Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb & Flower Farm.

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00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Jennifer at Hog Trap Herb and Flower Farm, I think is the name of it. I'm sorry, I got stuck there for a second. Good morning, Jennifer, how are you? I'm wonderful, how are you? I'm good. You're in Texas?

00:29 Yes, we are actually in an odd spot. We're in south Texas and we're not really central Texas. We are south of Austin and east of San Antonio. So we're in a non-regional area. So we call it south central Texas. Okay, well I'm in Minnesota and it is like seven, it's not even 70 degrees yet

00:59 And the reason I say this is because we have had the wettest, most miserable spring and early summer ever. So I'm so excited that it's gorgeous out today. Yes, yes, that it helps. But we've had rain, but we've had more storms this year, which has really impacted us a lot a bit. Yeah. Tell me about yourself and what you do. Okay, so I am actually a Texas transplant. I grew up along the Mississippi River.

01:28 Mississippi and Arkansas, lived in DC for 10 years and moved down here to Texas. And then married a cowboy down here and we live on a fifth-generational ranch. We do raise cattle, but we also have some areas to the side where I do some farming for our herbs and flowers. I'm a grandparent.

01:57 and we have a whole bunch of kids and I'm actually transitioning back into teaching and we're pretty active in our community and just outreach and just we stay busy. We really love living life to the fullest and we are constantly always adding to our busy schedules. Very nice, so my first question.

02:23 is I saw on your Facebook page that you have the apparatus to distill your own oils from herbs. What is that called? Oh, I am so excited. So that's kind of a new addition and it's kind of, I've learned to diversify a lot doing this type of work. And so it is a still, it's a distillery. So instead of making moonshine, we're filling a set of stills from raw material.

02:52 Oddly enough, I watched it on a TikTok and I thought, you know what, that seems really easy to do. And I purchased it probably about two months ago and I'm already looking to upgrade to a larger device. And so it's something I've really enjoyed in the spirit. It seems like it could be overwhelming, but it's very, very simple.

03:19 to use and it's just another avenue for us to get our product out into the market. Okay, the reason I asked is because I didn't know if it was called a still because I thought maybe it had a different name because stills are associated with alcohol. Yes. So no, it's a distiller. So what it does is I use depending on what I'm trying to get from the product. It uses steam and so on the it uses a bottom heat which of course

03:48 heats the water and uses the steam that goes up into a column, which then produces either the essential oil in the beginning and then it slowly turns up the hydrosol, which is basically just scented water at that point. You can use it that way or you can just use it for hydrosol and that's when you would just put the material directly into the boiling water and the steam would rise and you would get more of the hydrosol that way.

04:17 Okay, so how much essential oil do you get from like one batch of doing this? Because I'm assuming it's pretty small. It is very small. So it all depends on the, it has, if you have a high quality product or if it's dry material will help, will kind of affect the average, I guess, what you get from it.

04:46 So if I use dry lavender buds, for instance, I could probably use...

04:56 almost a pound and I may get one mil of essential oil. Wow. And how long does it take? Oh, it takes about... So for the essential oil process, you want to grab that first 30 to 40 minutes of the oil. After that, it kind of depletes. It's kind of... Not its pureness, but the aroma effect of it.

05:21 But the remaining time, the other two and a half hours, you're going to get your hydrosol from that. And the longer that it kind of distills, the less quality of a product because it kind of goes away after time. So for the most potent part of the whole process, it's going to be the earlier the better. I usually cut everything about two hours. And I usually get about a quart of hydrosol.

05:51 You could go longer, but it's not as potent as you do the initial batch that you get. Okay, so what do you use the hydrosol in? What do you use it for? Oh, there's a few different ways you can use hydrosol. You can add witch hazel. So if you're doing a lavender or even a rose, if you go to like department stores and beauty supply, you'll see a lot of the rose water.

06:18 And sometimes they'll put like witch hazel in there and use it as a toner for your skin. I also do it, the lavender, and the lavender will help with like inflammation on the skin. This is a safer avenue for smaller children too, because you have to be careful about using the oils on children, but this, because of the water content, is safer for the children. And then you can just also,

06:47 We'll take the hydrosol and we'll add pure grain alcohol as a preservative and you can use it as a room spray or to spray on your linens, just to freshen the air in the car. And then you also just have the regular hydrosol with nothing in it that you can actually use as a culinary. If you wanted to add something to a liquor or to...

