Herb News

Below are links to articles, websites, and news related to Herbs and Herbalism.

February 2022

Make lemon and rosemary shortbread

Lemon and Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

Make Conifer Needle Tea

Conifer Needle Tea with Pine, Fir or Spruce

The First Newly Identified Plant Species of 2022 Was Named After Leonardo DiCaprio

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-first-newly-identified-plant-species-of-2022-was-named-after-leonardo-dicaprio-180979335/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220107-daily-responsive&spMailingID=46216501&spUserID=OTAyNTEyNTgyOTc2S0&spJobID=2160777478&spReportId=MjE2MDc3NzQ3OAS2

Make Mullein tea for lungs (video)

January 2022

Mother Holle Cloud Tart w/ Cranberry & Hawthorn Berry Curd

https://gathervictoria.com/2021/12/21/mother-holle-cloud-tart-w-cranberry-hawthorn-berry-curd/

All about Mistletoe

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/national-museum-of-natural-history/2021/12/21/five-things-you-didnt-know-about-mistletoe/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20211221-daily-responsive&spMailingID=46143183&spUserID=OTAyNTEyNTgyOTc2S0&spJobID=2142423775&spReportId=MjE0MjQyMzc3NQS2

Make a foraged simmer pothttps://www.growforagecookferment.com/foraged-simmer-pot/embed/#?secret=SQu40XlWz8

Make Fire Cider for colds! (I use it in salad dressings and stir fries, too)https://www.growforagecookferment.com/how-to-make-fire-cider/embed/#?secret=LUcL9G4rk7

Make pine needle cough syruphttps://www.growforagecookferment.com/pine-needle-cough-syrup/embed/#?secret=XTqHohFHqC

Harvesting Elecampane (video)

Harvesting Chaga sustainablyhttps://www.growforagecookferment.com/harvesting-chaga/embed/#?secret=vblobiv9mg

Why is the world so beautiful? An Indigenous botanist on the spirit of life in everything

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/why-is-the-world-so-beautiful-an-indigenous-botanist-on-the-spirit-of-life-in-everything-1.5817787?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar&fbclid=IwAR2i1hKVjX-An14U-cLLWH95XXu2u8NPYDHS2WtefvFZqUY4q7AGvsERcw4

Medieval Welsh herbalism (paper)

https://www.academia.edu/42095827/Celtic_Provenance_in_Traditional_Herbal_Medicine_of_Medieval_Wales_and_Classical_Antiquity?email_work_card=view-paper

Foraging for pine needles in winter

https://www.growforagecookferment.com/foraging-for-pine-needles/embed/#?secret=S7r6pGs6Jq

October 2021

September 2021

August 2021

July 2021

Eating milkweed buds (Please don’t pick all the buds off your milkweed – leave some for the butterflies who depend on them!)
Make a wild yeast starter for natural beers and sodas
Make rose petal wine and mead (make sure to use old fashioned non GMO roses with actual scent to them)
Make your own blackberry wine
How to eat roses
Sesame baked Chicken of the Woods mushroom
Make red clover blossom flour
How to eat lamb’s quarters

June 2021

Make rhubarb mead!
Pine pollen fudge (if you live in an area with a lot of pines, its easy to gather the pollen. Just put a clean sheet on top of your car!)
Sea Buckthorn is food and medicine
40+ wild plants you can use to make flour
Dandelion Jelly recipe
Make dandelion shortbread cookies!

Make pine cone cider jam
Rhubarb upside-down cake
What to forage in May – please remember to “walk by the first seven, leaves the eight for the animals, and you may take the ninth”
Make your own fruit vinegar
Things to do with lemon balm
Iceland Moss benefits and uses
Grow your own elderberries

Fiddlehead fern salad
How to eat your peonies
“There are several superstitions attached to the peony. In ancient times the flower was considered to be of divine origin with connections to the moon and was thought to keep evil spirits at bay. Sometimes peony seeds were even strung as a necklace to ward off evil spirits.”
Madder is more than a dye herb – medicinal benefits
Make a Rose cordial
Cooking with Ramps (Wild Leeks)
More: harvesting wild leeks (video)
Forage for cow parsley
Stonecrop/Sedum is edible (video)

May 2021

Stephen Buhner on the history of American Herbalism (please read to the end)
Healing benefits of Calendula
Grow an edible tree garden
Time to gather Wild Garlic (Ramps!)

