In the Garden
Posted by dfly183 on Jun 2, 2008
Its been a long time since I was able to post here. My part time has kept me busier than I thought it would. Really much busier than I have time to be. I need more time to spend on my businesses. I can’t quit though because I need the extra money from the part time job while we are in recession.
My garden is it full swing though. The day lilies are about to bloom. My favorite time is when those little pink roses over the pond are blooming and the day lilies burst open. We still don’t have a pump for the water fall though.
Give and Take
Posted by dfly183 on Apr 10, 2008
Its been 30 days and I still don’t have very much to write about. I probably will be gathering herbs soon to make tinctures with as it is spring and things are leafing out now. We’ve been flooding with life giving rain. Although many parts of my state have seen so much of it that its turned into life taking rain.
Posted by dfly183 on Mar 8, 2008
I haven’t posted in this blog lately. I don’t seem to have anything to right about lately. Spring was on its way and then we got hit with snow, not once but twice. The little green bud on my weeping willow tree are mush now. I haven’t checked anything else. I was in the process of removing leaves from the flower beds but having a foot of snow on the ground not once but twice has kind of stalled. I do have some tangerine seeds sitting on top of the cable box. The heat from its vents are good for sprouting things. You just wet a coffee filter and wrap the seeds in it, then you stick that in a plastic bag and put it on top of the cable box where it s warm. You do have to check it at least once a day and make sure it doesn’t dry out. I’m not really sure what I would do with tangerine seeds but i thought they might be worth sprouting. I should probably start some of those Datura seeds I traded for last spring.
Treating Anxiety with Herbs
Posted by dfly183 on Feb 6, 2008
I have an anxiety disorder. I didn’t find out about it until a few years ago. Sometimes my brain just seems to get carried away. Its like a tornado in your head. All of the things you’ve been worrying about spin and spin until it feels like your whole world is going to end. Its a horrible feeling. You can’t possibly understand unless you’ve felt it. I’m told its a chemical thing. The Mother in her wisdom has given us plants to treat this though.
I usually use California poppy to treat this. I grow them myself (there lovely) and make them into a tincture. The entire plant must be used. Roots, leaves, and flowers. The dosage is 16 to 24 drops (depending on how severe your anxiety is). This summer my cts crushed by California poppies and I ran out of tincture.
Passion flower and Valerian can be used to treat anxiety as well. Since these herbs also cause the muscles in the boy to relax as well they can he be used to treat such problems as restless leg disorder.
Valerian will make you sleepy so its best used before you go to bed. Passion flower can be used during the day though. it will relax your muscles but it won’t make you sleepy.
Valerian Passion Flower
Capsules Verses Teas and Tinctures
Posted by dfly183 on Jan 24, 2008
Have I really not posted on this blog since the 7th?? I must have been pretty busy. I know those adsense ads on the sides don’t match. I’m going to work on that.
Today I want to talk about tinctures verse s capsules. I’m sure anyone here that has ever looked at the bottled, labeled, and sold in the Wally world herbs you know that they are essentially plant matter shoved into a capsule. what you don’t know about them is that there almost completely worthless. The reason for this is because there is just not very much medicine in that little tiny bit of plant matter. Whats even worse is by the time your body digests the plant matter and the medicine is released from the plant its on its way out of your body.
This is why you should only by your herbs in either tincture form or to be brewed as a tea. If your not a big fan of herbal teas (I’m not, I just can’t develop a taste for them) then I recommend a tincture. Many tinctures are made with some form of alcohol. I use cheap vodka and then hide the taste in a strong flavored drink like orange juice. The ones I’ve seen for sale in my local natural food store are made with glycerin. They seem to work just as well as alcohol based tinctures though.
Yucca Leaf
Posted by dfly183 on Jan 7, 2008
Our pets get sick and get hurt. They can’t tell us when there in pain, but sometimes we just know. A little over a year ago I came across a beautiful blue point Siamese kitten laying in the middle of the road. He had been hit by a car. I picked him up and brought him home. He was breathing rapidly and I expected this was a combination of pain and maybe a torn diaphragm. His hips were damaged but not broken and I suspect his ribs were cracked. I couldn’t afford to take this animal to the vet but I didn’t think he had any internal injuries. I fed him a pain killer made of Yucca leaves and chicken broth as well as large doses of vitamins to help prevent him from loosing weight.
