We have been so busy with summertime things: fishing, camping, gardening and baseball, baseball, baseball! Two boys play baseball, hubby coaches baseball and I am the secretary for the league, so we live at the baseball fields four nights a week from 5:30 till 8 or 9 PM. It has been very rainy this year, so very difficult to collect herbs - since you really want to collect them when they are as dry as possible. However, I have managed to gather a nice supply of yarrow - my favorite herb of all! Right now the yarrow is blooming with it's trademark white cluster flowers, but the fern-like leaves are where most of the "good stuff" is. The flowers are great in teas, but for oils or tinctures you want to collect the leaves before the flower blooms. Yarrow is good for so many things - it can stop external and internal bleeding (use as a poultice for external, a tea for internal), it is antibacterial, helps fight colds by boosting your immune system and can lower your blood pressure. It also helps clear up bladder infections and can help with incontinence or bedwetting. I like to make an infused oil with it for use on itchy skin. You can see why it is my favorite!
Here is a fantastic way to dry herbs! I found a lovely patch of yarrow beside a lake one day and couldn't resist gathering a nice handful On the ride home, I spread it out on the dash of the car in the sunshine and by the time we got home (3 hours later) it was nicely dried and ready to seal away for winter teas.
I also discovered that there is a website for my favorite
herbal guide book.
You can head over there and check out Beverly Gray's wonderful work.
Common yarrow flowering.
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