07:15 a mocktail or something, you can use that. Because it's just, it's basically you're catching the smell of the herb or whatever material you have. It's like a flavored water without adding like sugars and all those other things too. Super cool. I didn't know anything about that. But it is, it's, there's so many avenues to, to go down the whole distilling process. It's really interesting.

07:44 This is why I love this podcast. I learned something new every single interview. It makes me so freaking happy. Okay, so I wanted to know about the still because I thought about getting one too and then I saw how much they cost and I thought maybe not right now. So what kind of herbs do you grow? What varieties? Oh, so we, I grow everything from your basic.

08:08 I say culinary herbs just because people know them for cooking only. They don't realize there's like herbal benefits, medicinal benefits to those herbs too, but I grow everything from your basic rosemary's to basils, different types of basils, oregano's and whatnot. And I even grow things that are a little bit harder to find that aren't familiar with people like

08:36 whorehounds and we do motherwort here. It's really a variety. Whatever will grow in Texas, I try to grow. And trust me, I have been through the ups and downs of growing herbs in Texas. So I think I've kind of pinpointed what's working. But we also do the floral, like the calendula, which is a great source for different properties and benefits for venus and oil uses too. So.

09:06 Okay. Um, so are we talking acres of herb plants or are we talking not acres? Acres would be wonderful, but unfortunately with irrigation, there's always that problem. So I really kind of concentrate on, um, raised beds, but it's in a large area. So we'll do it around, we do it around the house and the house sits on about five acres. So maybe.

09:36 We're looking about maybe about a half an acre to three fourths of an acre total for everything that's spread out around the house. Yeah, I'd love to get to that point. I did have, I did have for the first three summers we were here, this is the fourth summer, an herb garden that was like, I would say 15 feet by 15 feet. And it was packed with time.

10:05 sage and chives and lemon grass and lemon verbena and a bunch of stuff. And it was gorgeous. And we, I dried a whole lot of it for the winter. And then my husband was like, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, I said, you're going to what? And he said, I'm going to till your herb garden in. And I said, why? He said, because I want to start over. He said, the weeds are really getting bad in there. And

10:34 He's the gardener, I'm not, so I don't actually take care of the herb garden, he does. And he said, I want to start over. And I said, okay, so can I give you a list and we start over? He said, yes, you can, as long as I can till it under. I said, okay. So that was the plan. And then this spring, it rained and rained and rained and rained. So there is no herb garden in the big garden now. The herbs are in the greenhouse and they're doing okay. We had our first batch of...

11:04 however you say it, bruschetta or bruschetta last night with our basil. And it was delicious. So they're doing really well in the greenhouse. Yeah, we just opened a new greenhouse. My husband built it. And so we do start our own seeds here. We order from one company and they are heirloom seeds. So.

11:31 We, it's great because you get such a different variety that I think people get stuck in the rut of what they know and they don't venture outside a different species of that plant. Um, like basil, yes, we all know Genovese basil, but a lot of people don't know about Thai basil. And so- And cinnamon basil. So we, I tried to kind of introduce that to the community. Um, and we do that through-

12:00 markets and then we also we open the greenhouse and we have like a farm store we sell our products that we make as well as seedlings and starts and stuff but I like to kind of open and show them that you can look outside that species and find something that that may taste a little different that grows maybe a little bit different and just kind of educate them outside the box I guess kind of learning.

12:29 Yes, I love that. When people ask us about the stuff we cook with, I'm like, what stuff in particular? Do you mean herbs? Do you mean spices? Do you mean what kind of beef do we get? What do you mean? And a lot of time I get, I don't know as the answer. I'm like, oh, okay. Do you want the long story or the short story? And usually it's a short story. So speaking of basil, we picked up a basil plant.

12:59 years ago. I don't remember the variety but it had big leaves and they were like crinkly almost like um like parsley crinkly. I don't know what it was does this ring any bells for you? It doesn't ring a bell but I would be interested that I when we're done here I'm definitely going to be researching that and seeing what type of basil that was because um that sounds very

13:29 Tasted does it have a flavor that's distinct from the other basils or it just tasted like regular old? Genovese basil, but it was so beautiful So, I don't know what it was and I think it was a variegated color I think it was green and like a little bit of gold. Oh, so I don't know but it was really pretty and it was great And it did Fantastic like it got huge. Oh, well So I've been trying to find it since and have not seen it since

13:59 And the other thing that I was going to say about people stick with the varieties that they know, I didn't think we could grow lemongrass in Minnesota. And they had it for sale at a nursery. And I was like, well, let's try it. The worst that happens is it dies. And lemongrass does really well as long as it's in full sun all day and we get some hot weather in the summer. Yeah. It's funny what...

