Growing medicinal plants in your own
backyard is easy and accessible.
It is a great way to be more self-
sufficient, and to take control of your health options.
Hi, I am Celeste, I am a mom of five and
an astrologer, and I use plant medicine
for myself, my family, and my clients.
I also happen to grow a lot of that
medicine right here, in my own backyard.
Today, I am going to take you around my
garden and show you how easy it is to grow
your own medicine in your backyard, and
how that can benefit you.
Let us get started!
(music playing)
What are medicinal plants, how do you use
them, and why would you want to grow them?
Medicinal plants can be a lot of things.
You would be surprised by what is
classified as medicinal.
This is because a plant's medicine can be
in it's seeds, it can be in flowers, the
leaves, the roots, the bark, or even the fruit.
It can be used for both acute and chronic conditions.
For example, this rosemary right here
can be used in a tea in order to treat a
headache right now, or you can also use
other things to treat migraines over the long term.
Plant medicine is holistic, that means
that it treats the whole self.
It does this by supporting major organ
function, it restores hormonal imbalances,
it counteracts stress, and it takes mental
health into consideration for a whole package treatment.
But you can also use it just to help
somebody feel better if they have a cold,
or maybe if they got bitten by an insect.
Plant medicine is really great for
everyone, all the way from children up
until the elderly.
Another great thing about growing
medicinal plants is that you do not
really need a lot of space.
When I first moved here three years ago,
this bed right here was the only one I
had, and it was all that I needed to
provide for my family's needs.
I had some things in the sunny area and
some things in the shady area, and over
the course of a few seasons I was able to
get a well-stocked apothecary in my home.
You can do the same thing.
The great thing about herbs is that once
you prepare them properly and store them
properly, they can last several months up
to several years, depending on what
preparation you use.
Therefore you can go collecting little by
little if you have a small space.
Medicinal plants are great to grow
because they are already survivors and
they often grow like weeds.
In fact, even if you are not growing
anything in your garden yet, you might
already be growing medicine if you yard is
full of weeds.
In one of Rob's recent videos, he talks
about 11 edible plants that you can find
growing wild around your garden or yard.
A lot of the edibles that he mentioned in
that video are also wild medicinal plants.
It is all about looking at your land, as
Rob says, and looking at it from a different perspective.
Right here, for example, I have some Spanish needle.
This is a wild edible that grows all over
the place here in Florida.
You can also use the flowers in a tea for a cough.
This is a really great way for you to look
at your yard from a different perspective
and see what medicine you might already
be growing in your yard, and then just
tend to those medicinal plants.
Growing medicinal plants in your yard is
actually very easy.
They are some of the least finicky plants to grow.
Rob recently put out another video that is
"Beginner Gardening Tips for a Successful Garden"
and if you check that out it will
tell you nearly everything you need to know.
If you apply those tips to your herbal
garden, it should do really well.
There are a few things that are unique to
growing herbal medicine.
First of all, you want to make sure that
you are growing the right variety.
There are a lot of different varieties of
plants, for example, marigold.
There are a lot of different marigolds
that are just ornamental, so you may not
have the one that is specifically the
medicinal calendula flower that you are looking for.
You can have sweet basil, or you can have
holy basil, or "tulsi".
Both of these are called "basil", both of
these have medicinal properties, but
they are not the same.
You just have to make sure that you do
not let common names confuse you, and
that you are looking at the Latin name to
make sure that you are picking the right
species for you.
One other thing about growing medicinal
plants that is really important, is
knowing when to pick the medicine at the right time.
For example, you might have something
where you are going to pick the leaves in
the spring, and then you are going to pick
the flowers in the summer, and then
finally you will pick the roots in the fall.
You need to know exactly when to pick
what, so that you can gather your medicine
at the most optimal time for it to be properly used.
Let us talk prep and storage because
one of the biggest parts of having your
own medicinal plants in your backyard is using them.
You can use things fresh, that is fine.
Fresh is great for things such as soup,
or tea, a poultice, or a compress,
anything like that would be great to use
fresh herbs with them.
You can also freeze your herbs to use in
teas or to do medicinal soups.
I like to blend the herbs with garlic and
use that in a medicinal soup, that is really great.
For the other things like oils and
tinctures and vinegars, you are going to
want to have your herbs dried.
You can do this in a few different ways.
You can do little bundles.
You can dry the flowers and just put them face down.
You can just hang them up, or I have
something like this where I can lay the
flowers inside and have them dry.
The main thing is that you just want to
make sure to keep the bundles small, and
to keep a lot of space between the flowers
to promote good air circulation,
and also make sure that it is in a warm
and dry place that doesn't have a lot of humidity.
After a few days you will want to check
on your things depending on where you live
and how long it takes to dry.
You want to take them down and put them
into containers like this and label them
and also preferably put a date on them
so that you can use them within their
optimal time frame.
And then once they are dried like this,
you can put them together with oil or even
with alcohol like I have done here, and
you can make medicinal oils.
You put the herbs in with the oil and you
let them sit for about a month, shaking
them once a day.
Then you will strain out the herbs and
you will be left with something like
this that you can use.
You can use this as is, or you can use
this to create butters, or balms, or
salves, or things like that.
For the tinctures... This is really good
because this is made with alcohol, and so
these last a really long time, so it is
a really good away to build your home medicine cabinet.
It also packs a lot of medicine in a
really small amount, so if you have
somebody that does not like the way that
it tastes, then this is really great to
mix into a glass of water or maybe even
hide it in a smoothie, that's a really
great option too.
It is also long lasting, like I said,
you can make these tinctures and then
they can last you for many years.
I hope that this has given you some
inspiration to get started on growing
medicinal plants in your own backyard,
and I am really excited to hear if you
will give this a try.
(music playing).
Subtitles by the Amara.org community