Grandma called it Medicine Leaf

When I was a little girl, my father’s mother, Catherine, and I were very close. Mom was awfully busy trying to raise six kids and run a farm by herself, so I spent a lot of time with grandma (I’m the baby of the family). She had ever-bearing strawberries that she would pick as soon as they showed a blush of red so the birds didn’t get them. There were always hollyhocks and poppies, the yellow transparent apple tree, lilacs, roses and a small vegetable garden. Grandma and I would dance and sing on the front lawn, and every Saturday night we had a “date” watching HeeHaw.

I remember grandma pointing to a broad leaf plant in the yard and calling it “medicine leaf”. She told me the Indians use to use it for medicine, but we never used it ourselves.
Fast forward about 30 years.  I’ve rediscovered “medicine leaf”, and it’s become a staple of my first aid kit.  It turns out grandma’s “weed” was actually common plantain (Plantago major).

From Alternative Nature Online Healer:

Read more here.

The Art of Herbalism

Herbalism is sometimes spoken of as one of the “healing arts,” along with acupuncture, chiropractic, counseling, and massage therapy.  These practices and any other non-invasive ways of healing people and planet are “crafts” carefully learned, practiced and applied, that truly become “art” at the point where we:

1. Make our work with herbs a creative process and apply our own imaginations.

2. Strive to maximize our herbalist knowledge and skills.

3. Seek to heal people at the deepest emotional and spiritual as well as physical levels.

4. Try, as a matter of both course and principle, to practice our plant medicine as beautifully as possible!

I wrote our Plant Healer book The Enchanted Healer because of feeling certain that our enchantment with plants and healing is every bit as important to our effectiveness and satisfaction as is our herbal knowledge and skill at treatment. The following is abridged from that chapter of that book, championing a creative and joyous herbalism that is possible for everyone, no matter how much you know or how much experience with plants and healing you have had.

You might think, “Of course beauty and enchantment matter,” but these days a stark line is often drawn between conventional medical care and alternative or holistic therapies, between phytotherapy and folk herbalism, between hard science and folklore, between the necessary growing of food crops and the nonessential raising of ornamentals, as well as between the supposed florid artist’s life and the sober existence and sensible priorities of regular people. Not so in many ancient and tribal societies, nor in the attractive land-informed cultures that we are together working to create. For them and us – from nourishment to remedy, from planting to harvest, birth to death – is an opportunity to meld ritual and necessity, substance and gesture, artfulness and practicality, working to make every act and result not only productive but evermore meaningful, beauteous and satisfying!

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/the-art-of-herbalism-zbcz1410.aspx

Collect Teasel in October

Once a month, I lead a weed walk at one of the public parks in my area. For September’s walk, I met a few avid plant enthusiasts bright and early at a park called Prairie Oaks, near where I grew up. I knew the land when it was farmland, long before it became a park.

When Prairie Oaks first became part of the park system, I wondered what kind of park it might be. My experience with parks in the area included a lot of old-growth trees, and this land was wide open and damaged. It was a hot and dry walk out in the open when it first opened, and as we pulled in for our September weed walk, I was eager to see how the land had changed over the past 10 years.

Pulling into the first parking lot, I saw what park planners must have envisioned when the first shelter house was going up. The open expanse of rolling farmland had returned to a more natural prairie state. I hadn’t scouted out what I might find to talk about on a weed walk, but I didn’t have to worry.

Doing weed walks through each of the seasons here in Ohio allows me to highlight different plants each time I go out. We always see dandelions and plantain, though I never hesitate to point them out. Some plants are shy and retiring in the spring, only beginning to flaunt their colors in the fall.

Amongst all the yellow of a prairie bedecked with goldenrod and a variety of members from the sunflower family, here and there were spots of purple. In an area where the mower had been through about mid-season, there was a surprise bloom of teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris). I love teasel! The bloom on this plant is so otherworldly and elegant all at the same time.The biannual teasel dies shortly after it blooms, leaving its characteristic seed heads to decorate the landscape. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential for this plant in dried flower arrangements.

