Getting Rid of the Mind-Waster

And Freeing Up Some Money Too!

When our son and daughter were children barely starting school (and long before MTV or cable, VCRs or DVDs), I tossed our television down the basement stairs one evening in total disgust.

It had been some adult-like (English speaking) company for me when they were in diapers and my husband was often out at sea, I’d somehow become addicted to it to the point where it was turned on first thing in the morning and stayed on until bedtime. No matter what the actual quality of programming might be.

Back in those days there was a dinnertime contestant program called “The Gong Show” that was a forerunner to current terminally awful “American Idol” audition segments. I’d prepared a nice dinner and sat down with the children to ingest when I suddenly realized the television ‘background noise’ accompanying our meal was an obese, middle-aged woman burping the national anthem.

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Yet More Pharmacopeia

Links to the Series:
The Homesteader’s Medicine Chest
Homesteader’s Medicine Chest II
More From Nature’s Pharmacopeia

In this post I’ll offer some actual herbal remedies that some have found useful in treating specific ailments. There will be some herbs mentioned that haven’t been listed thus far, but they are all readily identifiable and available at natural food stores or herbal apothecaries if you don’t have them in your garden, on your property or in nearby woods.

High mallow (malva sylvestris), a.k.a. French hollyhocks. Garden hollyhocks may be substituted. Mallow is used to calm indigestion, heartburn, ulcers, gastritis and sore throats. Mallow is high in mucilage, roots can be crushed, boiled, folded into a damp cloth and applied to boils, sores or ulcers of the skin. For a medicinal salve powdered roots can be added to olive oil and warmed before applying.

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More From Nature’s Pharmacopeia

Sassafras Leaves

We’ve already covered wild medicinals like black cohosh, ginseng and goldenseal in The Homesteader’s Medicine Chest, and got the run-down on elderberries in Homesteader’s Medicine Chest II, so in this post I’ll round out with more useful medicinal herbs from forest and garden.

Leaves - I pick a sack full of raspberry, blackberry, goldenrod and sassafrass leaves in the fall to dry and put into tea. The berry leaves are good for colds, tonic, stomach aches and menstrual cramps. Goldenrod is also good for digestion and is useful to treat kidney and bladder problems, coughs and colds. It’s also anti-inflammatory and mildly sedative, good for the aches and pains of rheumatism and arthritis.

The dark red and gold fall sassafras leaves are dried and ground to make the Cajun spice (red) filé. Filé is used to thicken soups and gumbo and to tenderize meats by rubbing. Early spring leaves are dried and powdered for green filé.

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Weird Planter Ideas

In another [post] the idea of porch and kitchen gardens was introduced. Growing herbs and some vegetables in containers in your own kitchen (if it has a sunny window or two), on your deck, porch or patio can be a lot of fun, and can lend personality to your environment through the different types of containers you choose and arrange.

There are some great ideas out there, as well as some wacky ones. You can add height with hanging planters, accessibility with window boxes, depth with different size containers arranged in groupings. You can build your own, go ‘thrifting’ at your neighborhood garage sales and secondhand shops, or raid the shed, garage, basement and attic. Heck, you can even put those discarded fixtures from when you remodeled the bathroom to eclectic use!

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Filed under Container Gardening, Cultivated Herbs, Garden, Indoor Plants, Landscaping, Planters, Porch Plants | Comment (0)