Search Results for: label/medicinal plants

287 results

How to make a Calendula oil infusion

Mrs. Homegrown
Body Care, Calendula series, Domesticus, Herbal Medicine, Herbs, How-to
25 Comments
...e.  Oil infusion is soaking. Think of it like making sun tea. You take a nice clean jar with a good lid, and fill that about half way full of dried herb, top it off with oil, and let that sit in the sun. The resulting oil is medicinal. It can be used straight on the skin, or fashioned into salves and balms. I’m particularly fond of Calendula. As a skin treatment it displays regenerative properties, making it really helpful for healing dry,...

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Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Mr. Homegrown
Herbal Medicine, Herbs
10 Comments
Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus). Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medic...

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Weedeater Street Medicine in Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown
Events
5 Comments
Painting by Kelly Pope A brief reminder that our friend Nancy Klehm is coming to Los Angeles to give a series of classes. In addition to the Poo Salon, she’ll be teaching the following: Weedeater Street Medicine in Los Angeles February 19th+ 20th,10am – 5pm, $165 for two days; $90 a day Learn to prepare and use the vast amount of medicinal plants that grow in the street and city lots. We will be exploring the cultivated and the wi...

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Gideon Lincecum Virtual Herbarium

Mrs. Homegrown
Herbs
1 Comment
...h, something I vaguely remembered her referring to as horseweed or fleabane. Actually, I mis-remembered the name as colt’s foot, and then discovered another kind of plant called fleabane, two more actually. All these plants have their uses, but the plant I was looking for had astringent properties–enough to stop bleeding in small cuts. Our salve is for thrashed gardeners’ hands, and I remembered that this …uh…hors...

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Urban Foraging with Nance Klehm

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
RLeave a comment
Via The Little Green People Show, a podcast with Chicago’s urban forager Nance Klehm: “We’re not talking gardens or dumpster diving. This is a discussion of the riches that grow in our highway medians, city planters, backyards and rail lines. Expert forager, Nance Klehm, sheds light on the city’s bounty, from medicinal plants to tasty greens. Getting to know the foraging landscape takes some time and energy, but gives bac...

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Low Sugar Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Recipes
71 Comments
Few plants have as many uses as the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica). In our climate it grows like a weed, with no supplemental irrigation, and produces a voluminous amount of edible pads and fruit. In addition to food, Opuntia provides medicinal compounds, a hair conditioner, building materials and habitat for the red dye producing cochineal scale insect. As for the fruit, you can consume it raw, dry it or make jelly. Several years...

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White Sage and Bees and our other sage friends

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbal Medicine, Herbs, Native Plants
19 Comments
One of my favorite plants in the garden (I’ve posted about it before) is in bloom right now: the white sage, Salvia apiana.  Salvia apiana means “bee sage” and boy howdy did they get that one right. This sage puts up tall spikes covered with small white flowers that bees can’t resist. Unfortunately, our white sage is situated right by the garden path. So these days, every time I go into the garden I have to squeeze past...

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Leaf Litter

Mr. Homegrown
Permaculture
1 Comment
...growth, inhibit soil erosion and may even stop acid rain from penetrating soil. For these reasons SurviveLA says banish your leaf blower! In fact, when planning a garden around permaculture principles you may want to consider plants that produce mulch, and placing them where the mulch will benefit your landscaping. Remember though that some trees such as black walnut and eucalyptus produce so called alleopathic chemicals that kill neighboring pla...

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Why not plant some Calendula?

Mrs. Homegrown
Body Care, Calendula series, Gardening, Herbal Medicine, Herbs, How-to
21 Comments
Calendula glows like the sun. Mrs. Homegrown here, leaving the composting controversy behind… One of my favorite plants in the garden is Calendula officinalis, aka pot marigold. It should not be mistaken for common marigold, or Mexican marigold, both of which are in the genus Tagetes. Tagetes marigolds are popularly used in companion planting (to ward off bugs in the garden), and for combating nemadtodes in the soil. Calendula...

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Water Conservation

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
RLeave a comment
...be able to eat it. The vegetables that we grow are irrigated with a water-saving drip irrigation system that we’ll describe in detail in a later post. We have no lawn, and other than the vegetable garden, all the other plants are either natives or from the Mediterranean, many of which are also edible. Reusing greywater from your shower and washing machine can also reduce the amount of outdoor water usage. Above all remember that lawns are...

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