Sometimes I need the vitamins and minerals and soothing that come only from herbs.  It’s pretty often.

Care to go on an herb-gathering walk through my little yard?

The first stop is chocolate mint…

Princess of the Universe is learning to identify herbs too…

I love all the peppermints, but chocolate mint is a favorite.  I also have apple mint — another favorite, given to us by one of husband’s cousins up in Vilas, North Carolina.  She has a beautiful yard!  Mint is good for digestion, nervousness and insomnia, as well as other things.  I drink it frequently, but I take a break from it at regular intervals too, as you should many medicinal herbs.

Some herbs — tonifying and nutritive herbs — can be taken on a daily basis with good effects.

The next stop is a nice bunch of dandelion leaves around the corner…

Dandelion is a known cholagogue, which means it helps promote and move bile.  It also helps remove excess water from the body in edematous conditions, and it will diurese you without taking your minerals away!  In fact, it feeds you as it diureses you!  Dandelion is a great herb to use on a regular basis. 

 
The next stop is a patch of bright green chickweed.  Better enjoy it now!  Once the intense summer heat arrives, the chickweed will disappear.  Chickweed is a very cooling herb — great for “hot” conditions.  I always sleep better after I’ve had some chickweed.  There’s an old wive’s tale about chickweed being a weight loss remedy.  I think it works.  My cells just seem to let go of fat when I drink it regularly. Chickweed is very nutritive.

The next plant is nettles…
 

When you think of nettles, think of minerals! Nettle is good for the bones, the kidneys and the nerves and so much more.  It is good for nursing mothers.  Nettle is very tonifying.  I love my patch of nettles and I hope it gets bigger and bigger.  The children know not to run up against it.  I use gloves if handling extensively.  See the stingers?

It seems if I reach with intention, just to get the stems I want, the sticks are none or few. Still, nettles can cause severe skin irritation, so use caution!

 
Reaching for nettles.

The next stop is by a big lavender plant that sits just inside the vegetable garden…

Lavender is wonderful.  The smell is intoxicating.  How can it be a sedative and a stimulant?  But it is!  It is a cholagogue, carminative (helps remove gas from the intestines) and tonic.  It is good for headaches.  I usually put a few pretty little lavender leaves in my infusions.

The walk through the yard to gather the herbs is very therapeutic in itself.  It is so relaxing.  The scent and the feel of various herbs is good for me.

Next is sage…

Getting a few sage leaves.  The herb basket is getting full

Sage helps stop the flow of milk in a nursing mother.  Sage is good for stopping perspiration. 

At the garden gate there’s a nice patch of violet leaves and cleavers…

Cleavers is a gentle lymphatic and urinary helper.  I love violet leaves for their help with anything cystic.  They are good for the respiratory system and are soothing as a gargle and for headaches.  I eat many leaves and flowers in salads.

I have to stop and get a few plantain leaves — good for infection and inflammation.  Plantain is demulcent.
 
Plantain.

The last stop is right near the door.  Melissa, also known as lemon balm.

Melissa was named for the bees who love her so.  Melissa, or lemon balm, is good for the nerves and for depression.  I love to add it to my infusions.

Before going in, I grab some apple mint and plenty of rose petals.

These herbs do so much more than what I’ve even written here, but these are a few of the things I’m aware of as I’m picking them for my teas and infusions.

The herbs are ready to be looked over closely and put into a large jar.  I check the herbs and set free any little bugs while I am waiting on the water to boil.

Herbs in the jar, waiting on boiling water.  After steeping for even half an hour, I’ll have a cup.  I love to drink it before bed.  After a couple of hours of steeping, I strain into a clean quart jar and put in the fridge to sip on all the next day.

Lynn

PS - Just remember that I post this information for my own records.  Please do not construe this as medical advice or diagnosis.  You are responsible for what you do with herbs.

It’s the little things.  That’s a concept that has been reiterated to me in my new job training this week.  Of course we all know it’s the little things, and what that phrase means, but perhaps we often forget it.  I know I do.

Where there are peonies, there are ants.  Would the bloom open without them?

My new job training this week has been really nice.  Well, yes, I remember that I was exhausted the first part of the week.  I was sort of glazed over from receiving so much information.  On the flip side of that is the fact that the hospital is going to be a wonderful institution to work for and that I’m nearly done with my training!! 

I’ll soon be home, transcribing away! 

The savory on the front porch has a tiny little bloom — almost insignificant, but it is what draws me in to stop and look closely at the plant each and every time I go by it.

I know, from years of transcribing, it’s the little things that take a report from good to excellent.  But that’s the way it is with everything.  There must be some little thing that separates the mediocre from the really good and the really good from the excellent.

Sometimes the little things are hard to conquer.

Remember the little rosemary seeds I planted, way back in March?  This is one of the little plants.  I started with 100 peat pellets.  Of that, I had a really good success rate of germination.  I hear rosemary seeds are only about 5%!  Nevertheless, I had about 12 plants spring up.  Of that, once they were put on the front porch, Fluffy jumped on one flat and flipped it upside down, so that entire flat was lost!  (Arrrrrrrrrgh!!)  That left me with only 3 seedlings in the other flat, but they are doing great. 

You know what has appealed to me about all of this?  I gave the same love, care and attention to all 100 peat pellets.  The ones that didn’t make it got the same attention as the ones that did.  I could not, in a million years, have determined which would have lived and which would have died just by looking at the plain old dirt. 

We’re supposed to be kind to others without trying to judge who’s worthy of kindness and who’s not.

Up-close Jupiter’s beard bloom.

Princess of the Universe holds the first parsley worm of the season.

There’ll soon be blooms on the blackberry bushes.

Just wanted to share a few little things from the garden.

Lynn