Episode 14- Exploring Nature's Pharmacy- Part 1

Unlock the secrets of natural healing straight from our Tennessee homestead on this week's episode of "Keeping It Real" at the Gorham Homestead. Ever wondered how a simple herb can speed up the healing of bones, wounds, and sprains? Join me, Dawn Gorham, as I share the incredible benefits of comfrey, from its cell-regenerating properties to its uses in teas and poultices for respiratory relief and digestive health. We'll also discuss crucial precautions for those with liver issues and offer practical tips on how to incorporate this powerful herb into your daily routine.

But that's not all. We dive into the versatile uses of yarrow and blackberry, two herbs that have become staples in our natural medicine cabinet. Drawing from personal experience, I reveal how yarrow has helped treat wounds, menstrual cramps, and fevers, and even stopped nosebleeds in seconds. Plus, learn about blackberry's astringent properties and how its leaves and roots can effectively treat diarrhea and hemorrhoids. Discover how blackberry juice can soothe an upset stomach without any added sugar.

Lastly, we explore the medicinal uses of some lesser-known yet highly effective herbs, including goldenrod, elderberry, rabbit tobacco, boneset, and mullein. You'll hear insights from Daryl Patton's enlightening book, "Mountain Medicine, the Herbal Remedies of Tommy Bass," and uncover how these herbs have been used to support respiratory health, boost immunity, and treat common ailments like asthma and lung congestion. From breaking fevers to alleviating earaches, these Native American herbs offer a treasure trove of natural solutions for your health needs. Don't miss this informative journey into the heart of herbal medicine.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hey y'all, and welcome to keeping it real, the Gorham Homestead podcast, where we talk about real food, real natural living, the real art of natural healing and real life out here in our Tennessee homestead. I'm your host, dawn Gorham, and today is Tuesday, june the 4th, 2024, and you are listening to episode number 14. Our topic today is the top herbs that we cannot live without here on our homestead. Now we may break this up into a three-part series, depending on how long we go. Now we may break this up into a three-part series, depending on how long we go, and we may just go through all of the herbs in part one, part two and then part three will probably be the essential oils that we use for our livestock and for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Before we get started, I've got to, by law, do my disclaimer. Nothing that I say today is to be construed as medical advice. I am not a doctor. I am not a medical professional. I am simply an herbalist. Before you make any decisions about your health, I recommend that you speak to a qualified medical professional to see if what you want to use is what you should be using.

Speaker 1: 1:20

So, with that out of the way, the very first one that we want to talk about today, or that I want to talk about today, is comfrey, because it's really one of my favorites. It's a great little herb to use for healing wounds. It is great for healing bones. If you have a broken bone or a sprain or a really bad bruise or a superficial, not really bad wound, comfrey is a great little herb to use for that. It increases cell production and it causes wounds to heal over really rapidly and for that reason you don't want to use it on a deep wound, and the reason is is because it can cause it to seal over on the outside and cause, like any infection or anything like that, not to heal on the inside. So it's mostly for superficial type wounds. You can use it crushed, you can juice it and you can also apply it as a wet paste. It produces a mucilage that coats and soothes the irritated tissues, reduces inflammation, lessens scarring, so it's a really good little herb to use for scars. If you do it in a salve version, it's good for poison ivy and bee stings, especially if you mix it with another herb that we're going to talk about here in a minute, which is well, I've lost my thought Jewelweed, jewelweed, jewelweed is really great for poison, ivy and stuff like that. So it's great for any itching, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Coming back to comfrey, comfrey is also a really good expectorant. You can rub it on your chest, drink it as a tea. It has a relaxing effect on the respiratory membranes. Now, one of the things I do want to tell you is that you do not want to use comfrey on a person with any sort of liver issues. So if a person you know has any sort of liver disease at all, that comfrey is not a good herb for them to use.

Speaker 1: 3:27

It's good to help with digestion. It helps control stomach ulcers. It will stop actually stop stomach ulcers, helps control acid reflux and heartburn and helps stop upset stomach. If you use it as a poultice, it's really good for bruises, bones, tendons and sprains. You can use it as an oil. You can rub it on. You can do it in that preparation.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Sore throats If you steep it as a tea it's good to gargle for sore throat, laryngitis. It stops bleeding gums and some say I'm not saying it does, but some say will actually help regrow teeth. I don't know about that part, though. That's just what they say. I can't attest to that one. It's good for reducing dark spots and blemishes. It moisturizes. If you make it as a tea it can supposedly help stop hair loss. It helps with conditions such as in a salve. It helps with dandruff, it can help detangle hair and, last but not least, the best use that I believe for comfrey is helping with pain and inflammation. You can drink it as a tea. You can apply a poultice directly to any aching joints that you have and it can help with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis as well. So those are just some of my favorite uses for comfrey. So those are just some of my favorite uses for comfrey.