14:25 This is what I like to tell people. They ask me, well, what will grow well here? Well, pay attention when you go to the nurseries and to these big box stores. They're not gonna sell stuff that won't grow well in the area. You can sit down and you can look at your, you know, your county extension list and get that information too. But when you're wandering around, be kind of mindful of the plants that they're selling because why would they carry something that's not gonna sell? So that's another avenue.

14:53 Like when you're out, say, oh, like you said, I wonder, I didn't think it would grow here. Well, they wouldn't sell it there if they didn't, if it wouldn't grow there. So I think people are like, I don't want to kill another plant. So they're scared to kind of do something different, but it's all, I'm a hands-on learner, so it's, it's experimental and learning about that plant in the process. Um, but yeah, we, uh, we grow lemongrass here as well.

15:21 And one of the distinctions you were talking about growing in full sun, one thing that I tell my customers, full sun and Texas full sun here are two different things. And so you have to really have that understanding and experiment. I say plant it in a pot first, move it around, see whether it likes the best and plant it there. Doesn't always have to be so landscaped. It's where it's going to do the best. Yes. And the other thing in the paying attention vein here,

15:51 is if you're going to buy fruit plants, I'm not, we're not talking about fruit plants today, but it's important. Make sure that you know whether you need to get different varieties of the plant so it will pollinate because my husband bought cherry plants last year and he didn't get a different variety. He got two of the cherry, the winter hardy sweet cherries that will grow in Minnesota. And I was like,

16:19 They're related to apples. They're going to need another variety. And we ended up having to buy a Rainier cherry tree because that was the one that was recommended to cross pollinate. I don't know if you know anything about cherry trees, but Rainiers are one of the most expensive saplings to buy. Yeah, that was fun. Um, I, I, I love him. I love him. He's a great guy, but.

16:47 He loves gardening, but he doesn't love the research. So I end up doing the research. That's my job. Yeah, it's a learning opportunity. That's why it works, right? Yep. So I understand that you grow herbs and you grow flowers. So do you, and you're distilling the oils from the herbs. So do you make things with that? So yeah, again, we make the essential oils with it, but

17:16 So we kind of refocused our whole agenda, I guess, this year. And I want to concentrate on being a little bit more of a supplier to homemakers that do the soaps and that do more homemade items and be a supplier that way, because they already understand the importance of having good, high quality products to put into their product.

17:43 And I just find in general public when we do the markets and stuff, sometimes it's more about, oh, well, I can get it cheaper on Amazon or, you know, I can go down to Walmart and get the same thing. So with the oils, we're just really trying to focus on building our inventory so that we can be that supplier for other homes setters and other people that are interested in that field.

18:12 But also, you know, the products that we make ourselves is we make like the salves and we make the lip balms and we make the candles and stuff with those as well. So I'm not a big soap maker. I can never figure it out. I just, you know, there's just things I just can't do in life and that's one of them for me. So I like just being the outlet for people to come and purchase, purchase just raw materials like that as well. Nice.

18:42 You were saying that people say they can buy the same thing at Walmart or Amazon for cheaper. It is not the same thing. That's your correct. All right. And so we, I try to go into that education part of it, but you lose people very quickly when they're just looking for like a fast grab and go that aren't interested in really learning about, um, what goes behind creating a high quality product. And that's okay. Cause not everybody's into.

19:12 into that aspect of it. So that's why we kind of diversified a little bit and looking at the market being a little bit more of a supplier than the direct sales to the customer. Yep, for sure. Well, I have listeners who do wanna know about why it's not the same. And I would be happy to share my experience about why it's not the same. We do, we make soap, we make lip balms, we make candles. And...

19:41 I did order some essential oils from Amazon. I did not get any at Walmart, but I used to get essential oils at Walmart years ago. And it is not the same. They don't smell like they're supposed to. Unless it's somebody who actually does this as a business, it's not the same. Factory produced is not the same. And we had a batch of soap that just crumbled as it cured.

20:09 because the oil that we used was not good. And it's expensive to make soap. And we were out probably about $50. And I looked at my husband and I said, no more. No more, we are finding a reputable place to order our essential oils from and our fragrance oils from because this is not okay. Right, it is about the quality. I have found, I did a lot of research, you know, when you get the more commercial,

20:37 made oils and stuff. It's not always that oil. There's additives in there. There's like scent boosters. They add things to those, which does affect the quality of the product that you're making as well, like you said, with your soap. So my name is on it. The person that I'm selling to that's making the soap, her name is on that. And they're going to tell that consumer that, oh, well, I know I get my oils from hog traps.

