The Birch & Bramble Homestead

The Birch & Bramble Homestead Living a large-scale homesteading life on small-scale acreage. We're doing alot with a little!

From canning, dehydrating, gardening, edible flowers, foraging, hillbilly-engineering, old-timey folk remedies, upcycling, and to making frugal fabulous!

One of my superpowers is growing things into monsters. Behold this patch of second-year echinacea flowers! I started the...
06/21/2026

One of my superpowers is growing things into monsters. Behold this patch of second-year echinacea flowers!

I started them from heirloom seed last winter. They're almost 5 feet tall as of today and they're not done growing, so let's see the ridiculous proportions these weirdos reach!

Ok. To be fair, it's probably just luck and circumstances that they're growing well where they're planted, but I'm gonna take 100% of the credit for it, like I'm some king of crafty, super plant- growing wizard. They don't mind. 🌸

I recently inherited a few things from my aunt and uncle's estate, including this 1950's Better Homes and Gardens garden...
06/15/2026

I recently inherited a few things from my aunt and uncle's estate, including this 1950's Better Homes and Gardens gardening book. And OMG LOOK AT THE GORGEOUSNESS.

The cover art? Spectacular. The back cover? Phenomenal. Naturally it's a wealth of still-relavant information interspersed with showstopping, mid-century modern graphics and photos.

But bougie cover art (and back!) on a vintage book is divine and I'm obsessed!

But to make it even heartstring-tuggingly sweet, the book was a 1st wedding anniversary present from my aunt to uncle in 1959. So this vintage old gardening book has now become my treasure. 🖤

Honeysuckle jelly season is here and I'm psyched! It's literally my favorite jelly of all time. (Probably.) The smell of...
06/09/2026

Honeysuckle jelly season is here and I'm psyched! It's literally my favorite jelly of all time. (Probably.)

The smell of honeysuckle to me is, in every definition of the word, divine. So imagine a whole pot of it. Absolute HEAVEN.

It grows all crazy-like here and yes, it is invasive and spreads like a maniac and can choke out whatever it's growing on. And yes, "they" will say to rip it all out! Burn it! Burn it to the ground!
But I say, absofreakinglutely not, my good sirs.

Not only are the flowers edible, but they have highly medicinal properties when used as an antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory! So for me and my property, it'll live it's best life here and ramble whevertheheck it wants. Damn the man! And all that.

I made jelly (yes, it tastes exactly like honey!), but you can also make a pitcher of steeped honeysuckle flower iced tea or dehydrate the flowers for hot tea. Throw them in a salad or bake into cake. Make all the edible flower things!

Growing strawberries has never been my specialty, in fact I suck at it. So last year I pulled up all the strawberry plan...
06/06/2026

Growing strawberries has never been my specialty, in fact I suck at it. So last year I pulled up all the strawberry plants, tossed them aside and gave up, vowing to never try to grow the jerks again.

So what do I find today, happily growing amongst the weeds? Those damn strawberry plants. And they're even growing big, red strawberries. The AUDACITY. After all the water and compost and attention I gave them, they never grew. Yet, through the drought and being tossed to a dry dusty corner and gettting absolute zero attention from me, they're like HEYYYY Y'ALL, GUESS WHO'S BACK?!

And while I can go on about resilience and mother nature and yada yada yada, I really just appreciate the strawberries' absolute gangster level of pettiness.

Strawberry season is just about here my friendos, and this is your frugal and fabulous reminder to save those strawberry...
06/04/2026

Strawberry season is just about here my friendos, and this is your frugal and fabulous reminder to save those strawberry tops!

After you've decapitated the strawberry heads, throw 'em in a jar of vinegar for a few days to make the most delicious, most gorge-looking, flavored vinegar you've ever had.
It doesn't even matter what type of vinegar. 'Spensive, health food store apple cider vinegar? Throw it in. Balsamic vinegar you stole from your mother-in-law's kitchen? Throw it in. Cheap ass, dollar store white vinegar? Throw. That. S**z. In.

And because we fancy-fancy, it's so stupidly bougie-appearing that you'll impress your friends that you don't like when you whip out a bottle of your own berry-marinated vinegar. Make sure to put on a very dramatic act, like it took you SOOO VERRRY LONG to make it, when in actuality it took 7 seconds. But they don't need to know that!

Groceries are expensive. Squeeze every last dieing breath out of your pennies. Like I always say, we're gonna ride it 'til the wheels fall off!

In the moments between tending to the major garden, we make allll the edible flower jellies.We've already done dandelion...
06/03/2026

In the moments between tending to the major garden, we make allll the edible flower jellies.
We've already done dandelion and lilac jellies, but like a knucklehead I forgot to take pics but today I remembered the peonies! Peony flowers come in all colors, so the prettier the flower color, the prettier the jelly color will be.

A bit of a bummer is that every peony bush here on the homestead grows white and very pale yellow flowers. Basic as heck. But the peonies were already here and well-established when we bought the house so I'm using what we have because it's free! And I'll always advocate for "use what you have" instead of buying new!
So boring, yellowish jelly is what we got. Lame color, amazing taste! Smells like peonies but tastes sweet.

Like any flower jelly, all the petals must be pulled and soaked in boiling water. No green parts, no stems or leaves. I let the bowl of soaking flowers sit overnight, then strain over cheesecloth and process the flower water into jelly.

Flower jellies are among my favorite jellies to make because cracking open a jar in the middle of a winter blizzard is like getting a little taste of summer!

He's a noisy little guy, but if this isn't one of theee best sounds of summer, I don't know what is! Talk about a sound ...
05/26/2026

He's a noisy little guy, but if this isn't one of theee best sounds of summer, I don't know what is! Talk about a sound that takes you right back to being a kid!
The cicada is back, just chillin' on a peony bush! I low-key envy his life of screaming all day and hanging out in the flowers!🌸

Rainy days and sundays never get me down, because there's so much deliciousness to be had, making magic in the kitchen! ...
05/24/2026

Rainy days and sundays never get me down, because there's so much deliciousness to be had, making magic in the kitchen!

I bought another bulk amount of strawberries, and after making jam and dehydrating and doing all the usual things, I have alot of "scrap" parts left over.

Only that ain't scrap, y'all! You can "food upcycle" so much more than you think! Groceries are expensive. Get every bang for your buck that you can!
Those decapitated heads of the strawberries have a ton of flavor in them, and can be used to make strawberry syrup, which can also be canned for long-term storage.

Throw the strawberry tops in water and sugar, boil and simmer down, strain with cheesecloth and can it up! I water bath can because I'm a rebel canner, but you can pressure can it as well. If you don't can, just keep your jars of syrup in the fridge and use within the next month or so. It'll appear watery in the jar at first, but it thickens up to a pancake syrup-like consistency in the fridge.

You can use strawberry syrup on waffles, on top of cake or ice cream, stirred into hot or cold tea...the uses are endless. Sweet and strawberry-y!

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