I Bought 10 Medicinal Herbs For Chronic Pain

Where I get herbs:
https://get.aspr.app/SHwOA

My fav herbalism classes online:
https://theherbalacademy.com/courses-classes/?ap_id=thecottagepeach

Herb drying rack:
https://click.linksynergy.com/deeplink?id=aqDOGVpT1gI&mid=982&murl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gardeners.com%2Fbuy%2Fbamboo-herb-drying-rack%2F8612646.html

Winter Harvest Handbook:

My favorite garden beds:
https://epicgardening.superfiliate.com/THECOTTAGEPEACH5

Vertical planters:
https://tinyurl.com/ycxp4cuy

My favorite seeds:
https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=250954&u=3375618&m=28945&urllink=&afftrack=

Instagram:
http://instagram.com/thecottagepeach

TikTok:
http://tiktok.com/@thecottagepeach

Garden Girls Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@gardengirlspod

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it’s been a minute since I’ve gotten to spend a decent chunk of time in the greenhouse and I don’t really have an agenda today except to get this box of goodies unpacked because since it is getting cold out now and we don’t really have access to our plants in the same way that we normally do throughout spring and summer and even really fall winter is a time when I really lean on herbalism for a number of reasons first of all because it’s just another really great way to connect with nature but also because of all my chronic illness stuff it’s honestly just a way to help me feel a little bit more control in a situation where I really don’t have like any control over what my body is going to do next and that is something that we’re going to talk about a little bit more today because talking about my health on the internet I get a lot of unsolicited well-meaning advice and less than well-meaning advice so we’re going to get into that a little bit and unbox this and I’ll show you what I got Greenhouse could probably use the good cleaning too but that’s not happening today I did get these frames up and we’ll talk more about this but we’re basically mimicking what I did in the hoop house last winter to keep the soil from freezing so right now it’s pretty toasty in here even though it’s been getting down into the 20s and 30s at night there’s enough kind of heat stored in the wood and in the gravel underneath the greenhouse that it stays comfortable but it’s going to get colder and when it does I want the system set up in place so that I can just throw the row cover on and they’ll be good to go if you don’t know what I’m talking about this is based on Elliot Coleman’s winter gardening method he’s a farmer up in Maine who kind of pioneered this concept he has a whole book on it which I’ll link for you down below if you want to check it out but he discovered that there’s a really simple way to keep your soil from freezing which allows you to keep growing all these cold loving crops no matter what the temperature is so I’m excited everything’s doing really really well and I have another batch of seedlings already started in the basement under those gr lights we set up in the spring so those will be going in as soon as these are kind of done but these have a ways to go I think these ones will get us through January we’ve got lots of good lettuce going so many carrots I just love petting the carrots to be honest and we’re overwintering some stuff too like our Rosemary all these Peppers which I cut back I kind of need to cut back a little bit more and my tea plant are back here with this like I need to cover it obviously and I didn’t really think through that I have the snap PE is coming straight up and through ooh I just took that off of here accidentally so there are snap peas up there I don’t know if you can see them all my snap peas outside are dead so I know the greenhouse is working it’s doing its thing it’s extending our season so I got all these herbs and I’ll unbox them and kind of talk about why I picked what I picked if you’re looking to get herbs I will try to link them for you down below but I also got something else I kind of got a little treat for myself and I feel like no one else is going to think this is a little treat unless maybe you’re my people and you’re going to totally think this is a little treat because I really have for years wanted to get these ball wooden lids and I haven’t been able to justify it because it’s kind of like a silly vanity thing right like it just looks pretty it’s not necessary I have so many mason jars and I have so many rings and so many metal Lids but the Apothecary needs it so this is all my mug workart that I dried we have to process that actually on top of having this box to unbox I have countless herbs from the garden that are dried that need to be kind of D stemmed so we’ll probably do a little bit of that too I’m not going to get through all of it I mean this mug wart alone I feel like is a day project for me so probably won’t even touch the mug wart because that is so big but I would like to just at least get some of the herbs D stemmed and get some of this after we unbox it decanted into new jars these are the herbs that we’ll work on today from the garden it’s this dry rack is amazing it’s bamboo super lightweight trays so I will link this below as well because I’ve loved having it it’s just pretty like it takes up space but it’s pretty first thing out of the box this is my go-to I got the most of this of anything I got a full pound of raspberry leaf and the reason for this if you’ve been around a little while you may have heard me talk about some of my health conditions I have arthritis I’ve had Graves disease but more recently we’ve learned that I