Weeds & Seeds Swap

Echinacea Purpurea plants, also known as cone flowers are actually something lacking in my garden. My mother has some beautiful plants that look just like the one pictured, the purple cone flower, known for the medicinal properties of enhancing the immune system.  (I use Echinacea and Golden Seal often for different infections, and during season changes to keep myself healthy.)

The plants are not hard to grow, and there is no excuse for them not being in my garden, so as I sit here with some snow outside and temperatures of 18 degrees, I dream of planting some in my garden when the warm weather comes.

I am so focused on the medicinal properties, especially of Echinacea Purpurea, that it took a visit to coneflowers.com to make me realize that there are many varieties and beautiful colors to these plants. Vibrant oranges, purples, pinks, yellows, reds and a variety of different petal shapes.

Generally the plants are not hard to grow, and though I prefer heirloom plants when possible, the hybrid varieties available are more suited to some gardens, or containers, as heirloom plants tend to get very large. I noticed that there were hybrid Cone Flowers from some of the top growers.

I hope you are enjoying this time of year when we dream and plan our gardens, do you have Cone Flowers in your garden?

It has been a while since I focused in on an herb, not necessarily because it is growing in my garden, but because of my 20+ year fascination with herbs, and their culinary and medicinal properties.

This picture, used with permission, shows the bushy plant with it’s berries that goes by the botanical name ruscus aculeatus.  Years ago I remember an acquaintance using Butcher’s Broom and another product often used for oral chelation to save their legs, they were in danger of losing them because of complications related to diabetes.  I remember the person describing the feeling coming back in the legs as circulation returned, amazing memory.

Butcher’s Broom is native to western Europe, the southern states in the US, and in some areas of the Mediterranean.  Though it looks like a bush, it is part of the Lily family.

Historical Use Info: 

Information is available about this pretty bush with it’s bright red berries that dates back to early Greek civilization when rhizomes (a stem of the plant that is underground to which the roots are attached) were used for inflammation and the circulatory system.  Pliny, a naturalist from the early years after Christ’s death, used it to successfully treat varicose veins, if you believe his description of seeing the swellings become flat.  Other early uses include laxative and diuretic, rejuvenation.  In Europe it has been used medicinally for over 2000 year.  The more current herbalist, Nicholas Culpeper called it “the plant of mars” siting it’s strong cleansing and “opening” abilities.  The herb has been listed in Materia Medica since the 14th century, and as an approved therapeutic herb in European Pharmaceutical Codex.

What Science Says:

Scientists have discovered, while looking for new sapogenins, that it contained actives that were necessary for the synthesis of steroids. It contains ruscogenin, a steriodal, that is similar in structure to diosgenin, the active given much acclaim for it’s benefits in the herb Wild Yam.  Perhaps this is why it seems to have anti-inflammatory properties.

Other pharmaceutical studies have found that butcher’s broom has vasoconstrictive properties, which means it may benefit those with varicose veins, phlebitis, and hemorrhoids.  Also other properties in the plant have been found to reduce “bad” cholesterol (LDL) and may reduce coagulation of the blood…keep this in mind if you are taking blood thinners and giving thought to using this herb.

There is more that I could share, but must run, please know that you can contact me any time if you would like me to cite where the information comes from in my posts, I have that information…none is used without permission.

If you would like a fact sheet about any of the items marked in red, please send me an email. Thanks!

All the usual disclaimers apply…I’m not a doctor…do not use this information to diagnose…if you decide to use this for your own purposes you are responsible for the outcome.

What a cold Spring day it is today here in northern NJ, but that isn’t stopping the high tree pollen count as the trees begin to bud, and the growth of my tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths, crocuses and other assorted spring bulbs.  Many of my perennial herbs are coming up as well.Today I want to share with you a list of plants and herbs in my garden that come up faithfully year after year, and are hard to kill.  If there is a blog post with more information about the plants, such as how to grow or medicinal properties if they are herbs, you can get to it by clicking your mouse on the name of the herb or plant:

