Just a quick note to say thank you to those of you who took the survey in my last post. The answers are anonymous so I can’t address you personally if you took it (because I don’t know who took it), which means I have to do it here. Two things come up in the survey that I wanted to talk to right away. The first is that someone mentioned learning more about growing and drying herbs. I’m not much of a grower myself with barely a raised bed of edibles each summer, but herbs are notoriously easy to grow. Of course, that depends on if you are growing what is native to your area or if you are trying to grow jungle plants in Alaska, but assuming you are growing somewhat native plants, most herbs are hearty, not too picky about soil, and are a good pick for kids because they generally don’t disappoint. As for drying, if you are in a hurry you can use a food dehydrator if you happen to have one, or your oven on it’s lowest setting (under 185 degrees) with the door cracked open. Those two techniques can dry herbs in a day. All you really need though is some sort of slatted drying rack, a cooling rack from your oven would do if the herbs don’t fall through, and a dry room with good ventilation. You want the herbs to not touch as much as possible, and flipping them over once a day or so is also a good idea. You can also tie small bundles together and hang them to dry which is space saver and less work once they are hanging. Either way will take from a few days to over a week, depending on what you are drying and the conditions of the room. You can dry herbs in the sun if you are just looking for a quick 1-2 day dry but still intend to use the plant as ‘fresh’. Hope that helps, but if not there are plenty of websites that go into detail about drying herbs so you aren’t alone and definitely can find what you need.
To those that indicated they would most like to learn about a particular disease and what would help it, I highly recommend starting with the book, Prescription for Nutritional Healing by Phyllis A. Balch CNC. It’s a great resource as a starting place. It does not go too deeply into herbs, but it does give sound herbal recommendations after each disease/condition. An old edition was given to every employee when hired at the health food store I worked at over 20 years ago, and we kept the new editions behind the checkout counter to hand over to customers for when they came in looking for natural help for whatever ailed them. It’s a great resource and I’ve held onto mine all these years despite the fact the cover is gone and the pages are starting to fall out. Here’s a brief video to see what the book looks like:
Also KP Khalsa has some online videos about herbs for specific diseases/conditions so you might want to look into those as well. I love that people are taking their health into their own hands. We hear a lot about self-care lately and that means something different to everyone, but when we apply that notion to our health it means really addressing the imbalances that inevitably occur so they do not go into a disease condition. Sometimes this means getting a diagnosis from a doctor, other times it might mean just thinking about long term conditions, or parts of our bodies that seem most susceptible to disharmony, and then changing daily habits or supplementing accordingly. Be an authority on yourself. You’ll be your own best advocate and it’s the surest way to your best health possible.
And just FYI, that butterfly was alive and well. I at first was nervous it might be injured or worse because it let me get so close without moving, but then I took the photo and it promptly flew away. Phew!
Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.