Gladstar Rosemary - Homegrown Herbs

Dedicated to Chris and Mlissa, with love

The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.

Edited by Carleen Madigan and Anne Halpin White Art direction and book design by Jessica Armstrong

Photography by Saxon Holt except for CuboImages/Alamy 227 right; GAP Photos, Ltd./BBC Magazines, Ltd. 215 right; Bob Gibbons/Alamy 188; Storey Publishing 56 & 96; Mars Vilaubi 111

Garden plan illustrations by Alison Kolesar

Insect illustrations by Brigita Fuhrmann and Kurt Musfeldt

Indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications

2011 by Tammi Hartung

An earlier version of this book was published under the title Growing 101 Herbs That Heal (Storey Publishing, 2000)

Ebook production by Kristy L MacWilliams

Ebook version 1.0

May 4, 2015

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My dance with the plants began a long time ago, over 30 years now. My journey to understand how to grow and use them will be ongoing for all the rest of the days that I walk on this earth. Many people have played a role in my understanding of and inspiration for working with herbs.

I offer my gratitude and appreciation to my elders, within my family and my community, and to the teachers who have helped me learn about plants.

My love and deepest thanks to my husband, Chris, my daughter, Mlissa, and my wonderful parents, Alvin and Carroll. They nurture and love me in every way and have given me so much support in the writing of this book.

Thank you to Rosemary Gladstar, who came into my life as my teacher, who has enriched my life as one of my most treasured friends. She has done me the great honor of writing the foreword for this book. Much love to you, Rosemary.

I offer my thanks to Saxon Holt, the photographer. He made the photo shoots easy and fun, for which I am very grateful. He is a joyful man with great talent.

I am deeply indebted to Carleen, my editor at Storey, who has been a constant source of guidance, kind and inspiring words, and good editorial advice. Thank you, Carleen. I appreciate you! To the rest of the Storey staff, thank you for being so helpful in every way.

This book reflects all the positive energy Ive been gifted with by many individuals during the course of my life and my work with plants. I hold every one of you in my heart with honor and respect. You are each a piece of the reason that I embrace this passion for plants and have chosen this lifestyle.

For the past 40 years I have spent much of my time in a garden watering, tending, weeding, planting, and mostly enjoying. Ive had the great good fortune to have planted two gardens that became public gardens, sanctuaries for plants that many others came to enjoy. And Ive had the pleasure of visiting hundreds of other gardens and the lucky people who tended them. One of the most amazing and most prolific of gardeners is Tammi Hartung, the astute authoress of this amazing book you hold in your hands. Ive known Tammi for so many years now, I cant even recall the first time I met her. But for as long as Ive known her, shes been a gardener extraordinaire and a brilliant plantsperson, deeply engrossed in the secret life of plants, and versed in with their inner teachings.

Tammi is a master gardener with all plants and can coax anything to grow, but first and foremost she loves herbs those magic healing plants that were used so aptly by our ancestors for health, healing, spiritual, and culinary purposes. Though a renowned gardener, Tammi is also an accomplished medical herbalist and educator, and is often asked to speak at conferences and events around the country. But theres nowhere shes more at home than in her gardens at Desert Canyon Farm, and nothing that shed rather talk about than gardening and her beloved herbs.

Tammi and her husband, Chris, settled on their farm over a decade ago. Located at the base of a mountain in the high desert of southern Colorado, one would hardly call the land that they settled on a gardeners haven. With too little water, too much sun, and very cold winters, those first few years were challenging; but with hard work and ingenuity, they transformed this high desert property into a gardeners paradise. Even more than a garden, Desert Canyon Farm became a sanctuary, a pleasant refuge for flocks of birds, butterflies and other beneficial insects, wild animals, and people who are hungry to learn about the green world. Here, in the gardens, Tammi holds a variety of popular community events, and hosts programs specially geared toward schoolchildren. Much of her work centers on the healing property of herbs.

When Tammi talks about the healing power of plants, her message is of much broader scale than using them only as medicine for humans. She understands and appreciates the plants also as medicines of and for the earth, within the garden and the larger landscape that surrounds our garden plots. As Stephen Buhner, herbalist and author, states in the foreward to Plant Spirit Healing by Pam Montgomery, That plant medicines are used throughout ecosystems by insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, and other plants is something long overlooked by reductionist researchers. Overlooked as well is that plants can, and will, determine just what particular chemical an ill member of an ecosystem needs, and further, they will then begin making it for them. Tammi applies these principles using the herbs own inherent healing properties to help balance and heal the gardens ecosystem to problem-solve the issues that arise in a garden. And its in her gardens walking among the diverse beds of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and wild plants, with hummingbirds darting about, bird feeders full of songbirds, and an occasional rabbit or even a deer strolling at the outskirts of the garden that one sees this healing power and rich biodiversity at its best.

When everyone has good food on their table and herbal remedies for health and well-being in their cupboard, the world will indeed be a more peaceful and sustainable place.

This entire book teaches us to think like a plant when we garden.