Plant a Medicinal Garden, Part 1: Immune-Boosting Herbs

Reader Contribution by Susanna Raeven
Published on February 7, 2014
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While arctic temperatures hover over New York state like a stubborn fog and the weather forecast announces another fresh snow blanket covering the Northeast by tomorrow, I like to huddle up in front of the wood stove and think about the herbs I am going to grow at Raven Crest Farm this season. It lifts my spirit, gets me into spring mode and is something I enjoy doing and sharing very much. And so I like to share a series of blogs with you that introduces easy to grow medicinal plants with powerful healing properties that are a feast to the eye, make delicious herbal teas and effective tinctures, attract beneficial insects and wildlife and are good companion plants for vegetables and fruit trees. Planting a medicinal herb garden will bring new and exciting aspects to your green world with many healing benefits to reap.

This 5-part blog series will cover herbs that are highly beneficial for different body systems: the immune system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the female reproductive system, the nervous system, and the integumentary system (the skin).

The majority of the medicinal herbs introduced here are perennials that die back in winter and re-emerge in spring, or self seeding annuals that become well established after the first year and will keep beautifying your garden for years. I am adding just a couple of tender annuals because their strong medicinal properties and delicious taste in tea is simply worth the effort of planting them again and again.

No matter if you are buying seeds or seedlings, check the Latin name of the plant and make sure you are buying the correct medicinal variety. The ornamental varieties bred for extra showy looks often lack the medicinal properties we are after.

With these versatile and beautiful plant spirits in your garden you can fill your medicine cabinet with home made, affordable herbal remedies for the cold and flu, respiratory infections, sore throat, toothaches, candida, gastrointestinal infections, ulcers, herpes simplex, sleeping problems, anxiety, stomach upset and indigestion, cuts, wounds, burns, insect bites, allergies, stress, ear infections, headaches, PMS and menopause symptoms, and mild pains.

Who needs to go to the pharmacy? I don’t. And neither do you with these green alleys in your backyard.

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