Speaker 1: 5:11

You can, like I said, if you want to just if you want to do a comfrey tea, you should harvest right before the flowers bloom and that is when. That's when it's the most, when the leaves are the most potent mouthwash. You can do one square inch of root with two to three tablespoons of water and swish it around and get all parts of the teeth and then spit it out, the root you don't want to swallow. The leaves are okay, but the root you don't want to swallow. And if you want to use it as a poultice and that would be direct application of the herb, like onto skin wet. So you would wrap the wet leaves in a cheesecloth and then apply externally to the painful areas. The herbs, like you usually will crush them into a pulp or make it into a paste and then just wrap gauze or muslin around, you know, to kind of help hold it in place.

Speaker 1: 6:04

You can also use comfrey as a tincture. Now, the tincture is going to be sticky, but it is good. Let me flip this little paper over. The comfrey tincture is known as one of the most healing tinctures in the world and so what you want to use is 100 grams of comfrey root and 700 milliliters of brandy or a really strong, strong alcohol, and you would just let that steep in a dark place for 14 days and shake like every third day and then strain it and keep the tincture in a dark bottle or in a dark place, and so when you want to use it you would put that tincture on the affected area about three times a day and hopefully you know that would help and you want to lubricate the affected area and then put, you know, put the tincture on and kind of rub it into that with some sort of oil. The really other good thing about comfrey is it is so nutritious that it's a great chop and drop plant. So it's great to plant around fruit trees, blueberries, you know anything like that. You would just chop the leaves if you're not going to use them and then drop them at the base of that tree and it will. You know it'll. The roots of the tree will absorb it and it'll put a lot of good nutrients back into the soil.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Yarrow is the next herb that's on my list, and I have to say I have recently had to use yarrow because I was um fooling with a little chicken brooder thing that was made. Somebody gave it to me and it had a glass window on the end of it and the glass window was out of the track, and so I was hoping to be able to fix it and be able to put chickens in it Just as a holding point for the chickens. And as I was doing that, I was trying to push the glass back into the track and the glass broke and the glass punctured my thumb like all the way to my knuckle, and it was bleeding really, really bad. Well, luckily I grow yarrow right here in the front in my little medicinal bed, and so I was able to run out there, get fresh yarrow, wrap it up really good until I could get up to the house with just a paper towel and some wet yarrow. And that did, because it was bleeding I mean bleeding, running down my arm, bleeding. So I got up to the house and I have also some dried yarrow and so I took the wet yarrow, the fresh yarrow, off and put the dried yarrow actually down deep into the wound and because it also has some antiseptic and bacterial properties, so I put that down in that wound and then I wrapped it really good with some I'm sorry, with a bandaid and then some galls and stuff just to stop it from bleeding. And it did. It did a really great job.

Speaker 1: 9:08

The problem is I needed stitches. It is, and I'm looking at it. It's still completely separated and if I bend my knuckle it wants to pop open. But it did stop the bleeding. It caused it to clot and anytime I moved it or hit it or whatever, I would break that clot open. But for the meantime, you know, until I could do something different, it was really good. So that's a really good one for using as like a clot stop.

Speaker 1: 9:39

It's pretty darn good for girls, menstrual cramps too. I use it in my tincture that I call shark week because I feel like it helps the flow to be more normal and not so heavy and not so, you know, premenopausal as it can be. So yarrow is good for people, young and old, it doesn't matter whether they're teenagers or older people. It's really good for that. You know, pms, menstrual time um, the, the flowers and the leaves are an excellent. They're a diaphoretic, which means they promote sweating, which means it's really good for if you have a fever. And I tested this out on my son about a week and a half ago. He had upset stomach and he had a fever with it, and so we I used some yarrow and some bone set together and he also had an upset stomach, so he also got some blackberry root. So I made a tea that had those three different things in it and sure enough, I mean about 30 or 45 minutes after he drank that tea, he was sweating like crazy and his fever broke. He didn't have to take Tylenol or ibuprofen, he just covered up with the covers and sweated it out and it helped him to naturally break that fever it out. And it helped him to naturally break that fever.

