Bidens Can Help Fight Infections and Viruses: Get to Know It

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Bidens, a common weed of pastures and vacant lots, has antiviral and antibacterial superpowers. Get to know it better. You never know when you might need to call on it as your herbal ally.

Bidens, an overlooked weed that will help you in the fight against MRSA infections

If you spend any time walking through pastures or vacant lots in July and August, you may have met Bidens. And if you haven’t met it, your dog probably has. Bidens sticks like a needle into your clothing. If your dog walks through a patch of Bidens, you’ll be picking the needle-like seeds out of his coat for hours. Also called, “beggarticks”, “Spanish needles,” “demon spike grass,” and “needle grass,” 1000 Biden seeds weigh less than a gram. If you walk through a patch of Bidens in the fall, and you’ll probably have 1000 seeds in your socks. Hint, wear jeans not…

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Brew a cup of calming tea and enjoy it!

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Making a good herbal tea blend is a profoundly simple art; it involves a few guidelines and a generous dash of creativity.

Steps to creating the perfect herb tea blend:
* Start with an idea of what flavor and/or feeling your wish to create
* Know the flavor and properties of each of the individual herbs you are using in the blend.
* Blend for beauty, aroma, and harmonized flavors. Mix the herbs according to taste, color, and texture. Use primary flavors as the foundation of the blend, then add and harmonize with the secondary flavors, aromas and textures.
* When your blend looks just right and smells delicious, give it the all-important taste test. Have a pot of water boiling. Make a sample cup of tea and test for flavor, color, texture, and aroma. Adjust flavors.

All that’s needed to make a good pot of herbal tea is water…

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Tarta De Venus: A Not So Traditional Easter Cake — Gather Victoria

This simple almond tart is inspired by the Tarta de Santiago, a very dense, moist, cake traditionally served during Holy Week in Spain. It usually features the image of the St. James Cross dusted in powdered sugar but I went with a scallop shell instead. Venus goddess of love, beauty and fertility mythically arose from…

via Tarta De Venus: A Not So Traditional Easter Cake — Gather Victoria

THE COURAGE TO TRUST YOUR INNER WISDOM — Good Witches Homestead

NEW CRESCENT MOON IN ARIES We have passed through the Dark Moon in Aries into the New Crescent Moon today. We passed through the Spring Equinox last week, which is the official start of the lunar year, and have moved into the New Moon in Aries which is the official start to the lunar year. […]

via THE COURAGE TO TRUST YOUR INNER WISDOM — Good Witches Homestead

Ramps

The Herb Society of America Blog

By Paris Wolfe

When Jeremy Umansky was at culinary school in 2006, a professor took him foraging in the Hudson Valley. They were looking for fiddlehead ferns, morel mushrooms, and ramps. Umansky –a James Beard award semi-finalist, and owner of Larder Deli in Cleveland – was converted. He has been harvesting that harbinger of spring, ramps, ever since.

For those who haven’t yet heard, Foraged.Ramps 14 the ramp – also called a wild leek — is a species of wild onion (Allium tricoccum) that is native to North America. The bulbs resemble a scallion, but the leaves are wide and flat. They cover Appalachian forest floors before trees fully leaf out. The flavor is a mix of garlic and onion. And, if you eat too many raw, you will sweat that aroma.

Ramps are high in vitamins A and C, and in lore, they are considered a blood cleanser and part of…

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A Passion For Violet: A Video Preview — Gather Victoria

I’ve been busy making videos on foraging & eating wild spring greens over at Gather Victoria Patreon but in April with the entrance of Venus, Goddess of Beauty and Love, I’ll be paying homage to her flower. Yes, that spring seductress of the wild woodland – violet. Used in perfumes, enchantments and love-spells throughout the…

via A Passion For Violet: A Video Preview — Gather Victoria

Essential Oils A Natural Substance

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

For over several thousands of years, humans have been employing essential oils for therapeutic purposes as well as sustaining good health. In effect, the ancient Egyptians extensively used essential oils. Currently, essential oils are used extensively in lotions meant for external use, aromatherapy, comforting baths and in a great assortment of herbal medications.

Any attempt to define essential oils accurately as well as in a few words is really difficult. For all practical purposes, one may possibly depict essential oils in the form of natural odoriferous (having potent fragrance) compounds that are present in or separated from plant materials. Generally, essential oils are in liquid form (in some exceptional cases they may be in semi-solid form, but seldom found in solid form), are not water-soluble and volatile when they come in contact with steam. Essential oils evaporate at dissimilar paces under normal atmospheric pressure and at room temperature. Therefore, they are…

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Benefits and Use of Peppermint Oil

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

The next few posts will be about an herb we grow commercially on our farm in Oregon. I can not bestow enough accolades for the use of peppermint whether it be the plant or the essential oil. We have grown peppermint for over 30 years on 2400 acres, grown commercially and shipped worldwide, it has to be one of the most commonly used oils in the world, but few really know the virtues of peppermint.

I and my daughter are constantly creating uses for this oil, from salves {we created a muscle salve for Hubbie after his farming accident when a water line {wheel} came down on top of him and crushed his spine. If it had not been for our German Shepherd Mountain my husband’s injuries would have been far more severe than what had initially occurred. He would have been stuck in a foot and half of the…

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What Are The Health Benefits of Clary Sage Oil?

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

Clary sage, also known as Salvia sclarea, is a plant native to the northern Mediterranean Basin. It is widely used for medicinal purposes and as a spice.

Many parts of the clary sage plant can be used, including the leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds. In alternative health practices, clary sage essential oil is used in aromatherapy.

In this article, we take a look at the uses and suggested health benefits of clary sage oil. We will also look at whether there is any scientific evidence to back these claims up. We also examine how the oil is used, and what side effects could occur.

Uses for clary sage oil

Clary sage oil

Clary sage oil may have properties such as antidepressant effects, improved digestion, and stress relief.

Aromatherapists and related alternative health practitioners often use clary sage as an essential oil in their treatments, and supporters believe it has many health…

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Immunity, Four Thieves Vinegar

Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

There are so many wonderful cold and flu prevention remedies that have been passed down amongst herbalists for centuries. This is my personal variation of a recipe called Four Thieves Vinegar, an infusion of herbs in vinegar, that has been around as a remedy since at least since medieval times.

Four Thieves Vinegar was believed to provide protection from the plague (likely wishful thinking, though garlic and the other herbs in the preparation are antimicrobial), and has almost as many variations on its origin story as its legend.

Classically this remedy four key herbs in it – lavender, sage, mint, and rosemary or thyme. I prefer making mine without the lavender because I don’t love the taste of lavender in my salad dressing – which is how I love to use this blend – making it part of using herbs as both food and medicine.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients: