Jackpine Radical Gardening

You must be in Grow Zone 3  –  I’m borderline 4/5. I can’t put xplants out til the end of May. Yeah, short season. But I’ll be setting up my shelves and lights very soon. With the virus madness, I’m trying to think of the veggies that are easy to freeze. I plant green peas early outdoors. I wanted to put them in the ground yesterday but my r…[Read more]

The next time you make an herbal tea, add some white wine to the tea water.  Alcohol is a much better solvent for some organic compounds than water, and it doesn’t take much to see the effect.  One-third white wine to two-thirds water will make the overall solution ~5% in alcohol, which will boost the extracting power of the solvent considerably f…[Read more]

I have a long standing interest in Herbs and remedies but recently (last 2 years) have moved over to mushrooms. I want to make tinctures etc. but haven’t started to yet. I keep medicinal mushrooms that I harvest wild frozen and use them in my cooking.

One “herbal” thing I’m starting is harvesting Elderberries to make medicine from.

Good topic, thanks!

An interesting little lawn weed here in the South.  The scientific name is Phyllanthus urinaria, and there are others in the Phyllanthus genus that are being researched as antivirals effective against the HSV.  The name “chanca piedra” or ‘stonebreaker’ was given to it by South Americans, who found that it had the interesting property of r…[Read more]

And some of the compounds found in calendula are purported to have anti-viral properties.

Melissa officinalis, a nice herb that makes a tasty tea.

Numerous papers have documented that constituents of lemon balm can be shown in vitro to have activity against the herpes simplex virus.  Here’s one such paper:  https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/17785/1/CHE2012058001070.pdf

An interesting point of this paper is that it a…[Read more]

Here’s a paper on the antiviral activity of compounds extracted from the sage plant:  http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0354-4664/2008/0354-46640803421S.pdf

Given the rapid spread of the coronavirus, and given that there is no efficacious treatment, just supportive measures, I’m thinking that adding a variety of extracts of plants with known…[Read more]

Hi JZeusH, you had to know I’d be popping up on this thread! I have a long-standing interest in herbal medicine. I have lots of books and some experience mixing up my own herbal remedies.  I also have an interest in Chinese herbal medicine and was wondering what role it played in their ordeal in Wuhan.

More tomorrow, though. I’m getting too…[Read more]

Hey, @gzeush. I’m a student member of American Herbalists Guild, and their research chapter currently has some very good information on their Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1900310653543876/

Editing to add their main webpage: https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/covid-19-resources

If you join — it’s not that expensive — you…[Read more]

But, this year, I’m going to shoot the yard idiot my landlady hires to whack weeds if he whacks the calendula again.

You must be south of me 🙂 I am just starting seeds in MN now cannot xplant until Mother’s Day, solid zone 4. I considered starting on jute mats in the past may give it a try this year, thanks for the reminder!

My garden is small about 120 row feet. Well tended raised beds with plenty of wormy compost and mulch. This year shifting to more…[Read more]

We made it this week, except we used Swiss chard instead of kale.  Excellent!