The leaves of yucca plant, when dried and chopped can be steeped in water to make a pain killer and anti inflammatory for cats. Cats can’t be given aspirin like dogs or people can because it destroys there liver, but they can take this. I made the tea using 1/2 cup of water per tablespoon of dried chopped leaf. This tea is very bitter and you will need to try and disguise the flavor in some way. The kitten made it clear to me once he got stronger that the chicken broth mixture just was not working. Try to mix it with something that has a strong flavor like smelly canned food or cheese. Its been recommended to me that 1 drop per 10 pounds of body weight should be given but I have found this not to be enough. I gave the half grown kitten 1/2 a dropper full per dose. A full dropper full would knock him out for several hours at a time.
Yucca contains steroidal saponins, which are nature’s most powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Yucca Intensive standardized extract contains over 85% bio-available saponins versus only 3 to 7% left in waste powder. Yucca Intensive can be used for arthritis, bone and joint problems, soft tissue swelling, digestive, bowel problems and colic. Yucca Intensive also reduces the itch of allergies.
Humans can eat the flowers in salads or pickled. The softer bases of the plants leaves can also be eaten although they may be bitter.
Poke Weed
Posted by dfly183 on Jan 1, 2008
Pokeweed is a wasteland plant. It grows throughout most of the world. You’ve probably seen this on more than one occasion. As a child I was told not to eat the berries on this plant because they were poisonous. As an adult I have learned that Pokeweed berries are not poisonous, its the seeds within them that are poisonous. If you can eat the berries and not eat the seeds you will be fine. I’ve also red that the toxins are destroyed during cooking so if the berries are cooked this may make them safe.
The leaves and stems of this plant are edible and the cooked greens are a common hillbilly/redneck food. I like the chop up the stems an cook them like Okra. The leaves and stems are not good when eaten raw. You definitely want to cook them.
They are only safe to eat before the stems of the plant turn pink. After that there poisonous. The roots are not to be taken internally but can be mashed up and applied to sprains, boils, and abscesses, and anything else on the outside of the body that hurts. Eating the berries without biting into the seeds (they pass safely through your digestive tract) can be done to help treat arthritis. The plant also contains chemicals that are considered the be antiviral.
Onions are Medicinal
Posted by dfly183 on Dec 29, 2007
Most people don’t realize that onions can be used for more than just eating. I use them as one of the main ingredients in my cold medicine.
Onions have been used since ancient times for various health problems. Bunches were hung on doors to ward off the plague, typhoid, and cholera in medieval Europe. Egyptians numbered over 8000 onion-alleviated ailments. They were fed together with garlic to workers building pyramids and were found in the tomb of King Tut. Wild onions were widely used as food and medicine by the Native Americans, who used all varieties interchangeably. Onions were often used to treat stings and to help relieve colds. Blackfoot mothers drank wild onion tea to pass the medicinal properties on to their babies while nursing. They also treated colds, headaches, and sinus trouble by inhaling smoke from a smudge made from the bulb. They used snuff made from the dry bulb to open sinuses.
I don’t make snuff or burn incense made from onions (although its something I may try one of these days) but I do add it to my tinctures and make cough medicine with it.
Onions are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but have been cultivated worldwide for thousands of years. They are bulbous perennials that are closely related to garlic, having hollow stems and leaves, white or purple flowers, and bulbs of varying sizes, shapes, and pungencies that are used for culinary and medicinal purposes. Fresh onions are pungent and have a sharp bite and will make your eyes water (unless you wear goggles or contact lenses). Cooked onions lose this heat and develop a rich sweetness. This sweet taste is mostly appreciated by barbecuing onions on charcoal. They generally have a papery outer skin over a fleshy, layered core.
Onions contain two substances that give them most of it beneficial properties: sulfur and quercetin - both being strong antioxidants. They each have been shown to help neutralize the free radicals in the body, and protect the membranes of the body’s cells from damage. Quercetin is also found in tea, but in much lower quantities. Interestingly, white Onions contain very little quercetin, so it’s better to use the yellow and red varieties. One small onion cooked without salt contains .8 grams protein and 1.3 grams of fiber. It also contains the minerals Potassium , Phosphorus, Calcium ,Magnesium, Sodium and Selenium. Also contains small amounts of iron, manganese, copper and zinc.
Onion is used as a diuretic, expectorant and antiseptic. Onions are highly recommended for people trying to prevent cardiovascular disease, cancer, and infections. There effective in fighting colds because they stimulate the immune system and break up congestion in the lungs. They are also beneficial in treating heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases and contain anti inflammatory, anti cholesterol, and anticancer components.
