Creating a Herbal Apothecary for
your homestead is a beneficial way to keep your medicinal herbs and essential
oils, jars, bottles and brews organized. I use medicinal herbs for making healing remedies
for all sorts of ailments. I make oils, tinctures, herbal vinegars, I use them in salves,
soaps, in beauty products, heat sacks, for cold packs and even for pest control, they're
also good for poultices and for making teas. Growing and preserving your own herbs means you
know that they're grown clean without chemicals, they're picked at their peak and how fresh they
are when you come to use them. Even if you're growing in pots, you can harvest small amounts
of herbs regularly when they're at their peak, picking a small amount of herbs at a time may
not seem beneficial but over the whole season you'll end up with quite a lot.
Knowing what you
want to use your herbs for, what ailments you want to treat or remedies you want to have on hand for
a homestead emergency and knowing what herbs grow well in your area will help you to decide what
you want to grow for your apothecary cupboard. Every medicinal herb has numerous uses and
there are numerous herbs that can be used for the same ailment so you should be able
to find one that is suitable for your needs.
I only use Aloe Vera fresh when I
need it. I recommend that you grow it, if you can where you live, but it's not one
you need to put in your Apothecary cupboard. If you're buying your herbs for your Apothecary
make sure you buy them from a reputable seller so you can be sure you have quality, fresh herbs
with no pesticides or chemicals used on them. Using toxic plants for healing purposes isn't
going to work so well. If you're foraging for herbs, be certain of the plant's identification,
some herbs look very similar and can have very different outcomes.
Don't forage next to farms or
busy roadways as pollutions and chemical runoff are absorbed by the herbs making them not so
good for eating or using for medicinal purposes. Only harvest a small amount, leaving most
of the plant to recover, continue growing or to set seed so that it can make more
plants and more medicine for everyone. When and how you harvest your herbs depends on
the part of the plant that you're wanting to harvest for the medicinal purpose and the type
of plant, that it is whether it's an annual, a biannual or a perennial. Harvesting
the leaves is best done in Spring maybe even early summer when the leaves
are nice and fresh and newly grown. Harvest the herb flowers when the flowers are
in bloom and they're at their peak and they look beautiful. I usually Harvest them in the morning
when all the oils are strong in the flowers. Harvesting roots and tubers is best
done when the plant is dormant, so that can be the end of autumn or
through winter if you don't get heavy snow.
I live in an area where I can harvest
my tubers and Roots all through the winter. You want to do it when the plant has died down,
before any snow or really heavy frost comes, that's when all the goodness is
inside the roots and tubers and they're not putting all the energy
into growing leaves and flowers. If the herb is an annual, that
means the plant only lasts one year, they die off and they have to be replanted
every year.
Perennials last a long time, they're plants that just keep coming back
each year on the same roots and tubers and biannuals are plants that last for only two
years. The first year they produce their leaves, which is the foliage and then the
second year they produce their flower. If you're going to harvest the root of a biannual
you need to harvest it before it goes to flower because otherwise all that energy goes into the
flower and it will no longer be in the root or the tuber but if you want the flower then let
it go to flower and then harvest the flowers. I have three dark burgundy roses, they're
standard plants that I took cuttings from, from the farm I used to live at before I lived
at moat Cottage.
It was an Old Homestead and these roses have the most amazing scent and I use
them in salves, soaps, pillows and even lemonade. Mugwort grows big quite quickly so harvesting
the leaves is a good opportunity to prune it, to keep it in shape and get it to the
shape that you really want it to be in and you get the benefit of using the leaves. I like to clean up the herbs outside so that I can
drop the bits on the ground and they go back into the earth, any damaged or dry leaves that are
a little bit yellowy, I take them off because I don't want them, I want the prime good quality
leaves for my preserving, to use in my apothecary. Drying herbs can be done in numerous ways, I
dry my herbs in many different ways depending on what part of the herb I'm drying, whether it's
the root, the tuber, the leaves or the flowers, what time of year it is, how warm or cold
it is and the humidity at the time of year that I'm drying something. It also depends
on how I'll be using the final product. I'm drying my mugwort in small bunches
that I'll hang from the curtain rail, I tie them up with brown string and I make sure
that it's nice and tight because when the herbs dry they shrink down and they can fall out
of the string if it's not tight enough. Hang them out of direct sunlight and you can
also hang them on sticks that are hanging on the wall as well or broomsticks or ladders it all
works the same.
