets used? Its local, its here on the farm, it is effect for most people, and for very short term use, its more safe then many other things. I would rather have it on hand if it was needed, then be wishing i had put some up.

I have tried to dry the flowers because then i would not need to use a jar lid but at least on my tries, instead of them drying down into yellow flowers, the heat pushed them into fluffy seed heads, you should have seen my surprise as i opened the dryer to check on them, not having turned the flow off, after all why would i need to and whoosh, out they flew LOL

I expect i could try again by taking them in the bud stage and drying them but for now, i am happy with my system. With no idea really what will be effect supply chain wise, this year my full restock the herbal pantry from top to bottom, all season long, everything that can be refreshed will be, extras jars will be put up and I will be putting my new to me vacuum jar sealer to use and we will see if it helps keep things fresher, I am quite hopeful.

This will allow me to reuse canning lids in a safe way and save on costs to put these jars up. Do you have coltsfoot in the garden or by forage? Do you buy it at the local pharmacy or order it online? Do you keep it in cough drop form, or syrup or tincture? Or for you, do you keep it out of your herbal pantry altogether?