Read more: http://www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/dawn-combs/collect-teasel-in-october.aspx

7 Ways to Use Mugwort

Earlier this year, one of my fellow Hobby Farms bloggers lamented the presence of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) in her garden. I will be curious to see if she is eventually able to eradicate it, though I question the necessity of doing so.

Friend or Foe?
Let me first say that mugwort is an herb that needs to be given its own space. If this plant is in your vegetable garden or favorite flower bed, you’ll likely have some trouble. The chemicals that are given off from the roots will inhibit the growth of plants nearby, so while I see many benefits from mugwort, I also see the good sense of making it mind its manners.

However, mugwort has benefits you might have overlooked. If you’ve got to weed out a nuisance patch, don’t just destroy the leaves. Instead, cut the stalks just before they begin to flower in earnest, and dry them or use them fresh. Mugwort can help you a number of ways, both indoors as well as outside the house. Here are some of of my favorites.

1. Insect Spray
When growing in the garden, mugwort not only inhibits other plants, but also repels insects. If you must pull it, you can mash up the leaves and make a tea to use as a spray. Mugwort, when used in moderation, will prevent insect infestations and prevent the development of larvae. As always, with a natural spray it is important to remember that what you do to the bad bugs you do to the good bugs. As natural as this spray is, it should be a last resort.

2. A Bitter
Mugwort, when analyzed as a word, means useful in a beverage ("mug”) and herb ("wort”). Historically, it was used to make small-batch beers. In fact, it’s a proper bitter and has been shown to be helpful in digesting fats by supporting the liver and gallbladder.

3. Hormone Regulation
Mugwort must be used with care by women, however, as it has the ability to start the menstrual cycle. I have recommended mugwort to young women, as well as women of menopausal age, for its regulating effect on female hormones.

4. Acupuncture Support
The leaf of the mugwort plant is used in the process of moxibustion, which accompanies some acupuncture treatments. This burning of mugwort at sensitive points in the nervous system makes use of the antispasmodic nature of this effective nervine.

5. Dewormer
Just like many other members of the artemisia family, mugwort is an effective remedy for worms of various kinds in the human body. We often give it to our animals as a fresh treat.

6. Prevent Sore Feet
Folklore about mugwort tells us that it is especially useful for easing the discomfort of travel. Roman soldiers were known to line the soles of their sandals with mugwort leaves to keep their feet from hurting on long marches. Someday I’m going to try this for a long day at the farmers’ market!

Read more: http://www.hobbyfarms.com/hobby-farms-editorial-blogs/dawn-combs/7-ways-to-use-mugwort.aspx

St John's Wort “as good as Prozac”

by Michael Smith

Despite many claims made to the contrary by what one could called “standard mainstream medicine” and their representatives, especially and including the pharmaceutical industry, as regards to herbal medicines, a recent study by German scientists has found that St John's Wort (Hypericum) may be as good as an anti-depressant as Prozac.

According to this study the herbal extract is as effective as the drug and has fewer side effects. As far as my own experiences go with herbal medicines there are very few, if any, what could be called side effects, whatever claims to the contrary are being made by the ordinary practitioners mainstream medicine and especially the pharmaceutical industry.

German researchers found that St John's Wort is also a match for other old and new anti-depressant pills.

While, I am sure, we can all understand the reasons for the pharmaceutical industry poohpoohing herbal and other alternative medicine why this is being done by the general practitioners in countries such as the UK and the USA is something that should give food for thought. In other countries, such as in the Netherlands, it is common for a GP to prescribe homeopathic and herbal alongside the conventional treatments.

There is but one problem, however, and that is the fact that products containing Hypericum perforatum vary greatly. This means that some may be more effective than others. Is that a good reason, though, to take the standard drugs and to be faced with the side effects, such as those of Prozac that seem to be rather dangerous? Personally, I think not.

Many of the readers, I am sure, will not surprised as to the fact that Hypericum has been “cleared”, so to speak, and has even, to some degree, elevated above the drugs, like Prozac.

So, let's her it for plant extracts and herbal medicines...

© M Smith (Veshengro), October 2008
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