Speaker 1: 11:08

Yarrow will also stop a nosebleed. You can actually put yarrow or dried yarrow up the nose of a person who has a nosebleed and then put toilet paper right behind it and it will stop the nosebleed pretty quickly. It disinfects wounds. It's really, really good for muscle spasms and if that's not enough, it's also good it has really beneficial effects on the heart and the lungs. Now I will say that it is contraindicated in pregnant women. It has a mild abortifacient. I never say that word right Shouldn't be taken during pregnancy, except under a doctor's care or in combinations with other herbs.

Speaker 1: 11:59

I spoke about the nosebleed. One of the interesting things about yarrow is it kind of works in a peculiar way. If you insert a roll of yarrow like up into your nose, the bleeding will stop. But now if you've got a severe sinus headache and you insert a roll of yarrow up into the nostril, then a nosebleed will result. It'll relieve the pressure in your head and it'll relieve the headache. But what's crazy is if you want to stop a nosebleed, use Yarrow, and if you want to start a nosebleed, you can use Yarrow. It's pretty accommodating like that. It's a good blood cleanser. It really has a reputation of colonizing a large part of the globe At one time. You know, we kind of grow it everywhere. It's really really easy to grow and it's a really pretty plant to grow so it looks really pretty. I have it out in my medicinal little plant thing out in front of the cannery and it just looks really nice out there.

Speaker 1: 13:06

The next one on my list I'm just going to speak about briefly because there's not a whole, whole lot of information that I have, but I do have a specific use for it Blackberry. Now, this is blackberry juice, blackberry leaves and blackberry root. One of the old times. Well, I had known about the blackberry root being really, really good. It's a. It's an astringent, which means it like if you have diarrhea or something like that, it helps to stop that. It dries things up and the root and the bark and especially the I'm sorry the root bark and the leaves are strongly astringent. They're really good for sorry I'm having to think just a second really good for diarrhea and hemorrhoids. But it's one of the old timers up at our community center I was talking about that, talking about blackberry root and how I keep it on hand for, you know, if we get upset stomach, anything like that, and he brought up to me that ma'am you know old timers call their mom ma'am ma'am gave them blackberry juice when they were little, and so turns out I did a little research turns out it don't put any sugar in it or anything like that. But if you just juice the blackberries and use that, that will stop about the upset stomach diarrhea pretty darn quickly. Now if you eat too many blackberries it might give you diarrhea, but just the blackberry juice itself, if you're actually going to the bathroom, it'll help that.

Speaker 1: 14:48

One of my favorite books that talks about blackberries and the medicinal uses is Mountain Medicine, the Herbal Remedies of Tommy Bass, written by Daryl Patton. Now I've met Daryl several times, but initially at the Homesteaders of America conference. I think the first time I met him was actually in Columbia. But I talked to him forever and he's just super fascinating and in his book he wrote this book he studied with Tommy Bass for years and years and then Tommy had previously studied with Native Americans and some of the old timers up in the Appalachias.

Speaker 1: 15:26

But he writes that it's also good for livestock scours. Like you can use blackberry for baby calves, which I did, use it for baby calves and blackberry roots the blackberry root is the most potent part of the plant, he says, with the green fruit and the mature fruit being somewhat less binding. And then the leaves are the lesser choice but can be effectively used. You can use raspberry leaves as a substitute for blackberry, but blackberry is best and it has a super high iron content. And he says you could use that for medicine, making blackberry jam as well as having a tasty treat. So the preparation and use you would make a cup of tea from a teaspoon of the dried leaves to a cup of boiling water, or a teaspoon of the dried and powdered roots, which is what we use, or green fruit, which would be even better for stubborn cases, and take a good mouthful of the tea as the need arises. So every time you go to the bathroom you continue to drink the tea.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Now the high content of the tannins in the bramble family presents us with its main contraindication, which is too much of the tonic will cause a person to go from severe diarrhea to severe constipation. So kind of got to be aware of that. And then the blackberry jam with the seeds it will act as a scouring laxative. So just kind of the seeds is what makes you go to the bathroom, whereas the green fruit doesn't have the seeds developed in it yet, and the leaves and the roots. Those are all really good for stopping diarrhea.