For my smaller batches of drying, I use paper bags, I have the same bags every year
and each bag has a different type of Herb in it. This bag is for rose petals and I make sure
I break them up so that they can dry evenly and there's no parts that will go mouldy.
I make sure the bags go in a warm location, that can be the car or a warm room or a warm
cupboard but they do need to be shaken every day. I add freshly harvested flowers into the
bag when they come in from the garden, this is great for small batches because
I'm only getting a few flowers every day and that way I can eventually have a full bag
of flowers but I do leave enough room so that the air can circulate when I'm shaking
the bag, so that they don't go mouldy.
I find that using a dehydrator is good for
the roots and tubers as well as when you've got big batches of leaves to dry. Herb leaves
like mugwort and comfrey need to be dehydrated on the lowest temperature which is about 35
degrees Celsius that's 95 degrees Fahrenheit. If the leaves are big like the comfrey then you
can chop them up a bit so that it helps with the drying process and there's more airflow
that can circulate around the dehydrator. With the mugwort I don't worry about
cutting it up, there's enough room for the air to circulate and you can have more
than a single layer of the herb leaves. Labelling your herb storage containers, your oils
tinctures and other concoctions is very important, you need to know what is in each container,
you also need to know if there's a use by date on anything as well or the date that you
made something so that you're using things while they're still good. You can use oil-based
textas on your jars, that's good for labelling, but I find if it's an oil-based product
that the paint comes off the jar. I've printed out some labels onto some vinyl
sticker paper so my jars are getting an update.
When your herbs are fully dry and
there's no moisture left in them, they're ready to store away in airtight
containers. I use jars with lids on them and I store them in my Apothecary
cupboard, which is a dry dark location. Depending on how I'm going to be using
the herb depends on how I store the herb, whether I blend it up into a powder,
whether I have it chopped up and just store it in a jar or whether
I keep it whole in the jar.
Some things I even keep in bunches
and just leave them hanging until I need to use them, it really depends on what it is. I usually store the flowers, leaves and roots
or tubers of the same plant in separate jars, so that I can use the part of the herb that I want
to use for whichever purpose I'm using it for. Comfrey is a good example of this, I like
to diversify where I keep my comfrey, so I have the leaves dried and I turn some into
a powder, I have some whole and I also have the root dried and I have the root in the freezer
as well.
When I'm using the root for face masks it can't be dehydrated because if you add water to
it it just doesn't work the same for that purpose. My bigger batches of herbs, like my Lavender
flowers and some of my Calendula flowers I keep on the top shelf in my kitchen,
only because they're in much bigger jars and there's not enough room for
everything in my Apothecary cupboard. I also keep a sample of all of my herb parts
in the Apothecary box so that I have a sample of each part of each herb, so I can grab it in
a hurry if I need it. By the end of the season this box will be filled with a variety of all the
different herbs that I'll be using over the year.
We've finally made it to the Apothecary cupboard,
this is where I store all my dried herbs, my essential oils, carrier oils, tinctures that
have been brewed, infused oils and vinegars, some other remedies. It's all in date, fresh, labelled
well and organized so that I can find everything. Up the top here is where I keep the excess things
that I've made like salves, bath salts and soaps so that they're easy to find when we need them. In this part of the apothecary cupboard I store
the box of apothecary herbs, I keep my vodka which is my alcohol that I use for tinctures,
I also store all my jars and containers. I use these Amber Jars with lids for
brewing tinctures and herbal oils the Dropper Bottles are good for
tinctures that go under the tongue Essential Oil Bottles for
mixing up aromatherapy blends Amber Jars for ointments lotions or salves the Roller Bottles are used for herbal
oil applications and deodorants. The Aluminium Containers are for salves and
the Spray bottles are for topical tinctures, once they've been mixed with water and
they just get sprayed on externally. I've left some Amazon links below for the
US Australia UK and Canada if you want to purchase any of these products.
So this is
my Apothecary cupboard, how I keep it all organized and I restock and replenish it so that
it's ready for anything. I hope by the end of the Summer I will have it fully restocked and I'll
have many tinctures for all sorts of ailments. Thanks so much for watching, subscribing,
liking and commenting and supporting my channel..