Creative Homestead

Let's revisit two of my all time favorite, easy to grow, easy to use backyard herbs. Comfrey & Plantain. I'm not a certified herbalist, I'm just a girl with a garden. So trust me, if I can grow and use these two herbs so can you.

my backyard comfrey

My herbal knowledge is pretty much limited to topical skin preparations. Our plant based diet keeps us extremely healthy and now that our children have outgrown the sniffles that seem to plague little ones we are very rarely ill. I think two of us caught a cold in the past 18 months, which we treated with ginger, lemon, garlic, echinacea, vitamin C and elderberry.

But throat soothing teas aren't really where my knowledge lies. My knowledge, whatever little I have, is mostly in plants for the skin. You probably already know about comfrey and plantain and this is a simple recipe using those herbs to make a poultice or paste to relieve itchy insect bites.

Ingredients

• 1 tsp Powdered Herb & Clay Mix (see below)
• 1 tsp raw apple cider vinegar (regular would probably work fine also, this happens to be what I have)
• 5 drops tea tree oil

Preparation & Usage

• Mix three ingredients together. I find a chopstick works well. You may notice a slight fizzing which I assume is the vinegar reacting with the clay.
• Apply to affected skin. As the paste dries it will start to flake off the skin. It looks like dried mud but cleans up easy. 
• You should notice relief fairly soon after application. We've never had to re-apply, either the bites weren't that bad or the kids didn't notice it any more. You should be able to re-apply as often as necessary but watch for irritation or rash in case of sensitive skin.
• The quantities I've given make enough paste to thoroughly cover a large area of bites. We always have more than we need for a single application. 

Notes

I'm not exactly sure which component of this recipe is most effective at relieving the itch. Is it the herbs? Maybe the clay? The apple cider vinegar? Or the tea tree oil? You may have success with just one of these ingredients or various combinations of them.

Experiment mixing your own proportions according to what you have available. None of these ingredients are harmful to skin though I wouldn't recommend applying this paste to an open sore. 

Directions for Powdered Herb & Clay Mix

During the summer it's great to use fresh herbs on your skin, especially chewed up plantain which has relieved our family of bee sting and mosquito bite itches. However, I find this dried herb and clay mix to yield a better consistency for applying to the skin. Also, this mix will store well for years in a dark cupboard and be handy whenever you need it.

1. Harvest a handful or two of comfrey and plantain leaves, roughly equal amounts of each.
2. Wash well and hang from ceiling to dry (can't be too humid), use oven at low temperature or dehydrator.
3. When completely dry pulverize the herbs in the blender till they are a fine green powder. 
4. To 1 part of dried herbs add 1/2 part bentonite clay. Better to add less to begin with and use more later if needed for individual applications. 
5. Label jar and store in cupboard.

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If you are new to herbs and want to learn more I've got a great resource to recommend. Making Herbs Simple is a DVD that explains in very simple, easy to understand instructions how to find and identify herbs in the wild, drying and storing herbs, and how to prepare tinctures and poultices. I like the video format and learned a lot from watching it.

I am downsizing my library and selling my copy which has been watched only a few times. The DVD is $24.95 new and I'm selling mine for $10.00 plus shipping. If you'd like to buy it please use this link to contact me. 

What natural remedies do you use to relieve insect bites?

Related Posts:

• Wild Edibles
• Easy recommendations for the Home Herbalist
• Comfrey
• Plantain

Most of the flowers blooming in my yard this time of year are either purple, yellow or white. I didn't necessarily intend it that way (in years past I've spent time planning my perennial beds) but as certain perennials have died and others have taken over those are the colors that remain.

The purple echinacea and yellow sunflower are two plants with particular poignancy for me. These flowers carry us through into fall and although they are blooming now, in the height of summer, they take my imagination to autumn. To a time of fallen leaves, cooler temperatures and new beginnings.

Why can't I just live in the moment of summer without looking ahead to the fall? Just thinking about it makes me melancholy. For Pete's sake, it's not even August and I'm already mourning the loss of summer!

It's not just the echinacea that's giving me a touch of melancholy though. It's my beautiful children. These blossoms of mine that are growing faster than weeds and in no time at all be taller than me, just like my backyard sunflowers. How did this happen?

I have felt for some months now a keening in my heart. A deeper awareness of the time with my children that has past and the few precious years I have left. I've counted. We're half way through this business of parenting our children till they are adults. Eleven years have passed with Celine and we have eleven more with Brienne till she is eighteen, nine more for Laurent. We're smack dab in the middle of this parenting-through-childhood gig and it's throwing me for a little loop.

This season of life for our family is lot like summer. The seeds were planted during "spring"; those baby, toddler and preschool years when we established love, trust and discipline (to name just a few).

Now we are enjoying the beautiful blossoms from those years of tending and weeding our children's hearts. These days for our family are mostly warm and sunny, a season of intense growth and fun with some rainy days in between.

I know that summer isn't a time to just sit around and watch the flowers bloom, metaphorically and literally. There is weeding still to be done and preparations to be made for fall and winter. And I feel that responsibility deeply as I look ahead to the young adult years.

However, even as I revel in warm days, fresh berries and trips to the beach, I know summer won't last. We will move into other seasons of life with their own unique beauty and treasures. And I look forward with anticipation to the years ahead when the relationship with our children will grow into friendship.

But right now the season is childhood and it's in full bloom. And it's beautiful, so much more beautiful than any garden flower.

My summer melancholy.

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Welcome to Friday's Flowers! If you're just visiting today and want to know what's going on please read this post. Use the linky feature below to share your bouquet blossoms.

Pick some flowers, arrange 'em pretty, take a photo, post it to your blog, link to Friday's Flowers and share it with us. 

I'm now going to break my own guidelines for Friday's Flowers and post photos this week of my flower garden - outside.  

But I have a good reason, three in fact.

1. The painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui) have been visiting our butterfly bush (Buddleia) and Echinacea this week and I have found that sight more inspiring than indoor flowers. To make the viewing and photography of these visitors easier I removed the screens from certain windows and we have stood watching as two, sometimes three at a time come to drink nectar. 
2. We are going to visit friends in NH this weekend so after my first bouquet wilted earlier this week I didn't pick another. 
3. I prepared a complete lunch - main dish and dessert for 25 people this week, a volunteer contribution to a community organization and to say I'm tired from that venture is an understatement. Little things, like picking and photographing a fresh bouquet became much less important that simply holding down the fort while I finished that project.
4. It's my blog and I don't have to play by the rules. This is not truly a good reason for breaking the rules but I did say three at the top of this list. 

view of backyard from our bathroom window,
screen temporarily removed

So today is backyard flowers, not bouquet flowers. Fitting though, don't you think, for a blog titled Fun In My Back Yard.

Vanessa cardui on Buddleia

Clearwinged Hawk or Sphinx Moth
exact species name unknown

What flowers are blooming in your yard these days? Any winged visitors? What are you cutting to bring indoors to enjoy?

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Welcome to Friday's Flowers! If you're just visiting today and want to know what's going on please read this post. Use the linky feature below to share your bouquet blossoms.

Pick some flowers, arrange 'em pretty, take a photo, post it to your blog, link to Friday's Flowers and share it with us. (Or bend the rules as I did and post photos of any flowers that suit your fancy).