If you're interested in being more self-reliant
when it comes to healing your family, then tinctures are an excellent addition
to have in your medicine cabinet or your apothecary cupboard and you can make them
from herbs in your own garden and a tincture can last up to 20 years in the cupboard, so if
you're not using it, it's not going to waste. If you're wondering what a tincture is and
why you'd make and use a tincture or when and how you harvest the herbs to make a tincture,
then hang out with me and i'll show you how. Hi guys I'm Elissa at Moat Cottage Homesteading.
A tincture is a solution that's made by soaking herbs in an alcohol, to extract all the
healing properties out of it. Some herbs can be extracted using glycerin or vinegar,
however only some can be extracted that way, whereas all herbs can be extracted using an
alcohol. Depending on the herbs you're using and the condition you're trying to heal, some
tinctures can be used as a drop underneath the tongue, a few drops of the liquid or they
can be turned into a spray and sprayed on, for example, a wound or an infection, but
we'll talk about that a little bit later on. I like using tinctures because they work really
fast, they get the herb into where you need it quickly, they're easy to make and like I said
earlier they store for 20 years in the cupboard, so if you make a few ahead of time, you have
a few bases covered in the healing department and you can use them whenever you want and
they're not going to go bad in a year or two, so it makes sense to me to
have a few on hand, at least. There are many different ways to use herbs and
tinctures is just one way.
Other ways are making a tea, a herbal salve, a poultice, a herbal
oil, you can take a syrup or make a capsule, there's a suppository, but I'm not a big fan of
that. You can make a herbal wash or you can use herbs directly on the skin in some cases, like
with Aloe Vera and I've shown you how to do some of these things in past videos, so if you want
to check out that playlist you can check that out after this. A tincture is just another way
to get the herbs to where they're needed to heal. There are so many different herbs you
can use in your tinctures for different ailments and we could spend a whole
year just talking about that straight, which would be a very long video and you probably
wouldn't have time to watch it so we're going to keep it simple and today I'm just going to
talk about Yarrow, Comfrey and Calendula. Calendula is an annual or a perennial
depending on where you live. You use the whole flower head and not just the
petals.
It's antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, it helps stop infection and heals wounds, it
can also help with pain of minor injuries. Yarrow is a perennial. You can use the leaves,
stems and flowers to stop minor bleeding and infection. Pregnant women and women with pelvic
inflammation disease shouldn't be using Yarrow, neither should men trying to become fathers,
as it's known to stop sperm production in mice so it's probably a good idea to avoid
that if you're trying to become a father. It's early spring here so the Yarrow
is not in flower at the moment so we're only going to be using the leaves today
and I'm harvesting the nicer looking leaves. Comfrey is a perennial and you can use
the root, the flowers and the leaves, they're all good.
At this time
of year we can harvest the root, it's just starting to sprout so the root will
still be quite potent at this time of year. Brush off as much soil as you can and then give
it a good wash in a bucket of water so that you're not leaving a whole lot of soil in your sink. Once
it's washed, I place it on a tea towel to dry. With the comfrey you can use the root and you can
use the leaves, it's a fast healer, it knits bones together, it's fast at healing skin, it stops
bleeding, it reduces swelling and pain in sprains and it softens the skin as well.
It's not good
to use on an open wound alone because it heals so fast that it might heal the infection in so
you want to use something like the Calendula or the Yarrow or both as well so that that's dealing
with the infection. It is great on a scab if it's already scabbed up, then it's brilliant and like i
said it also knits bones together for broken bones but it's not recommended for babies and
pregnant women. I actually use comfrey root on my face, so i blend it up and then put it
on my face, I make sure no one's home and the curtains are closed so no one can see and i use it
as a face mask, it is so healing, it's brilliant, i love it! So that's just a little trick that
i do, it's up to you if you try that or not, but it does work, it's brilliant! Now some of
you are going to ask me where do i get herbs from? where can you get herbs? where can you
source herbs? You want to source your herbs from a reputable Seller because you want to make
sure you have fresh herbs that are good quality and that there's no pesticides or chemicals in
the herbs because you don't want to be trying to heal yourself with toxic plants.