Speaker 1: 17:20

The next one on my list is actually one of my favorites and it grows everywhere here on my property and in my surrounding areas, like I can find it at my neighbor's, if I don't have it here, but it's goldenrod and the Latin name is Solidago canadensis, and Solidago is from Latin word solidare, which means to join or to make whole, and that just really refers to the healing powers of the goldenrod plant. It's like one of the most versatile plants and what we use it for is typically, like in the spring, if you have a snotty nose or sinuses or anything like that, goldenrod is a really good herb for that. It helps to get that drainage going and it helps to. It's good for upper respiratory congestion is what I'm trying to say. A lot of the ladies in my family tend to suffer from, like kidney and bladder infections and things of that nature. Goldenrod is really really good, like when you're experiencing a dark, cloudy urine or a bladder infection, something of that nature. It's pretty effective in helping clear up kidney and bladder stones and it just helps to increase your overall kidney function and helps to clear all that stuff out. So goldenrod is one of my overall favorites and I do like goldenrod in conjunction with D-Mannose and Corn, silk and Dandelion. Those are my for urinary and bladder issues. The combination of those four things is what I really like to use together.

Speaker 1: 19:07

The next one down on my list is probably the most famous. The one everybody kind of knows about is elder, or also known as elderberry. We do grow these here, we forage for them. We do know a couple of places, a couple of farms that will let us pick elderberry so that we wildcraft it. Of course we leave enough for the birds and for them to drop and start making new elderberries or whatever they're going to do. But elderflower and elderberry, it's just a really good immune booster.

Speaker 1: 19:42

We make elderberry syrup. That's what I use my elderberries for. It reduces fever, it's antiviral and it's just and it boosts, like's just and it boosts. Like I said, it boosts the immune system. Um, it's more effective when you combine it with echinacea. Now I would not want to take it on a daily basis with echinacea in it, but for a acute illness, having the addition of echinacea if you're sick is a huge, huge help. So that's why we do have a basic blend which is for daily use, and then we have an echinacea and CBD blend for our elderberry syrup, which CBD is also. Of course it has no THC in it, it's just THC free. But CBD itself is an immune booster and it helps to relax the immune response so that your body you know it decompresses and helps relieve stress, because sometimes stress also makes us sick. So the elderberry, in conjunction with, obviously, cinnamon, is in that and clove and some other good stuff is in the elderberry syrup. But that's why I add echinacea and CBD, because I just feel like it makes it a powerhouse to help knock out illnesses, flus, colds, you know anything like that. And it has also helped.

Speaker 1: 21:13

I don't use the, like I said, I don't use the echinacea on a daily basis, but our daily use one. My son takes elderberry syrup and it has really helped minimize him getting cold sores, and I'll tell you later in another episode what our remedy for cold sores is once they emerge. But it really it has cut it down. He gets 10% of what he used to get, maybe one a year, maybe two a year, but really only when he runs a fever and this last time he ran a fever he still didn't get a cold sore. So it's really it's really helped him a lot in that regard. But taking it on a daily basis helps keep your immune system firing optimally so that you don't get sick as often, and especially in the fall. Taking that elderberry syrup in winter you know, when you're in close proximity, close quarters, with people doing that on a daily basis even just a small amount it doesn't take a whole lot, but a small amount will really help to keep you healthy and help keep you from getting sick.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Chamomile is one of my favorites.

Speaker 1: 22:21

I feel like I use a lot of chamomile. I like chamomile tea. I like chamomile for skin salves. I like it for skin repair when you have cuts, scarring, anything like that. It's great for relieving pain. It's like joint problems, like arthritis and bursitis. Chamomile is really good for that. But it's also one of the best herbs that there is for colicky babies. I'm sorry, I'm losing my spot. It's a healing wonder. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a healing wonder. I'm going to read this really quick. The flower tops has a rich amount of deep blue essential oil called azaleen that acts as a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. That's why it is so good for things like bursitis, arthritis. But the flowers, that's what I like to use for nighttime and it makes a really soothing, nerve-calming tea. I'll mix it with passionflower that's one of my other favorites that I'll talk about here in just a second but I mix it with passionflower and lemon, balm and peach tree leaves and it's just such a tasty nighttime tea and it will help you sleep so good. Especially. I mean, I'm not talking, I don't know what the grocery store stuff does Like you get the little chamomile tea from Walmart or whatever. I've never really really been able to tell much benefit from that, and maybe there is, maybe some other people do. But the the plants and the herbs that I actually grow and use them fresh, I can actually tell that they're working. I can actually tell that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. If you put chamomile into like an oil or a salve, then it's really good for skin repair. You can add it to bath water and it'll make just like a soothing bath time. You know, just makes you feel good and relax.

