Comprehensive backyard farming guide to growing herbs for its many different uses in food and medicine. Backyard Farming: Growing Herbs for Food and Medicine is your one-stop guide for growing and utilizing herbs in your life. Intended to serve as a comprehensive primer for first-time gardeners, detailed illustrations and informative photographs help to eliminate confusion and ease new homesteaders into the world of backyard farming. Growing Herbs for Food and Medicine includes not only instructions on planting, but goes into detail the many different kinds of ways to use herbs such as marinades and garnishes for your meals or as natural remedies and medicinal cures for what ails you.

Restoring the use of wild plants in daily life for vibrant physical, mental, and spiritual health • Explains how 3 classes of wild plants--aromatics, bitters, and tonics--are uniquely adapted to work with our physiology because we coevolved with them • Provides simple recipes to easily integrate these plants into meals as well as formulas for teas, spirits, and tinctures • Offers practical examples of plants in each of the 3 classes, from aromatic peppermint to bitter dandelion to tonic chocolate As people moved into cities and suburbs and embraced modern medicine and industrialized food, they lost their connection to nature, in particular to the plants with which humanity coevolved. These plants are essential components of our physiologies--tangible reminders of cross-kingdom signaling--and key not only to vibrant physical health and prevention of illness but also to soothing and awakening the troubled spirit. Blending traditional herbal medicine with history, mythology, clinical practice, and recent findings in physiology and biochemistry, herbalist Guido Masé explores the three classes of plants necessary for the healthy functioning of our bodies and minds--aromatics, bitters, and tonics. He explains how bitter plants ignite digestion, balance blood sugar, buffer toxicity, and improve metabolism; how tonic plants normalize the functions of our cells and nourish the immune system; and how aromatic plants relax tense organs, nerves, and muscles and stimulate sluggish systems, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. He reveals how wild plants regulate our heart variability rate and adjust the way DNA is read by our cells, controlling the self-destructive tendencies that lead to chronic inflammation or cancer. Offering examples of ancient and modern uses of wild plants in each of the 3 classes--from aromatic peppermint to bitter dandelion to tonic chocolate--Masé provides easy recipes to integrate them into meals as seasonings and as central ingredients in soups, stocks, salads, and grain dishes as well as including formulas for teas, spirits, and tinctures. Providing a framework for safe and effective use as well as new insights to enrich the practice of advanced herbalists, he shows how healing “wild plant deficiency syndrome”--that is, adding wild plants back into our diets--is vital not only to our health but also to our spiritual development.

Here, in one complete, beautifully illustrated volume, is everything readers need to know to grow and use their own herbs. A special encyclopedia section gives clear information on identifying, growing, and enjoying more than 70 herbs. 200 color photos. 100 color illustrations.

Craft a soothing aloe lotion after an encounter with poison ivy, make a dandelion-burdock tincture to fix sluggish digestion, and brew up some lavender-lemon balm tea to ease a stressful day. In this introductory guide, Rosemary Gladstar shows you how easy it can be to make your own herbal remedies for life’s common ailments. Gladstar profiles 33 common healing plants and includes advice on growing, harvesting, preparing, and using herbs in healing tinctures, oils, and creams. Stock your medicine cabinet full of all-natural, low-cost herbal preparations.

A new approach to growing local medicine, including information on geo-authenticity, wildcrafting, and developing a good business plan Both a business guide and a farming manual, The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer will teach readers how to successfully grow and market organic medicinal Western herbs. Whether you’re trying to farm medicinal plants, culinary herbs, or at-risk native herbs exclusively or simply add herbal crops to what you’re already growing, successful small-scale herb farmers Jeff and Melanie Carpenter will guide you through the entire process—from cultivation to creating value-added products. Using their Zack Woods Herb Farm in Vermont as a backdrop, the Carpenters cover all the basic practical information farmers need to know to get an organic herb farm up and running, including: • Size and scale considerations; • Layout and design of the farm and facilities; • Growing and cultivation information, including types of tools; • Field and bed prep; • Plant propagation; • Weed control, and pests and diseases; • Harvesting, as well as wild harvesting and the concept of geo-authentic botanicals; • Postharvest processing; and, • Value-added products and marketing. The authors also provide fifty detailed plant profiles, going deeper into the herbs every farmer should consider growing. In an easy-to-understand, practical, and comprehensive manner, readers will learn how to focus on quality over quantity, and keep costs down by innovating with existing equipment, rather than expensive technology.Market farmers who have never before considered growing medicinal herbs will learn why it’s more important to produce these herbs domestically. The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer makes a convincing case that producing organic medicinal herbs can be a viable, profitable, farming enterprise. The Carpenters also make the case for incorporating medicinal herbs into existing operations, as it can help increase revenue in the form of value-added products, not to mention improve the ecological health of farmland by encouraging biodiversity as a path toward greater soil health.

Treat Ailments the Natural Way with Plants and Herbs from Your Yard Your garden or neighborhood could hold all the plants and herbs you need to treat everything from respiratory issues to nerve pain to colic using natural remedies that are just as good for your body as they are for the environment. The Backyard Herbal Apothecary is packed to the brim with information on 50 different plants, recipes for 56 remedies and beautiful photography on every page. Devon Young, founder of the holistic lifestyle blog Nitty Gritty Life, is a trained herbalist and is well practiced in developing and implementing herbal remedies. As a result, each of Devon’s recipes is a natural and effective tonic for your health concerns. Use cottonwood to make a salve for achy joints, heal minor bumps and bruises with the common yard daisy, infuse some nettle to make an allergy–season combating tincture and so much more, all using safe and locally foraged plants. Poignant, captivating writing awakens the senses as you learn about the healing quality of each plant and discover how to grow and forage plants and herbs in a safe and sustainable way.

This handy edition of Backyard Pharmacy helps you choose and cultivate the most useful and common medicinal plants that you can grow yourself either indoors or outside. Author Elizabeth Millard shares her deep knowledge of what to add to your garden to grow your own medicine cabinet and enhance your health.