The Healing Garden: Cultivating and Handcrafting Herbal Remedies

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Elderberry– I’m a few years into growing my own elderberries, and they’re finally getting established., but you can learn how to grow elderberries here (or learn to propagate elderberry bushes for free from cuttings). One day I hope to be able to grow enough elderberries for homemade elderberry syrup, but also to be able to harvest the elderflowers for their medicinal benefits. When planning your garden, keep in mind herbs that there are herbs that do well together and herbs that don’t. Proper companion planting will minimize pests and even increase the number of beneficial compounds and flavors in a plant. Basil gets along well with oregano, but not with sage or rue. Chives are good to grow alongside dill. Cilantro and anise excellent good companions. If you’d like access to the academy to learn to grow your own herbs and safely create a natural medicine cabinet from custom blended teas, tinctures, herbal salves and soaps, be sure to sign up for the Pioneering Today Academy. We only open enrollment twice a year. If enrollment is closed, you can sign up for the waitlist so you’re notified first when the doors open again.

While most references suggest using echinacea root for medicinal use, I make a tea of the fresh or dried flowers of E. purpurea: the chemical constituents of the flowers are similar to those of the root. In summer or fall, I simply pour a cup of boiling water over a chopped flower head and steep it, covered, for 10 minutes. For winter use, I make a tincture. I chop an entire plant, place it in a wide-mouthed gallon jar, and pour in about a fifth of 190-proof grain alcohol (never wood or rubbing alcohol) and a quart of water–just enough to cover the plant material. I put on the lid and set the jar aside for two weeks. At the end of this period, the tincture is ready to use. It will retain its effectiveness for at least a year. I swallow about 30 to 60 drops (1 to 2 teaspoons) of the tincture four or five times a day when I feel a cold coming on. Chamomile: Gentle Yet Powerful Melissa: And then, as I was thinking as I was going through the list, one of my other favorites of course is Echinacea. Echinacea, again, is one of those that has multiple purposes. It's pretty easy to grow. Its native environment was in a prairie type environment, so it will go through drought issues pretty well. Definitely, it will make it through winters in 7a and even down into the colder zones. I think it's down to zone three and four that it will go. So, it has a versatile range as far as growing. So, I feel, like for Echinacea, if you want to be harvesting the roots, marshmallow, which is another one I really like, the marshmallow plant. Those ones you are going to be harvesting the root at about year two and three. So, you want to look at that and then plan on either stagger growing them. So, every year you're adding a new plant so that when you get to harvest the root, you've got one that's coming up behind it for the next year to take over it or you're going to want to plant it probably double or triple because every year, once you harvest that root, of course you're dwindling down what you're able to harvest for the following year. Peppermint tea is delicious and refreshing. Pour a cup of boiling water over 2 teaspoons of fresh leaves or 1 teaspoon of crushed, dried leaves. Steep, covered, for 10 minutes. Use more or less herb according to your preference. Drink a cup of this tea up to three times a day to aid digestion.

Feverfew

Growing medicinal herbs may seem difficult, and preparing teas or tinctures from them might appear complicated and time-consuming. But the truth is you don’t have to be a skilled gardener to grow a few basic medicinal herbs successfully or be a trained pharmacist to easily prepare them for use. In the process, you may save some money and enjoy yourself. Five Basic Herbs Yarrow ( Achillea millefolium), another member of the aster family, is known to many as a perennial weed that grows wild along roadsides, meadows and dry wastelands throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The generic name Achillea comes from the legend that Achilles used a poultice of the plant to stop the bleeding of his soldiers’ wounds during the Trojan War. Scientists have since discovered that an alkaloid called achilleine is responsible for stanching blood flow. Yarrow contains more than 120 other chemical components, some of which have been shown to reduce inflammation and muscle spasms and relieve pain. Others are believed to ease digestion, calm anxiety and reduce inflammation. I will saute them with a little bit of butter and garlic and then do a fried egg over easy on top for breakfast, really fabulous that way. You can add them into, of course, soups and stews. The key is you just want to make sure they're cooked. I wouldn't try eating them raw just because nobody would want to get stung. Oregano– You’re good with just one oregano plant as well. Once it’s established you’ll likely have enough for culinary and herbal purposes. Has anti-bacterial properties. Divide hardy herbs such as sweet marjoram, oregano, mint and thyme in spring or after flowering in late summer.

