Herbs- heal.spice.soothe.

herbs are the bomb diggity, they have the power to heal, spice, or soothe. I am crazy about herbs.
If you want to start a small garden, I don't think you can go wrong with herbs. I am a little basil crazy so I probably use fresh herbs about 4 times a week. They are too simple. I got them at Home Dept for 2.50 a pint. (each pint had 3 or 4 plants (seeds are cheap, so why not put many in one to ensure the customer gets a live specimen) I only picked pints that had three or four healthy plants, when I transplanted them, I separated them out, and they have basically explode! Look at my before after. After that they will seed and re-propogate themselves for next year.

With Herbs the only bad thing you can do is water them too much, their basically weeds, so let them be. Also, dont be shy about harvesting them, the more you pick off, the more they produce, and if they flower, be sure to snap the flower heads of to ensure your plant will continue to grow fragrant leaves. Allow them to flower at the end of the season so they will seed for next year.

HEALI absolutely love picking fresh herbs while I have simmering pot on the stove, especially when it raining. Recently I got another sinus infection, and Herbs soup really helps. Chicken broth, thyme, chives, parsley, cilantro, mint, lemon, and garlic clear out my sinuses good, help me sleep and has gotten me better on many occasions. Some herbs you can eat straight up, but some like rosemary, I use an tea infuser because the leaves themselves are brittle and uncomfortable to eat.

SPICE. you can use basil, oregano, chives, cilantro, and thyme in a variety of foods, omletts, pizza, seafood. Lemon, ment, rosmary, catnip, and lavendar are a lttle less used but really hit the spot in some dishes. Once you go fresh, those little spinny shelves of pre-packaged herbs stored fresh in God only knows what year seem like a sick joke.

SOOTHE. I can get a sprig of rosmary and put in my tea, or put a some lavendar blooms in my bath, it's amazing how wonderfullly potent a fresh herb can be.

Drying Herbs- Rosemary & Oregano

So I know there are like a million books are on this subject but, I have found that the more time you spend outside, the closer you feel to the community around you. We straight up live in the burbs of southern Clayton County. Am I thinking that my little sustainability project is going to bring me closer to my other .54 acre neighbors, not really.

So we have these guys living two houses down. They have 4 kids and he has awesome dreads and his name is Jeremiah. The only interaction I have with this guy is a conversation about his dog Polo (which is pleasantly screamed around the neighborhood) who likes to flirt with my Pomeranian Wicket. So since we started the garden, he is fascinated by us and one day talked to me for an hour about his own gardening woes. He is a chef, and he really wants to grow his own stuff, but the deer ate it all: So we chit chat about my deer fence for a while.

Yesterday, he comes up to us and is like, “yall’s garden is the shi*, so I’m going to copy you”. Then he says that his herb-turned-weed garden has way a lot of rosemary and oregano and do we want some. I’m in heaven because this fulfills my green dream of community agriculture and the wilderness idea of ‘foraging for wild herbs’ all at once! So I picked a boat load of herbs, and now I am drying them. The rest I transplanted into my own garden. SWEET!

DRYING HERBS

All I did was separate them into bunches, cut off the dirty ends, and string them up in a cool dry area. I am experimenting by putting some on my screened in porch and some in my hallway inside. My hallway (where my herb shelf is-thanks mom) is actually the consistently darkest part of my house that is also well ventilated. Another plus is that it in the middle of my downstairs living area so my house is smelling Rosemary sweet and Oregano Savory- better than a grade plug in could ever smell!

Eat your weeds- Dandelion Tea and Coffee

It’s only been a few days and my Herb Shelf has already grown! I am starting very simple, so first orange peel, second, dandelions! My husband was about to mow all them down so it was now or never. I ended up drying the flowers and leaves for dandelion tea later (indigestion), and cleaning, grinding and roasting the roots for dandelion coffee (earthy decaf cleansing coffee). I had some marigold flowers (antifungal and PMS helper), so I dried those as well! AND I haven’t even dipped into my herb garden stash, so exciting!

This is freakishly fun.

Dandelion Root (from the front yard)

Dandelion Flowers

My Expanding Shelf

Herbal Medicine - The Beginnings

1. Eat an Orange- they are good for you
2. Peel of the white stuff of the orange peel - who knew you could peel a peel
3. Curl them up- this is for ascetics only (how i saw loose leaf orange peel at Teavana
4. Place on rack and set temp to warm leaving the oven door open - cook 4 hours
5. Place in sealed container
6. Use for Herbal Tea or Potpourri!

I want an Herbal Medicine Cabinet!

Like every self respecting hippie, I have looked into herbal medicine, but hey there are other good reason to explore natural medicine: that horrible idea of universal health care. Pharmaceutical companies are shady. Doctors offices often make you sicker than you were before, and well the doctor is EXSPENSIVE.

Now when researching, I was a little disappointed. Because it wasn’t as glamorous as I wanted it to be. Herbal medicine is a slow soft road there are no quick fixes: for instance coffee is considered one of the most potent natural medicines! But the ‘Herbies’ do have one thing I noticed in common, they are very intentional about what they put in their mouth and that leads to a very holistic view of health, basically live right feel right.

So in my very very small step toward having an herbal medicine cabinet. I dried some orange peel. Woo hoo. A small step but it felt good!

"I'm going to bed, your orange peels are still in the oven and the door is open, (pause) you drive me nuts"

- Jesse