Three recommendations for the home herbalist
Let me start off with my basic health premise: food is medicine. From our family's experience and research we've done we believe that if you want to treat ingestion, cholesterol, fatigue, common cold and flu, arthritis, allergies, eczema, high blood pressure (and every other "condition") you start by eating a nutritionally excellent plant-based diet and exercising. So this is not a post about what tea to drink to help you lose weight (give me a break, those claims drive me crazy).
But even diet and exercise can't take away the sting of a bee or the ache of bruise (although a good diet will help you heal faster). And that's where my herbal knowledge* comes in to help care for my family's health. Bug bites, cuts, scraps, bleeding from minor skin wounds - those I know how to treat with topical preparations and I'd like to share a few of my favorite resources with you.
Three reading resources:
- Making Herbs Simple DVD: Start here. Before you pick up an herb book and get overwhelmed with words like tincture, poultice, anti-spasmodic or anti-neuralgic buy/borrow/beg this DVD to watch. I wrote a short review last winter. My offer still stands, if you live locally I'll lend you my copy.
- The Herb Quarterly print magazine: Can you believe I only just discovered this at my library recently. You can probably find it at your local library also. I especially recommend the Spring 2009 publication with an excellent section on topical treatments for summer scrapes, bites, rashes, burns & aches. I'm learning a lot and making notes for preparations I'll make this summer.
- Practical Herbalism: Ordinary Plants with Extraordinary Powers: There may be other books out there (check the Bulk Herb Store) now that are more recommended than this one. But I find this book to be very thorough with interesting historical notes, growing instructions and dosage information. I own one other herb book but this one is my go-to book resource and what I can't find in here I research on-line.
Three plants for your garden:
As you are planning and planting your garden this time of year I want to recommend three of my favorite herbs to grow for yourself.
- Yarrow Achillea millefolium: You can wildcraft this plant but it's so easy and beautiful to grown yourself. I use it to make a skin healing oil and salves. Added bonus: it attracts butterflies.
- Comfrey Symphytum officinale: One of my favorite backyard herbs. Not as beautiful as some but extremely useful for treating wounds. Last year around this time I wrote a post on how to prepare a comfrey poultice.
- Calendula Calendula officinalis: What is not to like about this beauty? Although it's an annual it self seeds, blossoms all summer and into late fall, can be used in cooking as a saffron substitute and is one of the best herbs for treating local skin problems.
- Plantain Plantago lanceolata: This is a freebie because you won't need to plant it. You'll find it growing as a weed. The stuff covers our yard. It's the first herb I grab for any cut, scrape, sting or rash. It was the discovery of this lowly weed that got me interested in using herbs.
One more...
These resources and plants should get you started with what you need for basic topical treatments. Start growing a couple herbs now (or stop pulling those weeds from your lawn) and you'll be on your way to taking care of your family's summertime skin care.
What herbal preparations do you like to grow and use? Have any recipes you care to share?
*Disclaimer: I am not a certified anything, much less accredited herbalist. Consider yourselves warned - don't drink bad herbs - they could make you sick.
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salad coming up and a book to read
from FIMBY on Fri, 2009-05-15 01:00Coming up very soon, hopefully tomorrow, is a post on salad. "Ohh... ahh...", you're all saying. Hey, salads are healthy & salads are fun - really.
I've been reading the book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Three recommendations for the home herbalist | FIM...
from skin yard on Wed, 2009-05-06 20:51Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!








Renee, you are
Renee, you are AWESOME!!
Thank you so much for sharing all of this. As we "discussed", I would like to help relieve my son's eczema without the use of Cortizone. For some reason, I'm not too stoked on using steroids on my son. Hmmm...
As for the plants, we already have Yarrow. We also have what I call "Lamb's Ears." It looks very similar to the Comfrey... I'll check my sources before I go using it as a poultice.
Thank you so much, Renee. I am definitely going to follow up on all of your leads.
Oh my! I just found out that
Oh my! I just found out that another weed, a very prolific ground cover growing all over my yard and continually creeping into my flower and vegetable beds is a beneficial herb!
Ground Ivy (known by many other names) is a member of the mint family and is good for immune system tinctures and skin salves. I just read about it, while eating lunch, in The Herb Quarterly, Spring 2008 edition. Hum... I may have to write a follow up post on this.
Who knew my backyard weeds were so good!
thanks for this helpful
thanks for this helpful starter!
nicola
http://whichname.blogspot.com
nicola's last blog post... color week: red
I was hoping that I could
I was hoping that I could just wait until mom or dad come to visit you and pay you to make all these wonderful herbal saviors. *wink* Lord knows I need them for my kids. *rolleyes*
I got a Comfrey plant from
I got a Comfrey plant from Jan Willson's garden last year. I used it to make ice packs for recovery from birth. They work awesome for any swelling. I let the leaves dry, made a tea out of it and poured the tea over cut maxi pads and then froze them. I have been wanting to try the comfrey for other purposes like cuts because I've heard that it works well, so thanks for posting this!
Excellent post. I couldn't
Excellent post. I couldn't agree more that "food is medicine." Keep up the good work.
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