How to Get Started Using Herbal Medicine
How to Get Started Using Herbal Medicine
So you want to learn to use herbal medicine. That is amazing! I drink tea with herbs grown on the homestead almost every day. I’m convinced it’s one of the reasons I’m a mostly healthy person. This post will teach you how to get started using herbal medicine.
I'm not a professional herbalist. I'm not going to teach you herbal medicine here on the blog because I'm winging it. But I will tell you how I wing it so that you can wing it in an educated way too.
Herbs can be powerful. Some herbs can interact with pharmaceuticals. Others make antibiotics or birth control less effective and wreak havoc with your body if used incorrectly. But herbs can also be a fantastic resource and change your quality of life for the better.
The keys to success are listening to your body and making sure to do your research carefully.
How Do I Choose Which Herbs to Work With?
My process is super intuitive. What do I feel drawn to? At first, this can feel a little out there. You don’t even know what’s available. But, as you grow your garden, knowledge, and apothecary, it will feel much easier. Wander around your garden center, flick through some books, look at the herbs in the grocery store, and see if anything jumps out at you.
I back my intuitive hits up with research and science. You can work with herbs spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Honing your knowledge of what works well for different ailments and experiences is
The best thing you can do to get started using herbal medicine is to build your herbal library. I DO NOT use Google searches or random blogs (like this one) for herbal information. There’s just too high of a chance for it to be wrong. If I stumble across herbal info on social media or some other unreliable source that piques my interest, I use my books to check its validity. Books that are highly reviewed are my go-to. These are the books that I pull out all the time and work with.
The Herb Book
This is my go-to. I’ve had it the longest and use it the most often. You can look up specific herbs or ailments. It has two different indexes depending on how you want to search. It tells you what part of the plant is best to use and the different ways you can best prepare it. I love leaving myself little notes in the margins so I can remember what I did and how it worked out.
The Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine
This is my second in command. There’s lots of conflicting information out there about what herbs are good for what things, how to prepare herbs and safety precautions. Listening to your gut when working with herbs is really important. If it feels sketchy, skip it. I also like to double-confirm information.
If an herb is stated to be safe or useful for something in one book and not the other, I keep searching. If both books have the same recommendations, that’s a good sign for me to proceed.
When choosing between two different options I go with the one I feel drawn to the most.
The Modern Herbal Dispensary
This one is a bit newer, and I’m not as familiar with it as the other two but I have liked it so far. It’s nice to browse different herbs and get familiar with them when you don’t have anything specific in mind.
The way the information is laid out in this one is easier on my brain than the other two, although it does have fewer plants in it.
Plant Witchery
When I’m looking for spiritual support, this book is my absolute favorite. I LOVE it. It talks about the energetics of plants, and why you might be drawn to a plant outside of a medicinal need. Pairing information from the medicinal books with this one has resulted in some really powerful herb blends for my unique needs.
Working with the plants on a deeper level than just medicinal adds a ton of potency to your work with them.
Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Remedies
There's a ton of different stuff in here. Um, and if you're the kind of person who’s more comfortable following a recipe than winging it, this is a great book to have.
I haven’t made a ton of things from here, but I want to dive in deeper this summer when the hot weather forces me back inside.
A Modern Horse Herbal
For my horsey people, this is an awesome book to have on hand. It’s not actually modern at all, it’s from 1996. If you know of more horse-specific herb resources that are more updated, send them my way! I would love to check them out.
Anyways, anytime I use herbs with MJ I check them out in this book first.
Getting Started Using Herbal Medicine
If you want to start growing herbs, using herbal medicine, and putting together an apothecary, for yourself, your family and your animals, start by building up your library.
See what plants you're drawn to. Grow those. You don't have to have 50 plants. Many plants do the same thing; you don’t have to have them all. It’s actually far more effective to deeply get to know a few herbs than it is to have a surface-level understanding of many.
The easiest way to grow your own herbs is from cuttings. Join your local gardening group on Facebook and ask around. Most gardeners are super happy to share. Then you can source seeds from your local nursery, FedCo Seeds, and I find the more niche ones are usually on Etsy.
Know that many perennial herbs prefer to be cold-stratified before being planted.
Anytime you take an herb internally you want to really do your research first. Is it safe to take with any medication you may be on? Are you pregnant, nursing or experiencing any health complications? All of these factors require careful consideration.
When approached with a critical but curious mind working with herbs can be safe, enjoyable, and excellent for your health.
Check out my short form video on this topic here
