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. Maddie: Very cool. So out of curiosity, when you're going in and you're planting and getting your garden space all figured out, and how many of you want to plant all of that, how do you determine that? I know there's formulas and everything when you're trying to do your vegetable garden, how much you want to preserve and all of those kinds of things. But when it comes to medicinal herb gardens, I don't know, maybe I just freeze and it's really simple and I'm just making it way too difficult.

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. Melissa: Hey, Pioneers. Welcome to episode number 382. In today's episode we're going to be talking about how to create a simple and effective medicinal herb garden if you have limited space. Specifically, we're going to be going over growing herbs and the initial planning steps for an herb garden, how to narrow down those plant choices based on what your specific needs are, as well as the functionality of the growing space that you have. This is a really great episode because I know so many of you are interested in learning about not only how to use herbs safely and effectively, but how to grow them at home as well. Woodland cultivation is a way for us to nurture new plant communities as many of our wild forests are being logged, poached, paved, grazed, and otherwise fragmented. By growing woodland herbs, we might add precious medicines to our home apothecaries, but we’re also in service to wild plants—especially those that have been overharvested to supply domestic and foreign markets. Cultivated forest herbs are a sustainable and ethical way for us to both increase woodland diversity and partake of medicines that are otherwise increasingly rare. 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. E. purpurea has been grown as an ornamental in flower gardens for more than 200 years. The Plains Indians used narrow-leaved purple coneflower ( E. angustifolia), a common prairie species, as medicine more than they did any other plant. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this species was widely touted as a blood purifier and “cure for what ails you.” Sales of echinacea preparations were brisk through the 1920s, even among physicians, but the herb fell into disuse soon after the introduction of sulfa drugs and a shift from plant preparations to synthetic drugs.I am a registered member of the Ayurvedic Professionals Association, Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine and a Fellow of the Unified Register of Herbal Practitioners. I qualified as a herbalist with the aim of using the principles of Ayurveda (the ancient art of living wisely) and the Herbal tradition to help transform health. I have been in clinical practice since 1998. 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. See August 2021 Safety Update at the top of the article for more safety information on the ingestion and cultivation of borage. In the temperate world, there are two primary types of forest: hardwood cove forest and acidic cove forest. These forests are distinguished by the varying pH of the soil and the plants that thrive there. By identifying the trees and herbs already present in a woodland, you can determine what type of forest you’re working with (see more details below).

In this present time of COVID-19, and the food and herb shortages we have already experienced, growing your own medicine becomes even more essential. 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. Echinacea products are among the top-selling herbs in health-food stores. In the United States, you can buy tinctures and capsules made of the leaves, roots and even the seeds of Echinacea purpurea, one of nine species of perennial herbs in a genus of the aster family that occurs only in North America. Many gardeners know this group collectively as purple coneflower, but echinacea has emerged as the group’s most widely used common name.Annual plants complete their life cycle in one growing season. They are reliant on seeds for their survival, and as a result they tend to be prolific self-seeders. So, although annual herbs such as German chamomile, calendula and California poppy only live for one season, they can easily be encouraged to return year after year simply by allowing the seeds to mature and fall onto the beds where they have grown.

As an international consultant in medicinal and aromatic plant technical and marketing issues, Foster has served on projects in Argentina, Armenia, Belize, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, England, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Peru, the Republic of Georgia, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Echinacea

So, if you're worried about what maybe at not growing or not just producing or whatnot, he really favored the Echinacea purpurea because he said he really didn't notice any difference as far as treating patients and using it in effectiveness. But he did notice a big in the yield and the growth habits. He found the Echinacea purpurea to just be a lot easier and just a lot hardier. So, you could maybe even try one of each and just kind of see. I just put in, I had a harder time finding Echinacea augustifolia. I think where I actually did finally find it was from Strictly Medicinal Seeds, because locally at our nurseries, whenever I would go and look for Echinacea, I could only find the purpurea. And so, that's what I had put in. Maddie: Yeah, no, yeah. My husband's first experience with tinctures, I warned him, but it was a funny time. It was very comical because we have very different modes of taking it. My husband's like, "I'm just going to get it over with. I don't want to prolong it." And so, he just takes the dropper full and just drops it on in his mouth and goes. I'm like, I cannot. I have got to dilute it in water, even if I can still taste it. I still taste it a little bit. But I'm like, "I don't know how you straight shot it like that." Oh yeah, no, that that's what he did. And he regretted it immediately and I felt so bad, but that's how it goes. Yeah, it's all this style, right. 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.