Homegrown Medicine

Image Gallery Why not grow a few herbs at home? Many of these plants are both beautiful and medicinal, including yarrow(white flowers) and St. John’s wort (yellow flowers), which are pictured above. LYNN KARLIN

You might be surprised to learn that you can grow medicine in your own back yard. Although many homesteaders embrace herbal medicine, not everyone realizes how well these traditional medicines work, or that you can grow them on your own land.

One obstacle is that many people still equate herbal medicine with superstition, thinking it’s all folklore, of no proven value. But if that were true, it would be a surprise to the big pharmaceutical companies that are scrambling to isolate and test the active components of many traditional medicinal plants. A number of powerful pharmaceuticals, for example, have been derived from wild yam. Willow and meadowsweet contain salicylic acid, with analgesic effects like aspirin — but with fewer side effects. Controlled experiments with valerian have supported its traditional use as a sedative to relieve spasms and induce sleep.

The other obstacle to home use of medicinal herbs is just the reverse — the assumption that herbal lore is so arcane that we inexpert homesteaders cannot hope to master it without years of study. If this is the case, I suggest you take a look at some common medicinal herbs, such as the list below. These herbs are from a very helpful book, The Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook by James Green. He presents these “top 30” medicinal herbs, citing a list from the California School of Herbal Studies. Glance over these herbs, and you may find yourself saying one of the following:

“Hey, this looks easy!” Many of these plants are well known, and may already be growing in your landscape or garden. Blackberry, calendula, chamomile, comfrey and willow — who knew that these ubiquitous and unobtrusive members of our communities would be in a “top 30” list of medicinal herbs?

“Some of these are weeds, for heaven’s sake!” We’ve been conditioned to think of dandelion, plantain, stinging nettle and yellow dock as “the enemy” in our gardens and yards. Perhaps it’s time for us to revise our conception of “weeds.” The insistence of a plant on being a part of our local ecology suggests that we explore its role and contribution, rather than devise strategies to eradicate it. Any plant that offers to boost our health should be welcomed and honored, not denigrated as a “weed.”

“Hey, I grow that for food!” It’s too bad that in our time “medicine” has come to be understood as a powerful, out of the ordinary — and probably vile tasting — substance taken in a heroic intervention to cure illness. An alternative view has been available at least as far back as 400 B.C., when Hippocrates said, “Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.”

The Many Benefits of Herbs

Regular readers know that I emphasize integrating components already on the homestead so that one project serves several needs. Growing medicinal herbs fits right in with that strategy.