On Saturday, Jen held the first of a 6-part series of Herbalism 101, a workshop that introduces participants to the art and science of using herbs as medicine. The first class focused on using herbs to support the digestion system and included making catnip tincture (Nepeta cataria).
More information on our upcoming Herbalism 101 workshops is available on our website.
Jen shows workshop participants how to harvest catnip for making tincture.
Harvesting catnip.
Making catnip tincture.
Big girl Tessie on the left with Maggie at Coyote Creek Park near Guadalupita
I want to share an extremely effective herbal combination I used recently with Tessie. We use herbs with all our animals (goats, chickens, cats), with the dogs seeming to have the least need for medical attention. But the other day, after a long hike in the Jemez Mountains, Tessie hurt her leg jumping out of the truck onto an uneven paver. Usually the dogs recover quickly from slight sprains or muscle pulls, so after making sure (as best I could) that it wasn’t broken, I let her go rest under the bed (we did have a long walk!).
In the morning, however, she wasn’t any better, and her “ankle” joint was swollen, hot and tender to the touch. Poor Tessie. Time to get out the yerbas. Because she didn’t like having her leg handled, I didn’t use a comfrey compress, which might be my first choice of remedies. I also chose not to give her comfrey infusion internally, because I put together a blend of tinctures that would pack a big punch, and I knew I might trouble getting her to take too many different things.
I mixed equal parts of St. John’s Wort, White Willow Bark, Nettle and Yarrow tinctures. To start with I probably used about three tablespoons each. I put the tinctures in a small saucepan and heated it slightly with some honey to sweeten the taste and evaporate some of the alcohol off a bit. Once the honey was melted and blended in with the tinctures, I poured the mixture into a small glass jar to store in the fridge.
I gave her a generous tablespoon for her first dose. Note that Tessie is a big dog, about 80 pounds of labrador and Heinz 57, and this is a large dose, but I felt that Tessie needed a large amount of these herbs to really jumpstart her healing. For comparison, for a 150 pound person, I might recommend taking a teaspoon two or three times a day, but Tessie had a tablespoon three times a day. I mixed the tincture with whatever I had in the fridge which for Tessie’s recovery consisted of homemade ricotta and tahini. This made quite the yummy paste. Tessie scarfed it up from her post under the bed, and even Tree commented that it smelled good.
I gave her 4 doses that first day, reducing it down to 3 doses a day for the following 3 days or so, after which she received her medicine twice a day. In total she had tincture for about eight days. After her first day of tincture, the swelling was down considerably. After two days, the swelling was completely gone, but she was still holding her foot up. After three days, she was limping but walking on her foot again, and after four days she was starting to become sporadically active again (against our wishes!). After a week, she wasn’t limping, but she was still taking it easy with running and jumping.
I used this combination of herbs because of their strong anti-inflammatory, tissue and nerve healing effects. I did not ice her leg (I don’t really believe in icing sprains anyway -I tend to use heat or a combination of cold/heat) or give her anything else. I just encouraged her to rest as much as I could. Interestingly enough, Tessie looked forward to her medicine, but Maggie wouldn’t touch the stuff. I guess Tessie knew how much it was helping her. – Jen
All of the calendula seeds that Jen planted in June are in full flower. The bright orange blossoms which we use to make Calendula Tincture (Calendula Officinalis) are so pretty that I hate to pick them, but doing so keeps the plant in bloom.
Calendula (Calendula Officinalis) in our garden.
A calendula-on-the-brain google search led me to this interesting New York Times article about a woman who levered up concrete in Brooklyn and transformed ugly space beneath her fire escape into a thriving beautiful garden. – Tree
From the article:
She started planting without knowing a thing about gardening. She just wanted to create a space, literally, among the crack needles and excrement left each evening beneath her fire escape.
So she began with easy, fast-growing annuals that wouldn’t tempt light-fingered passers-by the way a rose or a lily might. She followed no how-to guide, no step-by-step manual. This kind of gardening springs more from an attitude, and shows what city people can do just by taking on an ugly, scary space and seeing the beauty beneath. It’s the first lesson of gardening: Let go of preconceived notions and simply interact with the space.
Read the rest of the article here.