Melissa: Yeah, I am super excited to hear about your adventures and is there any other questions that you have before we wrap up? Chrysanthemum –Another beautiful flower that also has medicinal purposes. In southern China, chrysanthemum is brewed into a summertime tea. It is also used to treat chest pain (angina), high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, fever, cold, headache, dizziness, and swelling. In combination with other herbs, chrysanthemum is also used to treat prostate cancer. ( Source) Once harvested, there are many ways to process them into different herbal preparations, but this is a big topic – one that we will look at in more detail later in the year as it is a special skill to harness all the healing vitality of the herbs. Melissa: No, the roots are okay dried from my understanding. It's just, yeah, it's just the fresh parts, it's just the aerial parts. Fresh or dried leaves are used for flavouring, especially meat such as lamb. Fresh sprigs can be steeped in vinegar or olive oilThere are exceptions to everything, of course, and in this case some medicinal herbs are fairly easy to start from seed, including calendula, holy basil ( Ocimum sanctum), fennel, California poppy ( Eschscholzia californica), and borage* ( Borago officinalis). Once you have a garden bed or container prepped, direct sow the seeds after the last frost date. Poppies will germinate even better if you sow them in fall, as they like to go through the cold of winter. Lemon balm ( Melissa officinalis) is a favorite of bees, as its generic name attests: Melissa is Greek for “bee.” Popular among herbalists for 2,000 years, this lemon-scented perennial member of the mint family is also high in essential oil content. (“Balm,” which is derived from “balsam,” refers to aromatic, healing plant resins or oils.) It is native to the Mediterranean region, western Asia, southwestern Siberia and northern Africa, but it is widely naturalized in North America.

It’s why planting in herbs in containers or pots is so popular. It makes it easier to separately water, fertilize, and care for each type of plant. Bonus? You can take in your pots when cold weather strikes and save annual herbs from frost damage. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the publisher nor the authors, contributors or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the materials in Herbal Reality.Rich, moist soil in sun or part shade where it may become invasive, so it is best grown in a container and regularly divided So, yarrow is one of my favorites because it has so many different multiple purposes. And yarrow can actually be really good as well, it wasn't one that you mentioned, but it's one that's often used for cardiovascular systems so that it can be great for those aspects if somebody is having heart, hypertension, like that. And of course, I should say in the course of this as you're listening, anything that we're sharing is not to be taken as medical advice individually to anybody who's listening. You have to do your own research and know the precautions and yarrow was one that you should not actually be using during pregnancy. So yeah, it is compatible with breastfeeding, however, so just not during pregnancy. Nearly all yarrows require no care, remain pest-free and are winter-hardy in Zones 3 through 9. As a garden subject, it’s an attractive, 3-foot-tall herb whose stems and ferny leaves are covered with woolly hairs. Flat or round-topped clusters of tiny, white or pale, lilac-pink flowers bloom from June through September. Plants are easily grown from seed or propagated by dividing the roots in the spring or fall. Yarrow adapts well to many soil types but thrives in moderately rich soil in full sun. Harvest the stalks when in full bloom and hang to dry. Probably, the ones that I would make sure have a little bit more compost worked in and some mulching would be the elderberries, just so that they have a little bit of good drainage. But the others do, they do really well in less than ideal, especially the yarrow and the mullein, they tend to just kind of thrive wherever. So yeah. Melissa: Yeah, but it's good if you don't know. I'm kind of always let's proceed with caution until we know for sure. So, I don't think it was a bad thing, and I think it actually made a lot of people more aware of elderberry and using herbs and hopefully didn't scare them off, but just brought that awareness that it can help.