Results for Category: Botanical
What is Compost Tea? Plants Drink Tea, Too!
At the Herbal Academy, we believe in cultivating awareness of our interconnectedness with the living communities all around us. When we use the earth’s resources with wisdom and respect, all of us (plants, animals, humans) will live far more healthy and abundant lives. A key way we enjoy these gifts is by consuming herbs for…
How to Compost: Getting Started Guide
Spring is finally starting to show its face in our corner of the world, and Earth Day is just around the corner. What better time ...
How to Make an Easy Red Clover Tea: Red Clover, Red Clover, Bring Good Health on Over
Red clover (Trifolium pratense) is a well-known “weed” introduced to North America by European colonists and is now commonly f...
Dandelion Root Oxymel Recipe
Dandelion can do all sorts of dandy things. This winter has seemed to hang on for dear life, despite the fact that we are now officially in spring. Particularly long winters can leave us all feeling a bit heavy. Whether it’s heavy eyes, sluggish movement, or heavy feelings, now is the time to wring it all…
Easy Seed Starting Guide
Gardeners around the nation are chomping at the bit to get some dirt under their fingernails. Gardening is one of the top hobbies in the nation. In fact, almost 50% of the population gardens in one shape, way, or form. And the hobby shows no sign of slowing down. In the past year, edible gardening…
Benefits of Fennel: Relief for You-Know-What
It happens to all of us. That moment, usually not long after eating, when we realize that we have gas. Whether during a business l...
Blackberry Winter – Tips for Helping Bees
“Blackberry Winter” is a hauntingly beautiful song mourning a love affair that ends coldly and without warning. For ga...
Companion Planting Herbs
If you’ve been keeping up with our articles, have taken our Intermediate Herbal Course, or even have only just visited us for the first time, you probably already know how strongly we at the Herbal Academy believe herbs can improve our health and enrich our lives. But did you know that herbs can benefit the…
Deter Garden Bugs and Pests with Nontoxic Methods
When your neighbors see you walking through your garden spreading cayenne pepper and seaweed all around your crops, they may think that you’ve gone off the deep end. Gardens are for watering and spreading fertilizer, aren’t they? But sprinkling herbs around your herbal garden isn’t the work of a crazy person—it’s the work of a…
5 Easy Herbs to Grow
You may have decided that you would like to start your very own herbal garden this year, and have even had some ideas of where on ...
Sheltering with Valerian
In January, I wrote about medicinal herbs in England use during World War II, and this month I would like to follow-up up with a b...
5 Steps to Starting Seeds
Most of us associate springtime with re-birth and growth, and never is this idea more in line with the season than when we grow our own herbs from tiny little seeds. Even the mightiest oak trees start as an acorn, and we can create a smaller scale version with anything from basil to tarragon to…
Secrets To Transplanting Seedlings: 3 Tips To Success
Do you remember bringing a goldfish home from the pet store and placing it in the aquarium? You were probably told to keep it in the bag for the first half hour before releasing it, to help acclimate the fish to his new environment. Transplanting seedlings of herbs and other plants you plan to grow…
The Greenhouse Is Always Greener
A visit to Margaret C. Ferguson Greenhouse at Wellesley College. The sensation of sun rays shines onto the skin. The red-orange ...
Do You Know the Power of Mustard Seeds?
Have you ever heard the word “mustard” and thought about something other than a yellow condiment used during summer barbeques?...
Medicinal Plant Use in World War II
I appreciate the opportunity to write as a guest blogger, and in particular, I am glad to share some of my most current research. Right now, I am hard at work on a book on plant uses during World War II—everything from victory gardens and rationed food to medicines, fibers, timber, airplanes, camouflage, and agriculture….
What Is Clove? A Very Stimulating Herb…
We all know clove is a staple of wintertime recipes, including desserts like ginger snaps and pumpkin pie. Clove is also used as a warming herbal carminative and as a topical anodyne (painkiller) in many healing traditions including Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and western herbalism. Native to Indonesia, cloves are the unopened flower buds of…
Turmeric Health Benefits: The Golden Goddess
Most of us know turmeric (Curcuma longa) as the vibrant orange powder located in the spice section between thyme and vanilla beans...
Cinnamon for Health: More than Just a Holiday Spice
As a spice, cinnamon plays such a popular role in our breakfast cereals, holiday desserts like pumpkin pie, hot apple cider, and o...
How to Create a Reflection Garden in 4 Steps
With the coming of winter, many of us start to miss time in our gardens. And why shouldn’t we? Our garden is a special, dedicated place. We go to great effort to cultivate the land so that plants of our choosing can have a home. We till the soil, fertilize it, and make sure that…
5 Tips for Getting a Start on Next Year’s Garden
With the coming of fall, it can be daunting to be faced with six months of very little gardening to do. Or, perhaps you decided halfway through the summer that you’d like to take up gardening but felt you missed an opportunity to grow anything this year. But just because we’re about to enter a…
Oats: Herbs We Love For Summer
Oats (Avena sativa) and their versatile components have been used for everything from stuffing mattresses, poultices, facial scru...
How to Grow Fresh Basil
Whether it’s to cleanse the blood, act as an anti-inflammatory, or simply to make pesto for an Italian feast, basil can be a val...
Catnip: Herbs We Love For Summer
Catnip (Nepeta cataria) or catmint, is probably best known as a stimulant for cats, inducing euphoria and friskiness. The scent alone is irresistible to most felines—my own kitty immediately darts into the kitchen the moment I open my jar of catnip. So as not to undermine her feline superiority, I share a pinch with her before adding…
Rose: Herbs We Love For Summer
Rose. The Queen of Flowers has origins in the Middle East, and has been cultivated and cherished the world over since antiquity. The oldest known rose bush is believed to be at least 1000 years old, growing on the walls of the Cathedral of Hildesheim, in Germany. Subject of many a sonnet and poem, lauded…
Chamomile: Herbs We Love For Summer
German chamomile (Matricaria recutita) is a delicate, apple-scented member of the Asteraceae or daisy family, and makes one of the...
Hibiscus: Herbs We Love For Summer
Hibiscus, also known as Jamaica flower, is one of our very favorite herbs for summer because, like spearmint, its flavor is easily...
Garden Wellness
“[People have] has sought out plants with medicinal properties since time immemorial. Evidence of this are the-thousand-year-old traditions and records of popular healing. Even in this great age of great development and progress in the fields of chemistry [and] pharmaceuticals,…plants have lost none of their importance.” Botanical Wellness Herbalism is the oldest form of wellness….
Plantain: Herbs We Love For Summer
When I was a little girl, my parents, unlike our neighbors with their perfectly smooth “chem lawns,” never applied pesticides or weed killer out of concern for their children’s health and to minimize our exposure to toxins. Our yard was viewed not as a status symbol but a place to romp and play, and so play…
St. John’s Wort: Herbs We Love For Summer
The summer herb of the week is St. John’s wort, also known commonly as touch-and-heal, goatweed, hypericum, johnswort, klam...