Jen was featured in yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal in an article called Healing Essentials. You may need to click on the link for a trial pass to read it. -Tree
Here are some photos are our first garlic harvest of the season. This is a softneck garlic variety called Inchelium Red. We purchased beautiful seed stock from Jesse Daves of Amyo Farms here in New Mexico and were rewarded with gorgeous large bulbs. Note the garlic leaves are quite brown. For braiding, it would have been better to harvest the garlic several weeks ago when there are at least four green leaves left, but life gets in the way, and the garlic is still delicious. It just won’t braid as nicely.
Next week we will start harvesting the hardneck garlic varieties from seed stock we brought from New York. We didn’t manage to save very much seed stock from last year since most of the garlic was covered with a dumptruck load of compost at the community farm where we were growing. We will keep all of our hardneck varieties for replanting this year. If you have room to plant garlic in your garden, buy your seed stock now at your local farmers’ market. Store it in a cool, dry place until late September or October (depending on your climate). Plant the individual cloves and enjoy your harvest the following June or July. Hardneck varieties are generally harvested later than the softneck. If you’re not sure which type you have, the hardneck will grow a scape with a bulbil at the top. The softneck won’t have the scape. – Jen
Jen hangs the garlic to cure under our front porch.
Here is an inspiring segment from Geoff Lawton’s recent DVD – Establishing a Food Forest the Permaculture Way. I am looking forward to watching the DVD in its entirety. For those interested, it is available for purchase from The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.
Daucus Carota commonly known as Queen Anne's Lace
We just sold out of Wild Carrot Blossom tincture. As I wrote in an earlier post, our intention was to have made enough so that we did not sell out before this year’s harvest. The growing popularity of these tinctures year over year is amazing. I am resolved to quadrupling the amount of plant material we harvest this August.
That said, Wild Carrot Seed tincture is still available and Wild Carrot Blossom will be back in stock in October. -Tree
Since moving to New Mexico, I’ve encountered so many friendly, welcoming people that my faith in humanity, if it was every in peril, is consistently restored. I received many a warm welcome from other New Mexico herbalists, one of whom is Monica Rude of Desert Woman Botanicals who interestingly enough also landed in New Mexico from upstate New York.
She runs an herb farm and herbal product business along the Gila River in southern New Mexico. She teaches a range of classes and offers many wonderful herbal products. Check out her website www.desertwoman.net If you’re in the Albuquerque area and want to try out her products and meet her in person, come to La Montanita Coop’s Earth Day festival on April 27th. – Jen
Monica Rude
Warning: This post contains graphic photos of our wounded chicken.
With 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 goats and an average of 15 chickens at any given time Jen and I make sure that we always have both dried yarrow and Yarrow Tincture on hand. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has been known for centuries for its hemostatic and wound-healing properties, accompanying soldiers into battle as recently as World War I. We’ve used it to treat puncture wounds, abscesses, gashes to udders and to ward off infection after I stitched up a hen’s crop that was ripped open by a hawk (who fortunately was chased away by our dogs). We’ve also used it to treat our own misadventures with kitchen knives. Both of us have seriously sliced our fingers open – Jen while chopping greens, me, onions – and have packed the wound with yarrow in lieu of stitches.
I’ve always meant to document the power of yarrow, but never got around to taking photos until recently when our oldest hen Gerrry was nearly pecked to death by the new hens. I found her one morning with her head down and bleeding profusely while 2 of the buff orps stood over her. I called to Jen to get the water boiling and we went to work on her, cleaning the wounds with a strong yarrow infusion which we also spoon fed to her as an antibiotic.
Jen spoon-feeds Gerry a strong infusion of dried yarrow which is also used to clean the wounds.
2 Days Later
Two weeks later: All better! Gerry now lives in a coop of her own near the house where she hangs out with the cats and dogs.
Self Heal Growing Wild
Self Heal Tincture is now available at sunstoneherbs.com.
We wildcraft self heal from the mountains of Northern New Mexico and then steep it in a blend of organic grape alcohol and water for a minimum of six weeks.
Below our some photos of Maggie and Tessie helping us locate this plant.
Jen and Maggie
Maggie and Tessie on the Trail