April 2021

Please make sure you are using fragrant elderflowers for this, such as Sambucus nigra – native American varieties have no scent – Ellen

Elderflower Champagne

Basic traditional European recipe:

1/2 gallon water (use 2 liters)
250 to 300 gr (1 1/2 cup) white sugar
1-2 lemons zested and sliced
1 tablespoon vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)
15 large flower heads from Mexican elder or 10 flower heads from regular elder
Champagne or wine yeast (optional – flowers have wild yeast)

Method:

Pick the elder flowers when they’re fresh and full of pollen. I remove the stems as much as possible. Place the flowers in a bowl outside for an hour to let the little bugs vacate.

Place water in a container, add the sugar and stir with a clean spoon to make sure it is dissolved.

Add lemon zest and lemon slices, the elderflower and vinegar to the container and stir briefly with a clean spoon. Some people add yeast at this stage.

Close the container but not so tight that fermentation gases can’t escape or place a clean towel on top.

Let it stand anywhere between 24 to 48 hrs. If you didn’t use yeast, you should see some bubbles indicating the fermentation from wild yeast is active. If this doesn’t occur, then add some yeast and let it ferment for another 3-4 days.

Personally, I like to strain it after 48 hrs then let the fermentation go for another 4 days.

Bottle in recycled soda bottles or swing-top glass bottles. Let it ferment for a week before enjoying. I like to check the pressure from time to time by unscrewing or opening slightly the bottle to make sure it’s not excessive. From Pascal Baudar “The Wildcrafting Brewer”.

March 2021

February 2021

January 2021

Folklore and medicinal uses of Sorrel
Do trees talk to each other?
Acorns are food and medicine (reminder – you can find acorn recipes in my books Secret Medicines from your Garden and The Sacred Herbs of Samhain)
Mistletoe – benefits and uses
How to find Mistletoe (first look to see if it grows in your area)
More…
The biology of Mistletoe
Mistletoe in natural and in human history
What you can forage in December
Bay Laurel- benefits and uses
How to eat a Pine tree – and other conifers
Lost crops of ancient North America (video)

December 2020

November 2020

Feeding the Hungry with Japanese Knotweed: Imagine if Asparagus Plants Grew as an Invasive!

On 9/30/20, The Times published an article about Japanese knotweed eradication. It is indeed an invasive that should be dealt with, however an article like that really can’t be published without the other side being given its fair share. Simply killing it is not the answer.

This is a bountiful plant, also known as sally rhubarb (Reynoutria japonica is the universal [scientific name]), which produces an abundance of edible stalks when young. In fact, the stalks look similar to asparagus, have a similar texture, and can be cooked in a similar way. The name “sally” means to rush forward quickly, as they grow very quickly when shoots. The name rhubarb probably is for its semi-resemblance to rhubarb in flavor and typical uses. For more information on this food, I recommend the book “Incredible Wild Edibles 36 plants that can change your life” by Samuel Thayer.

In this age of giving free food to kids ages 18 and younger (check with your local school system for more information if you need these meals, but please recycle the plastic containers, bring clean plastic bags and wrappers to the grocery store for recycling, and compost anything else you can):

Instead if destroying this fantastic food supply, we should eat it (if to eradication, so be it, but not destroyed in the way the prior article described, unless you’d do that with invasive asparagus?!?). If we have too much food to care about getting a perennial that grows prolifically, then when you would have simply killed it, instead pick shoots for the hungry. If you find them after they are shoots, and too tough to eat, juice them. One note: They do contain oxalic acid, as does spinach, so if your doctor said to not eat spinach for that reason, then please harvest for others.

October 2020

Vitex Agnus Castus for women’s issues (video)

September 2020

Make a Pine needle basket (video)

Make Elderberry syrup (take every 2 hours in hot tea or hot water for flu) (I would make this with honey – use ½ the amount of honey vs. sugar)
Tansy – a natural pest repellent
Back woods folk remedies that work
An all-natural poison ivy defoliant!
A friend wrote this;Back woods folk remedies that work
“I have used easy off oven cleaner to kill poison ivy. I spray it in the morning when I know that day is going to be hot and there is nothing but brown leaves and twigs at the days end. It is just lye and water and soap, so it sweetens the soil and helps other things that you don’t spray it on grow. A few years of spaying from time to time kills the ivy roots as well.”
But to remove Poison Ivy, Bittersweet, etc. completely you still need to monitor the roots and pull out anything that pops up.
Protecting Joshua trees (podcast)