Harvesting Medicinal Herbs For the Community!
It's been a while since I wrote an update, about the collective I am a part of and how we have been organizing ourselves, since we finished our Sociocracy Training. We now have divided ourselves into different circles, so that each of us can focus on what we are passionate about.
I chose to be a part of the Health and Ecology circle and up until recently we have been meeting weekly, to discuss what our aims are and to focus on what we need to accomplish so that our collective and the wider community can thrive independently from the system.
Health And Ecology
We have various projects that we have started, one of which is to begin to harvest the medicinal herbs that grow wild around us and begin to dry some of them, to use later in infusions, poultice and in a topical wash. We started this on Monday, where one of my friends, who is a trained herbalist, brought round some of her drying racks which are erected in the wooden shack on the land I live on. (Something I am very excited about, as I have never had the opportunity to dry such a large amount of herbs at one time). On Monday, We focused on harvesting 3 plants!
Wild Lettuce
First up is wild lettuce, a plant that I only learned about since moving here, but which is growing in abundance on the land that I live on. You really need to use gloves and/or scissors when you are harvesting some, because it is very spiky.
This wonderful plant is used for pain relief and also as a sedative. We intend to dry it and use it in infusions,and also to make into powder form and put into capsules.
Plantain
There is an abundance of Plantain growing at the mountain and we spend the morning harvesting some. Plantain is such an amazing plant. It has so many healing properties and is really a heal all. I have used it successfully for bites, wounds, and tooth infections and for drawing out infections, by chewing the plant and applying it to the site where it is needed.
It is also a wonderful plant to use when you are experiencing diarrhea, indigestion and heartburn, you can make an infusion for all of these. I will be using some of the wilted leaves to make an infused oil, which I will mix with some calendula oil that I have made recently.
Calendula
Calendula is another plant that I have used a lot, it is wonderful healer for the skin and I have been making oil infusions for years now. I always have it growing in my garden, as the flowers are such a wonderful addition to any salad. I have already made an oil infusion from the flowers, so today it was all about harvesting them and drying them for infusions. Which are great to use for wounds, eye infections and as a poultice for most skin conditions.
Preparing The Plants
There is quite a lot of water in Plantain, so it is better to cut up the the plantain and that way it will dry a lot quicker. (which is what I am doing in the above picture). We harvested quite a lot, enough to fill two shelves. On the top shelf is the calendula and wild lettuce. With the lettuce we just removed the leaves from the stem.(which you can kind of see in the picture below.)
In the past I have always harvested wild plants by myself or with my kids, so it was super nice, to do it on this day, with some of my tribe. We plant to head up higher into the mountains soon to harvest so more plants and once also to open this experience up to others who are interested, so that they can learn about the different medicinal plants available and know how to harvest them and prepare them.