1. Sage - This is a perennial, that means that you plant it once, and it comes up each year.  In fact, in spite of the cold, when I removed the pile of leaves I had over this one a week or so ago, most of the leaves from last season were still on the plant…and this is after a COLD winter.  You do have to replace this one as over time it gets “woody”, I tend to cut it back quite a bit for as long as I can and see if it will put out new shoots.  This is a wonderful medicinal AND culinary herb
2. Lily of the Valley - This comes up every spring, it is a little early right now where I live, but in only a matter of weeks the plants will put up their shoots.  I have the pink variety, which is somewhat less common than the white, so each year I sell batches of it on eBay in the spring to thin it down to the nice patch you’ll see in the picture if you visit the link.  It will be interesting to see how it has spread it’s runners over the winter and how many plants will be available to sell.  I love this plant, the smell of the flowers is just wonderful.
3. Day Lilies (Daylilies) -In our front yard the shaft to our water well comes up out of the ground and is capped, around it I have planted Daylilies, the double orange variety, and made a garden in the area.  These bloom later in the summer, and are just beautiful.
4. Comfrey - This one grows in the same garden as the Daylilies, and can become rather large and shrub-like.  It has pretty purple flowers.  It has the reputation for being a hard one to get rid of if you don’t want it somewhere, because even the smallest piece of a root left behind will form a new plant.  I chose to put the Comfrey in the same garden as the Daylilies because the soil is not the best and it takes a bit of work to take over the garden, so I haven’t had a lot of trouble.  I haven’t done a post devoted to Comfrey yet, working through the alphabet backwards for the most part as you can see in the upper right, but will one day.
5. Oregano - This favorite culinary herb is so easy to grow, and I have an abundance of it each year.  I do snip the ends to keep it from flowering for part of the summer, then later in the summer, let it go to flower as the bees just love the flowers, and happy bees are so good for my garden as well as surrounding gardens.
6. Mints - The mint plants are best put in a somewhat contained area, I let them spread and just pull up and use or give away what wanders out of the area it should be in the spring.  I love putting mint into my iced tea while brewing…just clean it well (small bugs like my mint too), then roll the leaves on the stem together between your palms (hands) to release the fragrant and flavorful oils, then put in your steeping tea. I sweeten mine with another herb called Stevia
7. Catnip - another one like Oregano and Mint…in fact all of these plants are “related”, part of the same family, so have similar growing patterns.
8. Lemon Balm - Another like the above, have had these coming up in my garden for so many years now I’ve lost count.
9. Chives - A wonderful culinary herb to add onion flavor to anything.  I use the greens throughout the spring and summer…they are already out of the ground.  Here’s a minor caution for you, each year mine gets pretty purple flowers on it.  My first year with the plants, I clipped the flower tops off when they died, then clipped a bunch of the chives to take in to cut into my salad…not realizing that the flower stems are terribly hard, and inedible.  Be sure when you remove the flowers to take them from the base of the stem so you don’t make the same mistake.
10. Strawberries - I have these in an old antique ceramic-coated wash basin on our deck.  These amazing plants had leaves from last season that remained for much of the winter, and are already putting out their new leaves.  Very hearty, and I look forward to a better crop of berries as we have more sun on the deck since they removed a couple of trees to install our new septic system.

These are just a few of the things that grow on my property, maybe you can share some of your favorites in a comment.

I post regularly to this blog, but today, this post was done as one of the lessons in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge.

This is a stop that we made during a trip to Maine a couple of years ago…a wonderful picture of antique equipment used to sort cranberries at County Road Cranberry Bogs in Columbia Falls, Maine.  In our travels (which were wherever the road may take us) we came upon this cranberry bog and the husband and wife who work their cranberry farm.

Since I already have some of the health benefits of Cranberries posted on my website, I thought you’d enjoy seeing pictures of the bog which has already been harvested, and the beautiful antique hand-operated machine they use to sort and clean the leaves and residue off the berries.

The berries we brought home stored well in the freezer, and provided delicious cranberry sauce for our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for 2 years.  They were sweetened with raw honey that we brought home from a farm in Lancaster, PA last spring.

In the mild November we experienced in 2007, I shared a bit about to an interesting Blueberry store, including a picture, on my Happy Nutritionist’s Nuggets blog…there was hardly a thing in the store that wasn’t in some way related to Blueberries.

Maine is one of the best places to pick blueberries in MHO, they are delicious! During visits in the summer, I’ve picked large bags full of berries that we’ve enjoyed around our campfire (we did a lot of camping in Maine when the children were growing up) and brought home to pop in the freezer. They lasted a long time.

We also have many bushes in our woods and 2 or 3 on our property.  Before the bears became so prolific in the area, I spent a lot of time berry-picking in our woods alone, I’m a little hesitant to do that now.  They love the berries, too.

Blueberries are full of antioxidants, especially in the skin, so I do chew them well when eating them. If I can’t harvest them, I buy them frozen and eat them mixed in yogurt with my herbal sweetener, Stevia, with just a very little bit of vanilla extract, all stirred together in a bowl as an evening snack. Delicious!

For more about blueberries, stop by and visit “Health Benefits of Blueberries“.

If you would like a fact sheet about any of the items marked in red, please send me an email. Thanks!

The botanical name for this spiny bush, shrub, or small tree is Cratageus oxyancanthoides. Though it is native to the Mediterranean, it is cultivated worldwide. Wildlife enjoy it as a safe place to take cover, and as a food source. The bush flowers in the spring, and the berries are ready to harvest in early fall. They are used to make jams and jellies, and for medicinal purposes. If allowed to grow, a tree can reach up to 24″ tall.Back in Greek and Roman times, the herb was used decoratively for wedding bouquets, and the suspicious Romans used it in baby beds to keep away evil. Some records state that upon Christ’s death on the Cross, the herb became associated with death, as supposedly the thorns made up his crown of thorns, though He did have a crown of thorns placed on his head, I am not sure what type of plant it was from. It was the English herbalist from the 17th century, Nichlolas Culpeper who suggested the herb be used for kidney stones and congestive heart failure.Studies validate some of the benefits of Hawthorn to the heart and circulatory system. (I am realizing as I type this that in a day or so it will be February, a month that focuses on Heart health awareness.)