The best thing i
suggest is to grow your own because you don't need to grow all of the herbs, obviously you can't grow
all of the herbs, but some herbs that you can grow will be the ones that you use and then
if you have to outsource some of them, that you can't grow, say if you're not in a
tropical environment you can't grow cloves, then you might have to import them or
source them from a reputable seller. But I recommend growing your own because then you
can be certain of the identification of the herbs because some herbs actually look alike and you
might think that you're getting the right herb and it's not and you don't want to be using the wrong
herb because in some cases that can be deadly, so if you are growing your own herbs,
you'll know exactly what they are, you'll know when to harvest them at
the freshest and the best time of year and then you'll be using them and making tinctures
with the best quality product that you can use. If you grow your own you'll know that
there are no chemicals on them as well. If you're going to be foraging for herbs, then
you need to take a few things into consideration. One is obviously the identification of
the plant, you want to make sure you have the right identification so that you're
using the right herb, that is the first most important thing, The second thing is
you don't want to use toxic plants, so keep away from the roadways where there are cars
because the pollution will get onto the herbs, even in a busy city would probably not be the
most ideal thing for sourcing clean herbs, that really depends where you live i guess.
You
also don't want to harvest your herbs next to a farm that uses chemicals because the water
washes off the farm and off the paddocks, into where your herbs possibly growing and
then the herbs absorb all that extra pollution and it's actually chemicals, so it's an
extra nitrogen, they'll just suck that up and that can make your herbs not good to
eat or use for medicinal purposes…. and the other thing is don't harvest all of the
herb, only take a small amount and leave the majority of the plant there because you don't
want to be damaging the plant so much that it can't recover, you want it to keep growing or
to set seeds so that it can make more plants and that we can have more medicine for everyone.
Not only do some herbs look alike, but they are completely different herbs, we have the same name
for a few different herbs or we have different names in different countries, so it can be a
little bit tricky when we're talking about herbs, to actually know what we're talking about, we
can be on different pages, so the good thing is is that we have botanical names which are used
worldwide.
So i will leave the botanical names of the plants that i'm talking about today so
that we are actually talking about the same plant because something as simple as purslane can be
many different plants and they don't look alike but we're talking about something
completely different, so not that we're talking about that plant today
but that's just my example. So the good thing is is that we have a worldwide botanical name so
we can all know exactly what we're talking about and we're using the right plants.
When and how you
harvest your herbs, really depends on two things, the first thing is the part of the plant that
you're wanting to harvest for the medicinal purposes and the second is the type of plant it
is, whether it's an annual, biannual or perennial. So the first section being the part of the plant
we need to harvest. If you're harvesting leaves, then spring, maybe even early summer can
be the best time for the leaves. With the flowers obviously that's when the flowers
are in flower, when they're at their peak, when they look beautiful, that's when
you need to cut them off and use them, The best time i find to harvest them is first
thing in the morning after any dew or moisture is dried up on the plants and they're nice and dry,
but before they're getting too hot in the sunshine and that's the best time to harvest for
all the good oils, to be in the plants at their strongest.
The roots or tubers
however are best harvested when the plant is dormant, so that can be the end of
autumn if you're in a really cold climate, so when the plant has died down before any snow
and frosts and all that sort of stuff happens or if you live in a climate that's cool or warm
and when i say cool, i mean Australia cool, then you can harvest them all through winter
as well, so i find late autumn there's still stuff happening but by winter
here, we don't get the heavy snows, so you can harvest all through winter, the
plants are dormant and the roots and tubers are ready to harvest throughout that period and
also early spring in all locations, just before they start to sprout off again, all the goodness
is inside that tuber or the roots and they're not putting all their energy into making flowers,
or plants and leaves and all that sort of stuff and the other consideration is the type of plant.
So is it going to be an annual? which means the plant only lasts a year, which is really only
three seasons because they die off for winter. Perennials last for a long time, they just keep
coming back each year on the same tubers or roots and then you've got the biannuals and they last
for two years.
So the first year they'll be just a plant, it'll be the leaves and then by the
second year, that's when they go to flower, so with the biannuals you need
to harvest the roots or tubers after the first year but before they go to seed,
because otherwise all the energy will have been put into making flowers and seeds in that second
year, so there's no point waiting till after they've done that because then there's
nothing left and they're about to die. When i'm making tinctures, I
prefer to use fresh herbs if i can rather than dehydrated herbs, but that's obviously
only if i can because that's not always possible. i like to use a clean pair of scissors to chop
up my leaves and flowers. You can use a knife, the main thing is is that you
chop them up nice and fine so that all that goodness can
come out, into the tincture, into the alcohol that we're going to be using
or if you choose to use glycerin, or a vinegar For this recipe i do recommend using an alcohol
though.