Speaker 1: 24:37

So while we're on nervines, I'll just go ahead and talk about passionflower. It grows in my pasture. It grows on my wood pile. It grows in my old um high tunnel that we're no longer using. Like passionflower grows everywhere here. I really really like it. I'm thankful that we found it here on our property.

Speaker 1: 24:57

It has traditionally been used and even still today used to treat anxiety and insomnia. It can be traced all the way back to Native Americans. They used it long before any of us ever did. But it is a mild motor nerve depressant and it also temporarily not long-term but temporarily reduces blood pressure. And it's one of the things that I put in my shark wink tincture because it helps with that feeling of edginess that comes with hormonal issues, that comes with PMS or during your menstrual cycle, and so adding passionflower to my shark wink tincture really helps bring down that anxiety level. It's also been used to treat hyperactive children. It helps with their concentration in classrooms or in school children. It's good for muscle twitching and irritability, which is a really good thing if you have muscle spasms In older people or elderly people. It's really good for sciatica and just you know, general nerve debility, things that are going on in their nervous system, and it's just basically quieting and soothing to your nervous system.

Speaker 1: 26:21

So think about nighttime tea. Like I said, my favorite nighttime tea combination is sometimes I'll throw in lemon balm because I like the flavor. But lemon balm, passion flower, peach tree leaves, sometimes St John's wort I mean all of those are really really good, and chamomile really really good to just settle you in and give you a good night's sleep, especially for people like my husband whose mind is just always racing, and so we have found that making that tea settles them down. You know it helps to not have nightmares, you know things of that nature. So passionflower is definitely something that if you can't grow or you don't know anybody that grows it, definitely I would order that in from somewhere that sells it organic just to have on hand to make your own relaxing teas. It's really good with a bubble bath and some Epsom salt and some lavender whatever, some lavender in your diffuser. That sounds like heaven to me.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Little side note is that one of the uses previous uses for passionflower is it has been used to overcome alcohol abuse and it's supposedly without accompanying, you know, that type of narcotic hangover and it's supposed to help with DTs, withdrawals, things of that nature. So a person who is trying to stop drinking alcohol, keeping passion flower in your daily consumption is a really good way to stop the really bad effects from way, to stop the really bad effects from, you know, when you stop drinking alcohol. So when it comes to respiratory issues, like in the winter, when you get all like bronchitis or which I haven't had bronchitis in several years, but anything that's like chest congestion, I have a couple of favorites for that and I've tried to grow it here. I want to grow it here, so badly I cannot get it going. But it's rabbit tobacco. The true Latin name is pseudonyphalium obtusifolium, because there's a lot of different things. People think is rabbit tobacco and it's not. So that is the one.

Speaker 1: 29:00

But it's also known as Life, everlasting Sweet, everlasting Cherokee Tobacco, old Field Balsam that's some of the names for it. But it is really, really a cool herb. The Sioux described it as a plant that was able to walk the borderline between the dead and the living. Think about that. That's kind of cool. Right, flowers were picked and put in a medicinal bag to ward off evil spirits and ill will against you. It was also used for treating insomnia and nightmares and it was smoked in a pipe to treat asthma. And so if you don't want to smoke it in a pipe. Another thing that they did sometimes for children was to put the flowers in a pillow and let the child sleep on the pillow with rabbit tobacco, and that would really really help asthmatic kids.

Speaker 1: 29:56

It's an annual but on occasion it can be grown as a perennial. I think it reseeds like it sends its flowers out, but the root itself is an annual. It is antimutagenic. It's virucidal, which means it can kill viruses. It's cytotoxic, which means it potentially could affect cancer, like kill cancer cells, but it's mostly known as an expectorant. It's really good for sore throats, pneumonia, colds, the C word which we're not allowed to say fever, diarrhea. It covers a wide range of ailments. It covers a wide range of ailments.