When acough or cold catches me without a tincture made from onions i make the following recipe
Onion and honey cough syrup
6 yellow or red onions
1 cup of honey
1 large sauce pan
Chop up the six onions and put them inside the sauce pan. Add the cup of honey and simmer the mixture for two hours or until the juice from the onions and the honey form a syrup. Strain the onions with cheese cloth and take the syrup as often as you feel the need too. Your going to want to carry breath mints at all times because you will have strong onion breath. Unless your around people who might be offended don’t use the breath mints since breathing the onion fumes from your stomach will help your lungs . While cooking the onions frequently hang your head over the pot (don’t burn yourself) and breath in the vapor. This will also help your lungs.
This recipe does not relieve coughing symptoms like an over the counter medicine will but will break up the congestion in your chest and get rid of your cough.
When I first tried this recipe I was 18 years old. I had horrible bronchitis and had gone through two bottles of doctor prescribed cough medicine with no relief. I was coughing so hard I cracked a rib. after weeks of suffering that my doctor couldn’t relieve I desperately tried this cough medicine and the cough that had plagued me for weeks was gone in 3 days!! This was my first experience with herbal medicine.
Mullein (Verbascum Thapsus)
Posted by dfly183 on Dec 22, 2007
I am pleased to say my cold is nearly gone. I can’t say the same for my poor ruptured ear drum though. Oh well. It will get better with time. Today I am going to talk about one the plants I used in my tincture. Mullein not as well known as Echinacea is but it’s excellent for treating colds. Common Mullein is a weed usually found in waste places (open areas where the ground has been disturbed). Other places it grows include roadsides, streamsides, gardens, and forest openings. It doesn’t like shade. It’s a Bi Annual meaning it lives two yeas. The first year it will form was looks almost like a large rose on the ground with its beautiful furry silver leaves. These silver leaves are cold hardy and will survive through the winter. The second year it will grown a very tall stalk and bear yellow flowers and can produce over 100,000 seeds. Seeds can survive almost any conditions and remain viable for 100 years. Since mullein cannot grow in shade the seeds can lay dormant in the soil, waiting until plants around them die or are removed. The plant dies after its second year and is not vulnerable to many pests.
The furry leaves can be used as toilet paper in emergency situations but I prefer to use them to treat colds. The flowers and leaves are used in the treatment of various respiratory complaints including coughs, bronchitis, asthma and throat irritations. The leaves and flowers infused in olive oil treats ear aches, sores, wounds, and boils. The plant is harvested when in flower and should be dried quickly and with care or it will lose its medicinal qualities. The best time to harvest the plant in June and July when the sun is hot and high in the sky. I simple lay the leaves out on the deck and the sun dries them before storing them.
I prefer to make tincture with the leaves and I commonly mix it with other herbs used to treating colds. To make a tincture you simply stuff a jar with leaves and then add as much vodka as the jar will hold after the leaves are stuffed in it and let it sit for a few weeks before straining it. I usually let it sit until I need it.
I’m sick!!!
Posted by dfly183 on Dec 18, 2007
I am beginning this blog as I am fighting a nasty cold. I What’s get sick very often but I’ve been dieting these past several month and the reduction in calories probably weakened my immune system. My sore throat became a cough and then turned into an inner ear infection that burst the ear drum in my left ear. What’s interesting is the rupture occurred within 12 hours of the infection beginning. I looked up information on ruptured eardrums and learned that it simply has to heal on its own. The infection cleared up shortly after the rupture but I guess I get to deal with the ringing in my left ear for 2 months while it heals. I can hear out of it surprisingly well.
I made a tincture during the summer with plants from my garden. The remedy is a fairly simple one. Echinacea to fight viral or bacterial infections. Onions to remove congestion from the lungs. Black Cherry Tree Bark to suppress coughing (which can zap a persons energy and effect there ability to rest and heal) . I put the whole plant matter from each plant into a jar and then fill it up with alcohol (usually vodka) and I ordinarily let it sit until I need it. A few weeks is usually long enough but I seen no need to strain it until its needed. Well being as miserable as I am I was to lazy to strain it . I was sure my body would fight off the cold on its own. I finally strained it this evening and put a teaspoon full into my tea. I usually always put my tinctures into something that will cover there taste like ice tea or orange juice.
Care should be used with black cherry bark. Its a cough suppressant and acts as a sedative that focuses mainly on the lungs. My husband once took my black cherry cough medicine and a night time cold medicine at the same time and he slept for 18 straight hours.
