First Fall Harvest

Today I harvested a bunch of Common Plantain (Plantago major) and some needles from a cut-down Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus). Last year in chemistry class we analyzed the Vitamin-C content of various foods. It turned out that one cup of White Pine-needle tea made by boiling roughly a bundle of needles one inch in diameter for a minute or so, yielded as much Vitamin-C as a 1000mg tablet. This was more than 200 times the Vitamin-C content of cheap orange juice.

I plan on saving these needles so that I can have C tea through the winter without having to collect needles early in the morning. For those that have never had pine-needle tea, it is quite a treat. Sweetened with a bit of honey, pine-needle tea has a very pleasant taste. From my experience, I have not come upon the turpentiney taste or smell commonly associated with pines.