21:06 I want it to be a positive that's attached to our name. I don't want it to be a negative. So quality is extremely important when it comes to our products. Absolutely. I would put a word in the middle of absolutely and lutely, but I'm not gonna do it. So why is it hog trap? So I wish that I really had this great, funny, whimsical story that.

21:32 to tell you, like I wrestled a wild hog over the land or something like that. But honestly, this is my husband's family's ranch and where we put our house, there used to be a hog trap there and that's it. Well, that's okay. Oh, wonderful, cool story. Like I was attacked by a wild hog or, you know, I killed him with my bare hands sort of deal.

22:01 We need to make one up to really entertain people But it's something as simple as we took the hog trap down and we put our house and we're like, hey, let's just call it hog trap So let's go Sometimes the most obvious thing is is the right thing You should you should make up a story a legend about hog trap I'm thinking we like that. Yeah, like that like the ghost hog that comes at night or something like that I think we should we should definitely do do something like that

22:29 That would be fun and funny and you could be like in, you know, a little tiny fine print. You could print the story out and fine print at the bottom, be like, this is not a true story, but it's funny. Exactly. I think that might be another avenue that we can go down, you know. Why not? Anything to market what you're doing that is positive is a great thing. Well, it's definitely an attention getter because we'll be at a market sometimes and even the guys will walk past us, a hog trap, because it's...

22:59 They're thinking, oh, trapping hogs because it's a big thing here. And that kind of makes them stop and kind of read the rest of my sign. And they're like, oh, okay. You're not selling hog traps, selling girl stuff, you know, or whatever. Girl stuff. Yeah. Then the wives are coming over like, why are you in here? And they're like, oh, you know, yeah, it definitely draws attention. I got suckered in honey. Come look at your girl stuff. No, I know that happens a lot.

23:29 Uh-huh. So what flowers do you grow? So we grow most of everything I grow to be a dual purpose. So it's it's pretty, but it's also edible or medicinal in some way. So we grow a lot of calendula, which we make a lot of things with those. And then lots of yarrow because I use those in arrangements as well. Sunflowers, which we.

23:56 like the seeds and then I have my non-dual ones, more like the zinnias, which do really well here, the cosmos and we do grow snapdragons seasonally. And when I make my bouquets, I use those flowers, but I also add herbs into it as well. So you're kind of getting the whole, just a little bit of everything that we grow here.

24:22 Yes, herbs make bouquets smell so good. I put together something last year and I threw some basil in it. Oh, yeah. And when I gave the bouquet to the person that came for the CSA pickup, I was like, if you run your hands through the basil, it will make the house smell good along with the other flowers. And she was like, really? And I said, yep. I said, and your hands will smell like basil for the day too. And she was like, oh, okay.

24:49 Absolutely, kind of provides a little bit of aroma therapy. So if you throw a couple of twigs of rosemary in there, which I adore rosemary, um, and you just brush against it and you smell it, you know, it's a, it's a kind of aroma therapy, you know, uh, effect on you as well. And I don't think people think, uh, herbs as being part of a bouquet because they only see the greenery, but they do flower out like the, the basil will flap.

25:18 Most of it will and so it does provide another kind of beauty about the herb to it as well. Yes, basil flowers remind me of little tiny orchids. They're really, really pretty. I had a question and then I got thinking about the flowers on basils and I forgot my question because this is what I do because I'm a terrible journalist. What was it? I don't know what it was now. So do you love what you do?

25:48 I adore it. So I'll give you a kind of reason why we started it kind of really in 2016. Very, very small. And then of course, over COVID, because I was teaching at the time, a lot of time on my hands, I kicked it into overdrive. But my mother also come down with cancer. So I moved her in to take care of her. And so our whole

26:16 little farm, my little herbal and flower farm is based off healing. And so while taking care of my mom and passing my mom passing away, I kind of have this area out by the house where a lot of the herbs are and I call it the healing garden. I don't think people understand how much you can heal not just by medicinally with herbs, but in flowers, but just being in nature period.

26:46 And so my mom kind of just started that with me. And so we have our little ashes actually buried out there. So when we do classes, I'll take the plants out and we sit at an herb box and we sit at a flower box and you're looking at the dirt, you're looking at the bugs in the dirt, you're connecting back to nature and it's very mindfulness based. You're touching the plant, you're watching the plant flow in the breeze.

