Dede Cummings - The Medicinal Gardening Handbook: A Complete Guide to Growing, Harvesting, and Using Healing Herbs

Copyright 2014 by Dede Cummings and Alyssa Holmes

Photographs 2014 by Abigail Gehring, except as indicated.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cummings, Dede.

The medicinal gardening handbook : a complete guide to growing, harvesting, and using healing herbs / by Dede Cummings and Alyssa Holmes.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-62914-195-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Medicinal plants. 2. Materia medica, Vegetable. 3. Herbs--Therapeutic use. I. Holmes, Alyssa. II. Title.

SB293.C86 2014

615.321--dc23

2013047288

ISBN: 978-1-62914-195-4
eISBN: 978-1-62914-258-6

CONTENTS

Why grow medicinal herbs in your backyard

Plants used as medicine throughout the ages

Getting to Know Your Herbal Allies

Design, location, choosing the herbs to grow, planting, and maintenance

Growing in small spaces, containers, windowsills, and on rooftops

When to harvest, how to harvest, drying methods, and storage

How to make teas (infusions and decoctions), syrups, tinctures, powders (capsules, pills and poultices), oils, salves, dream pillows, and baths

Properties and Actions of Herbs

Additional Herbal Remedies

Freezing Fresh Herbs

Dosages

Collecting Herbs in the Wild

Cooking with Herbs

The Healing Power of Mushrooms

Companies/Organizations and Books

FOREWORD

B efore this book, you needed several different reference sources to put together all of the useful information about how to grow and use medicinal plants. From starting a garden, to planting, to weed and insect control, to harvesting and preserving the plants, to making simple, effective medicines from them, the authors cover everything you need to get started on a lifetime of learning and health. And they make it fun! Their personable approach to the various subjects just makes the reader want to read more.

Alyssa and Dede have synthesized valuable information about 24 very special medicinal plants and have included instructions for growing or collecting them in a clear, simple, straightforward manner. Focusing on a core group of plants, as the authors have done, helps greatly to clarify the mystifying plethora of plants that can be used as medicine. The concepts of wonderful weeds and native plants are important topics that I always stress in my own classes, garden tours and writing. If only everyone would learn to look at our plant heritage with these eyes! Some of my very favorite weeds are covered here, so its great that more people will learn about them through this book. Think of the weeds you have struggled to remove from your lawndandelion, plantain, red clover, and othersand you might then rethink your eradication of them.

Growing organically, without poisons and chemicals, is vital when growing medicinals. If we want to heal ourselves with Mother Natures bounty, we must participate in her natural processes rather than fight them, attempting to control the physical world, as we humans so often attempt to do.

Although the climate and gardening conditions where I live in Hawaii are very different from the US mainland (believe it or not, the mints do not survive long-term here!), I have had much experience growing many of the plants the authors describe when I lived in Northern California from 1971 until 1998. Their gardening advice is sound and is presented in an easy-to-understand way. The important thing I have learned about growing medicinal herbs is that they grow best when they grow where they want to grow. I always tell visitors to my garden, the plants dont need us, but we need the plants. This basic philosophy is echoed in the pages of this book, and the authors have done a good job of communicating the importance of letting the plants do their own thing. Very little fussing, fretting, and fertilizing are needed for this category of plants!

Appendix 1 includes a succinct list of the properties that medicinal plants can contain. Along with simple definitions and good examples of plants that have each property, this quick reference will help all readers to learn the sometimes confusing terms and will enable them to better design their own unique formulas that will serve their special needs exceptionally well.

I am confident that readers of this book will become inspired to plant a garden that contains at least a few medicinals. They will change your life for the better, in many wonderful ways.

By Barbara Fahs of Hiiakas Healing Herb Garden, Keaau, Hawaii

Author of Super Simple Guide to Creating Hawaiian Gardens and the Healthful Herbalist newspaper column; teacher of workshops, including the Home Herbalist Certification Series.

Keaau, Hawaii,
November 2013

INTRODUCTION

P eople have used plants as medicine since the beginning of time. Every culture around the world has or has lost a relationship to the plants of the region, whether wild or cultivated. These healing plants have served our species well. There was once a time, in the not too distant past, when most people had some knowledge of plants to heal themselves, and in every village a person of more expertise on treating serious conditions.

Today we are focused on so many different things in our busy lives, and most of us have come to depend on systems of medicine that are outside of ourselves. We have forgotten how to take care of ourselves, prevent illness, and treat common ailments when they arise. We may be fearful when something is off balance, in turn running to the nearest hospital or pharmacy. We have forgotten how to grow and prepare the simplest of medicines to treat colds, flus, fevers, and headaches, promote sleep, and so on. We can get this knowledge back for vibrant well-being. We can grow a small number of herbs, take a small amount of time in our lives, and have security in knowing that we can heal.