Scientific Info:

Hawthorn berry actives include Procyanidolic oligomers, or PCOs, which collectively refer to proanthocyanidins. These are plant bioflavanoids which, because of their chemical structure they are easily absorbed by cell membrane, and because of this, the protective properties are easily absorbed by our bodies down to the cellular level.

The term Proanthocyanidins as well as ORAC is quite popular with the many health drinks out there touting the benefits which include:

• Trapping free radicals and lipid peroxides
• Delaying the onset of lipid peroxidation
• Inhibiting free radical production by the enzyme xanthine
• Inhibiting the damaging affects of enzymes that destroy connective tissue

These protective properties in Hawthorn berries are particularly beneficial to the tissues of the circulatory system and protect against heart disease. Some of the benefits to the heart attributed to the herb include:

Stimulating peripheral vasodilation which lowers blood pressure and stress on the heart and increasing the flow of blog to the extremities.

• After the above, there is a mild dilation of the coronary vessels and then increased enzyme metabolism in cardiac muscle contractions
• Increase oxygen utilization by the heart
• It should be noted that in stressful conditions, the affect can be the opposite, please contact me if you would like me to send the specific studies.

Hawthorn berries are often suggested by herbalists for heart problems related to aging and degenerative conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina, and arrhythmia.

Cautions:

According to the book “Healing Herbs”, high doses of the herb can have a sedative affect, and are recommended for those with chronic insomnia, but amount taken should not exceed safe levels for cardiotonic effects.  And I will add that there are better herbs to use if you are dealing with insomnia.

If you would like a fact sheet about any of the items marked in red, please send me an email. Thanks!

As always, my Disclaimer applies to this, and all posts on this blog.

Horsetail goes by the botanical name Equisetum arvense. Though native to Europe, we have it all over in the area where I live, in Northern NJ, perhaps because we are in a lake community and the herb loves moist soil. When you drive out of our community, it grows heavily along the roadway beside another lake close to us. The Latin name means “horse bristle”. Fossil records show that this plant is very primitive. It also shows that the plant used to grow as tall as sixty feet! Now it grows to about 2 feet.

Historical Use:

Meskwaki Indians fed Horsetail to their horses to improve the gloss of the hair, the main & tail. It was also used to scrub, clean & polish cooking utensils. The Greek physician, Diosorides, suggested using it as an astringent. In Switzerland, a tincture was used for cystitis and tuberculosis. American Indians and the early American settlers used it as a diuretic for kidney disorders. Folk medicine indicates use to help with excess menstruation and bleeding. The properties that probably gave the herb all these useful benefits include the fact that the herb is astringent, antiseptic, ani-hemorrhagic, diaphoretic, emmengogue, homeostatic, tonic and vulnerary. Today, it is suggested as one of a number of herbs helpful during cold and flu season to increase resistance to infection.

Scientific Info:

Horsetail can be used as an astringent both internally and externally to treat skin abrasions, diarrhea and indigestion (Spoerke, “Herbal Medications”). Silica is one of the main nutrients found in horsetail, an extremely common element in the earth. It is also found in the connective tissue throughout the body, aiding in the building and repair of connective tissue. It helps to increase collagen, and aids the body is using calcium to build bones. A UCLA study found that silicon supplements significantly increased bone calcium content as opposed to non-supplementation (Faelton, “Complete Book of Minerals and Health”). (Note: This is why a calcium supplement that I use, Skeletal Strength, contains certain herbs, because not only does vitamin D, Magnesium, etc. help with calcium absorption, but also the properties in the herbs.)

Some research seems to indicate that because Horsetail is high in Silica, which reduces blood cholesterol and helps to prevent aging and degenerative disorders like heart disease, for example. Silica is also beneficial to the skin & eyes. The flavanoids in Horsetail strengthen the capillaries, it’s phytosterols, or plant steriods, help with inflammation. Some use it for inflammation in the kidneys, bladder, and prostate. This herb is also a great source of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. It has moderately high levels of vitamin E and pantothenic acid (B5). The minerals/trace minerals include calcium, potassium, copper, manganese, selenium, iron, phosphorus, sodium, cobalt and iodine, contributing to strong connective tissue, hair, skin and nails.

PABA, a building block to folic acid and antioxidant that protects the skin from sunburn, is also found in horsetail.

If you would like a fact sheet about any of the items marked in red, please send me an email. Thanks!

Safety Issues: This herb is not recommended for those who hypertension, or certain cardiovascular problems, and remember, my Disclaimer in the right margin applies.

Image Courtesy of http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/