27:16 And we're all right there centered around this big magnolia where my mom is buried. And so it's it's we are motto is healing with nature and really in all aspects of it, whether it's medicinal, where it's mindfulness, whether it's just seeing a beautiful bouquet of flowers that's making you feel good about yourself. That's what we center everything around. And I have found such an enormous positive feedback in little town in.

27:46 in Texas where I have seen just an emergence of people really taking time from themselves and connecting back to nature and really enjoying the things that are around them. Awesome. I feel like nature gives you the opportunity to be in the moment they are in. Absolutely. And that's the only moment we have. Right. Is the moment that we're in right now. Absolutely.

28:15 And we just take it for granted. We're such a disposable, fast-paced replacement. Let's go, go, go, multitask. A society, and what we don't realize is all of that that we put on ourselves when we're multitasking, we're wearing ourselves down emotionally, physically, and health-wise. And so it's hard for us to stop and smell the roses, in a way, because we feel like we're not accomplishing anything.

28:45 in reality you are because you're taking care of yourself in a way. Yes, and with any luck the things that you're doing to take care of yourself and make your soul happy ends up helping other people too. Absolutely. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean I come across people all the time that they'll come up to me and we'll start this conversation and I tell them the story about...

29:13 healing garden and herbs and stuff and they you can see their face kind of transform into you see the little light bulbs going off and you're like oh that's right oh maybe I should do that and that's they might not buy anything but I've planted that seed I've planted that kind of thing in their mind that um reconnecting with nature kind of going back to that childhood when you used to lay on the ground and make shades out of clouds you know take

29:43 and reconnecting and to me the only way to do that is using nature. We just adore all that nature has to offer. Yes it is. It is like, it's like, I don't have a word, not Prozac, but it's anti-anxiety medicine that is completely natural. Yes, yes it is. But again it's hard for us to let down those expectations of things that we have to do

30:12 complete, you know, there's other things that you can do too. And again, the self care, if gardening is your thing, you know, those are just as important as completing a work assignment. And, you know, being so stressed and all of this stuff, we just got to really kind of take it back in a little bit and reprioritize what's really important to us.

30:38 Absolutely. Yesterday morning I was sitting on my porch looking out the window having my coffee and we have three cats right now. We have our male barn cat, we have our female barn cat, and we have our kitten. And the female barn cat is the mama to the kitten. And the kitten lost all his siblings to new homes. The last one went to a new home two weekends ago and he's about 15 weeks old now.

31:05 He lost his friend he doesn't anybody play with so he's been trying to get mom to play And I was watching this little boy play with her tail yesterday And she kept batting at him like no no and then finally she gave up and just Plumped him to the ground and rolled him over and was playing with him like she was a kitten My heart felt so good watching that happen and that's nature. Yeah, that is they get it You know they get it so we need to get it. We are the we get

31:34 in front of ourselves. We are our worst enemy sometimes because we have these unrealistic expectations and sometimes we just need to dial it back and just let things happen and uh remember while we're here you know and um but I love educating people about that and the mindfulness and being in with the plants and I have seen people really taking what we've taught in classes and stuff and now they're out.

32:03 doing similar things. And it's, I love seeing those little seeds that I've planted kind of bloom into something that they were passionate about, but nobody told them it was okay to pursue. They needed that validation. And so I think they get that if you take the extra time and educate them a little bit and so show some support, then they, they can go off and kind of follow that.

32:31 Yeah, I feel like people forget that they're growing too. It's not just plants that grow, people grow. Right, absolutely. So, I don't know, it's a very new agey kind of morning around here and I say that with the most respect ever because people are like new age stuff is so silly, it's not. But is it new age? I mean really, I think it's this is stuff that people did,

33:00 to these, we went out to Big Bend for a vacation and toward the little ruins of pioneer villages and stuff. And when you step out the back door, right beside the back door, they had herb gardens, but they used it not for culinary, but also for medicinal stuff. I think people back then just appreciated time probably because they worked so hard. So I, you know, I

33:28 In some ways there are a lot of new age things, but I think we're also getting back to more of the roots and stuff that our previous people have done here for hundreds of years. Yeah, I think that we're finally maybe getting a clue, some of us, about the fact that the old-fashioned ways and the new ways of doing things can meet up in the middle and be a beautiful thing. Absolutely. So, that's what I think this morning.

33:57 Jennifer, I try to keep these to half an hour. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I appreciate it. Yes, it was wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day. You too.