Speaker 1: 30:40

The Native Americans would also put the leaves in sweat baths and uses it as a sedative for sleepless nights. When people would have what they called nervous complaints, they smoked the leaves in a pipe. For asthma it was good to add cough tonics. It opens up the sinuses and it's particularly beneficial to inflame tissues of the stomach and intestines because it has really astringent properties when you swallow it or ingest it. So rabbit tobacco is one of my favorites and if you have it available you should always add it to any salve that you have, because it is really good externally for cuts, scrapes and wounds that are slow to heal.

Speaker 1: 31:25

You can make a liniment for treatment of sprains and aches and add leaves to rubbing alcohol as a tincture. It reduces fevers, it'll attack viruses, it will cut your recoup time in half and it brings a flush to your organs and it raises the core temperature of your body, which also produces sweat, which is a cleansing sweat, particularly if you combine that with Boneset, which is next on my list as another one of my favorite herbs. Boneset Ooh, it's bitter, it is so, so bitter. But one of the schools of thought is that the more bitter the fever medicine and more bitter the tonic, then the stronger that the herb actually is, then the stronger that the herb actually is, and that back in the old days a lot of the effectiveness was determined by bitterness. So that's how they decided how well or what rank it would have as far as fevers and stuff like that go, or its ability to reduce a cough or a fever. They ranked it by bitterness.

Speaker 1: 32:44

But very few plants have the ability that Boneset has to break a fever. It's one of the best. And if you can combine that with yarrow and some other things that you may have on hand, the best herb to use is the one that you have. But Boneset it grows here. We find it all over the place. Interestingly enough, my next door neighbor had just almost a field of it and didn't even realize what they had. So we harvest a lot, a lot of Boneset to keep on hand. So we harvest a lot, a lot of bone set to keep on hand.

Speaker 1: 33:22

And the interesting thing about bone set is, depending on whether you use it as a hot or cold tea, you're going to get different effects. So if you use it as a hot tea and you cover up in bed you know which covers on you then pretty shortly you're going to begin having profuse sweating. And profuse sweating is really, really good if you're trying to break a fever, and that'll break your colder fever. But if you make the same tea but drink it as a cold infusion, not hot, then it will act as a mild laxative but it will also strengthen and tone the bowels. So if you need to go potty and you cannot potty, then a cold tea made with Boneset can help you. You know, help get you going. On that Some of the other uses for it.

Speaker 1: 34:14

Other people have used it in the treatment of arthritis and rheumatism. It helps if you take it internally as a tincture or a tea. It can help with that sort of inflammation and you always use it in cough and cold tonics when you need that extra punch. So one of our wintertime respiratory tea is rabbit tobacco bone set and mullein and of course mullein is another one of those that has just so many uses and it grows, like in rocky areas and stuff. We do have some here and of course every time we get a seed head on mullein when it gets super tall, I'm taking it and just spreading it Because I want more of it. I want it to grow because mullein is another one of those that it'll help break up congestion in the lungs and you can also make an oil out of it, like take the leaves and let that sit, make an oil infusion and that's wonderful.

Speaker 1: 35:17

Mullein oil is one of the best things for earaches. It will actually help clear up an ear infection and it can go into the ear where a lot of things like essential oils and things like that you're supposed to rub them around on the outside of the ear. But mullein oil is one of those things that it doesn't do any hurt. It just does really really good at helping to cleanse out that area. It's supposedly also really really good for your nerves and you can take it for your kidneys. It's good for your liver, good for coughs and colds. It's good for just about whatever ails you. You can mix it with some peach leaves and it will help you sleep Again. Peach tree leaves are one of my other favorites. Let me see I've got some more information here on mullein. Oh, red clover. You can mix it with red clover and it does really really good.

Speaker 1: 36:19

There's a big patch of mullein up the road from us where we will harvest that, but the main uses for mullein again is anything bronchitis, asthma, anything that's a deep-seated congestion in your chest. It's a sedative and helps to calm that, but also helps to get it up and out. It moves the congestion up and out of your chest. Now there is a contraindication. It does contain coumarin, which, if you are taking any sort of blood thinners, you would need to exercise great caution when using mullein, because it would just amplify that. Oh, and another word of caution is the larger outer leaves. Sometimes they can cause nightmares if you use those. So when you are making mullein teas and things of that nature, it is best that if you use the young inner leaves of the plant rather than the big, fat, fluffy outer ones, because, again it happened to me, it can cause some nightmares.