I chop up the flowers, i find the easiest way is to chop the petals up first and
then move on to the main part of the flower, the center part of the flower and chop that up
finely and then i give it all a chop up together. Roots and tubers can go in the blender, which
is what i do. I put them in my nutribullet, it's brilliant, it mashes it up really
quickly or you can use a knife and just be very patient and chop it up as fine as you can, otherwise you could use a grater and grate
it up, just watch out for those fingers. You can see it's all mulched up, it's clumping
together but it is all mulched up into little bits so that all that goodness
can go out into the alcohol. My jars have already been
sterilized and they're dry, so i put the herbs into the clean jars
and then i cover with alcohol.
I like to use a vodka because vodka is quite clean, i
use an alcohol percentage of alcohol of 40. there are a couple of reasons i use the 40%
alcohol volume and that is because it's cheaper than the 80 volume and it's easier to mix up my
sprays when i'm making a spray because you mix 50% water with 50% of the alcohol that's
been herb infused (The tincture) Whereas if it's an 80% volume of alcohol, you
do have a different mixture percentage (Ratio) The percentages of the herbs i'm using
is about equal parts of each herb or as close as that as i can get to, by eye.
Cover all the herbs with the alcohol,
leaving enough room for the lid and then it will be stored in a dark location,
in a pantry or a cupboard and it will be shaken daily, so put it somewhere where you will see it
every day, for at least 10 days, longer is better. After six weeks of shaking daily, i
then put it in the apothecary cupboard and of course you label your tinctures.
Write the herbs that are in it, write that it is a tincture and the date that you
made it. I also write if i use vodka or glycerin, i don't really make vinegar ones, so i don't
need to worry about that, but it's a good idea to write what is in it exactly so that you know
where you can use it because you don't want to be giving babies vodka when you're giving them
a tincture, that's suitable for internal use i made this Comfy root tincture about two
weeks ago so it's been brewing for that long and it's ready to start using now if i want to, so i'm going to show you how to use a spray
tincture.
I don't use comfrey internally i only use it as a topical application,
so i'm going to make it into a spray now with the spray you have a spray
container and you put some water in it, make sure it's filtered water and obviously
the containers that i use are all sterilized, they've all been washed in hot soapy water and
rinsed thoroughly, so there's no residue in them now. Once you mix up your tincture with
water for a spray, it only lasts three days, so i never make a huge batch for the spray i'm
going to make.
I've got that much water in there and i'm just going to make a 50: 50 solution
of the alcohol(tincture) and the water you can get some of the
alcohol solution into a dropper which can take a little bit of time depending
how much you can get into the dropper so give that a shake up and then it's ready to
use and you can spray that on the affected area, so with a comfrey tincture, I only use
that on wounds that have already scabbed up and i don't have a scab to show
you and you spray it on like that, it's that simple, so if you've got an animal
that's been eaten by a fox and it's still alive you can spray some of this onto the wound
quite easily, that can go quite a distance animals, people, it works all the same ,it's great and you can really smell that comfy root.
So that will last three days like that. I always label and date so i can remember
what day i made it and what it actually is. This part of the tincture will last for 20 years
so you don't have to pull the herbs out of the tincture, you can leave them like that brewing
because you can't over brew the solution or if you want you can then strain it off. I would usually wait for the six week
mark, at least, to do this though.
And you can see that the vodka
has turned a nice deep amber color and then this part of the tincture
can be stored in a sealed amber color container as well, in a
dark room or a dark cupboard. i really want to brew mine for a bit longer so i'll pour it back in so depending on the herbs that you're using and
who you're trying to heal and the condition you're trying to heal, will depend on how you use your
tincture.
Some tinctures are a topical spray, like the comfy root, because i don't use comfy
root internally it's always externally. Also you can use the tinctures, not this one, you
can use other tinctures under your tongue, as (with) a dropper. Get a professional's advice
if you want to use herbs, especially if you're pregnant because some herbs aren't for pregnant
ladies or if you're treating babies and children and if you're using any other sort of medication
as well because pharmaceutical medications can interact with the herbs, they can interact with
each other and you can mess up what you're already doing with your pharmaceutical medication,
so you really need to get a naturopath or a doctor's opinion on that, but choose a medical
professional who knows what they're talking about, who knows about herbs.
Check out my "Using Herbs
for Healing" Playlist. Thanks for watching..