herbal medicine chest recommendations

[Guest guest]

Earlier suggestions of thyme and rosemary are great.  I use oils (diluted) on skin and hair (I tend to get dandruff without it),  and as a general disinfectant.  Fresh or dried thyme in a tea makes a great mouthwash (look on a bottle of listerine - main ingredient is thymol - the oil from thyme).  Both are easy to grow and attractive plants, so I recommend growing them for your backyard medicine chest.1.  Rosewood oil - clears up skin infections (including boils and carbuncles) like nothing I have ever seen before.  Rivals Tea Tree Oil for helping heal and prevent infection in cuts and scrapes (and smells nicer and doesn't burn).  Can't grow this one, but the oil is easy to find online (for some reason, I haven't seen it in health food stores)  and not

particularly expensive.2.  Yellow Root (dried or fresh root and stems,  leaves work, too, but are weaker) - this isn't the same as goldenseal, but does much the same thing (and is generally less expensive).  Found along stream banks in the southeast.  Boil  the roots and stems for about 10 minutes.  The tea is good for infections in general.  One of the best remedies for mouth and gum sores, stomach ulcers and gastritis.  Tastes kind of bitter, but do NOT sweeten it with sugar or honey.  That reduces the effectiveness.  If you have to soften the taste, blend with chamomile, which has its own healing and soothing properties.  This is NOT easy to grow unless you have a creek in your back yard.  3.  Chamomile (dried or fresh flowers).  Tea is used as a mild sedative, relaxer, soothes upset stomach.  Tea (or oil, diluted with a carrier oil) is good for soothing inflamed

skin.4. Lemon balm.  Excellent mild sedative, muscle relaxer.  Tea also helps prevent or aid in the recovery from viral attacks including herpes (fever sores or genital).  Almost as effective in this regard as prescription acyclovir. Melissa oil (oil from lemon balm) can be used topically on fever sores to help them heal.  Note: Lemon balm is related to mints and thus is VERY easy to grow.  In fact, almost too easy.  It can become invasive if not pruned back.  It's a pretty plant, smells very lemony, and produces lovely lilac-colored spikes of small flowers that attract bees and butterflies.  I got monarchs on my lemon balm last spring!  But, deer and rabbits don't like it, so it makes a good garden border to help keep them out of your veggies.5.  Dried papaya.  Best remedy I have ever tried for heartburn and reflux esophagitis.  Not only relieves the immediate symptoms quickly, but, if

used regularly for a few weeks, heals the tissues and stops the problem altogether for months.  Best of all, it's a nice sweet and healthy treat even if you don't have stomach trouble.  Note:  You can buy papaya dried in two ways.  One is dried with sulfur to reduce darkening of the fruit flesh.  The other is dried without the sulfur, and thus is darker.  They taste about the same to me, and I don't care whether it's dark.  So if you WANT sulfur in your diet for some reason - you have that option, but you do have a choice.6.  Aloe Vera - you can get the juice at any health food store.  I have plants all over the house and greenhouse.  Either the juice from the bottle or squeezed from a fresh leaf  is the best thing you can use to help heal a burn. Also is a good moisturizer for dry, flaky skin. Helps my hands after I've been working in the garden or greenhouse all day.  People with oily skin can use it as a

moisturizer, too, as it does not add to the oil in the skin the way most commercial moisturizer products do.7. Yarrow.  Warriors and hunters originally used the feathery, fernlike leaves to stop bleeding from a severe wound.  It can be used for this and does have some antiseptic properties.  Primary use today is to boil the flowers into a tea as an immune system builder.  Great garden border.  It really does look like a fern and the flowers are pretty and attract beneficial insects.  But deer and rabbits that might get into your garden are repelled by it.8.  Hawthorne berries - regulates blood pressure when boiled in a tea.  I got a tree growing at my old house (and am going to have one planted where I moved  to).  It grows quickly, has lovely, fragrant spring flowers, and then makes nice red berries (looks a bit like holly berries).  Songbirds love  them, and I leave the berries on the

upper branches for them.  I can get more than I need off the branches I can reach.  WARNING: Hawthorne trees come by their name honestly.  Long needle-like spikes on the trunk and branches, so pick carefully.Thel "medicine tea"  that I keep in the refrigerator at all times for myself and my husband is a mix of: alfalfa (helps reduce arthritis symptoms - several accidents wreaked havoc on ankles, knees, etc)        willow bark (an aspirin substitute helps with aches and pains)        cinnamon (regulates blood sugar and cholesterol)        lemon balm (husband gets fever sores when he goes out in the sun - and he's a gardener.  Hats and sunblock can only do so much)        passion flower (stops muscle spasms)        ginger (good for digestion)    

   yellow root        hawthorne berries (lowers blood pressure)I usually drink it before going to bed since there's a fair amount of relaxer in it.  Not truly enough to be a sedative, but then I don't have insomnia and don't need a sedative.  If I did, I'd add skullcap.  Valerian works faster and better, and if my back is really giving me trouble, I will add it, but it tends to make me groggy the morning after.