Speaker 1: 37:47

I have several more to go, but I think I'm just going to wrap this one up with the last one that we put in our nighttime tea, and that's peach tree leaves. And that is just young leaves that have not started to wilt off of a peach tree, and it does. The actual leaves even have a mild bit of a peach flavor that they add to your tea. But one of the best things it's used for is number one it helps you to sleep. It is a it's a sedative. It's a sedative. So when you put that in your nighttime tea it just calms your nervous system in a natural way so that you can get a good rest.

Speaker 1: 38:33

The other thing that is great for is nausea, particularly for women who are having just a terrible time with morning sickness. In just a terrible time with morning sickness, the prescribed remedy for that is just a big old handful of peach tree leaves steeped in water, but you don't want to drink too much of it. Like one cup of it is plenty, because if you drink too much of it then it can have the opposite effect. But like one, one big old cup would be really great and it will help. You know it also helps if you've got nausea from stomach flu, you know anything like that it's. It's just a really good, both stomach sedative and overall nerve sedative sedative and overall nerve sedative. You want to make sure that you drink that as a warm tea and not a cold tea, because the cold tea can act as a little bit of a laxative. So just be sure to you know to drink that as a hot tea. The leaves can also be poulticed and put on things like boils and risings and it helps to draw out that infection and kind of help just get that out of your system. You can combine peach tree leaves, like I said, with red clover tops.

Speaker 1: 39:58

I'm just throwing out some thoughts of some things that also act that go really good with peach tree leaves. Wild lettuce that is a really good sleepy time, effective herb. It's good for pain, it's good for anything like that. We'll talk more about those things, you know, in the next episode, but just wrapping up, those are some of my favorites and they're not really my favorites in any particular order, because now I have used herbs so much that it's hard to have favorites, but it's really ones that we are kind of our go-tos, ones that are here, easy to walk out and get, and so we just use a lot of those.

Speaker 1: 40:43

I have a full apothecary cabinet or apothecary, I guess, is the correct way to pronounce that. But I say apothecary because I'm in the country and so I have a full apothecary cabinet full of herbs. I am in Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Academy. I'm about six months into that. It's an 18-month course and it's a lot of information to absorb. You have to kind of learn contraindications, when to use things, when not to use things. But it's just a really—God is so amazing. God is so amazing and God has put so much here for our use and for our healing and we've forgotten.

Speaker 1: 41:28

We've gotten so far away from the natural in favor of the industrial, because they want to sell us something the industrial food complex, the medical system, all of that stuff. They don't want you to use things that are in your backyard because they'd rather sell you something off of a shelf. And sometimes, you know, even they use herbs, but they don't. You know, they make it more of a medicine sounding thing. Or they'll tell you to take a thing and they call it something complex, when in reality it's a combination of herbs and you can grow most, all of those herbs yourself. So just kind of keep that in mind.

Speaker 1: 42:23

Next week we will next Tuesday, we will go through probably 10 or 15 more herbs that we grow and forage for here on the farm and I'll tell you what some of their uses are, and then the following Tuesday I will go through my favorite essential oils that I use both for us, for our family and for our livestock. You know we use some herbs for our livestock as well, and so we'll just try to go through all of the things that I use and you can take, glean from it what you will, what you know think might help you and your family. But always my suggestion is, whatever ails you or what issues that you and your family have, go through and find two or three herbs that will work for that thing and then really, really study those herbs, learn all the different preparations for them, use them, make teas, make tinctures, make salves, whatever. But just take it a couple of herbs at a time because it really can be overwhelming. It's a lot of information, it's a lot to learn, but it's better to know how to use five or 10 herbs really well than to have a little bit of information about 500 herbs. So just take that with a grain of salt and so with that.

Speaker 1: 43:41

I know I've run really long today. This is the longest one I've done. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed today's topic. I hope that it really interests you about herbs. If you like the podcast, it would be really great if you would subscribe and leave me a review. It helps other people to find my podcast. It helps other people to find my podcast and um. You can find me on all the socials, at the gorm homestead and um on my website at the gorm homesteadcom. And whatever you're doing today, y'all just remember, keep it real, see y'all. My daddy was a guitar picker playing all the local clubs guitar solo. I'm so kind of heart Living in a trailer On the edge of grandpa's farm. Yeah, I may not come from much, but I've got just enough. As long as my baby's in my arms and the good Lord knows what's in my heart, I refuse to be ashamed. It's just a Southern thing.