also have endometriosis um so this means that I’m in a ton of pain at least one sometimes two weeks out of every single month and this has been one of the only things that has helped me so I usually have a big jug of this steeping at least half of the month and I’ll do it as a cold brew in the fridge and I don’t ever really measure it I fill one of those big mason jars with water and probably like so maybe like a third of a cup or a/4 cup of red raspberry I brew that overnight in the fridge and then strain out the leaves and it honestly tastes a lot like black tea to me I like it a little bit better than black tea and I love black tea so if you like tea you will like this and it’s really really good for you it’s really high in vitamin C I probably won’t go into Super detail about every single herb and what all of its uses are because I’m not an expert I do have a resource that’s one of my favorites for learning more about herbalism which I will link for you down below as as well but just to kind of give you an idea of kind of like why I got these this one was a big one for my endometriosis and like I said I not an expert in herbalism so you’re going to find a lot of these are your most basic herbs and they’re also the most beginner friendly and by that I mean you don’t need to do some crazy concoction in order to use them and they’re generally speaking very safe now of course if you’re pregnant or nursing or you have some kind of complex medical issue you should always keep that in mind this is not medical advice this is just me showing you what I got for herbs so we do grow forage in the garden but it’s just never enough for me so I did stock up a little bit I got 4 oz of borage if you’ve never seen borage it looks like this beautiful fairy flower like I’m just obsessed with its appearance but it also tastes like a very like if you brew the flow is fresh it has a very like light cucumber flavor it’s very refreshing as also an extremely good companion plant helps deter pest so this is just one that I like to have on hand because I think it tastes good but it does also have health benefits another one that I really love the flavor of is hibiscus this is really great for tea Blends if you’re just trying to add kind of more of a tropical fruity floraly flavor to your teas and maybe a tea that doesn’t normally taste very good but it also turns colors so if you brew this it will come up kind of like a purple color and then if you add a little bit of lemon juice it will become bright hot pink this is a really cool like magic trick kind of like butterfly pee I think I might have got butterfly pee too we’ll find out this one is incredibly safe and Incredibly misunderstood dandelion root we’ve got dandelions growing all over the freaking country and if you didn’t know the reason for this is because colonizers literally brought them over in order to grow them as a food crop dandelions I think are so underrated I know a lot of gardeners especially organic gardeners know this already and feel this way but we always eat our dandelion they’re a delicious healthy food and you can turn them into kind of a coffee substitute as well that’s really good for you so these three I feel like are really just ones that I already just know and love and use for their flavor one that I haven’t tried before even though I’ve heard a lot about it is rose hips and that’s just because I always think like I’m going to harvest some of my own and then I just never do so what you’ll find with a lot of these is they’re just really high in vitamins like vitamin C and things like this that make them really anti-inflammatory and they have a lot of antioxidants in them as well so generally what I was doing was I was trying to go for things that would either help with my endometriosis or help with my inflammation in general from my arthritis because I have just had so much really bad inflammation lately and these are just healthy things to incorporate in teas that we can kind of custom mix Blends for specific needs and I’m toying around with the idea of doing tea blending video and just kind of showing you my process for how I think through like what I like to blend into a tea and give you a couple recipes you can try too so if that’s something that would interest you definitely let me know in the comments like I know I’ve mostly only talked about gardening stuff on here I think herbalism has enough of an overlap that some of you will be interested but just let me know in a similar vein to the rose hips I did get red rose petals as well I also stocked up on some lemon balm all right and here we go I did did get butterfly pea I’m excited for this one I’ve never grown butterfly pea I’ve heard it can be kind of tricky I might try it next year we’ll see but it makes bright blue tea who doesn’t want bright blue tea so that’s just kind of magical and it’s really good for you so I did grab some nettle Leaf this is a great one if you’ve got inflammatory conditions and then one I’ve never tried before that’s a little bit different than anything else we’ve pulled out here is juniper berries juniper berries are a traditional compound that’s been used for literally centuries in FK medicine and different cultures for the treatment of arthritis so I’m very curious to see how this one may help for me while we’re on the subject of treating my arthritis there is something that I want to talk about so one of the interesting parts of my work that I feel like isn’t super obvious is that it’s very much like a customer facing job right like I get a lot of comments and messages and 98% of them I’m going to say are wonderful but because I talk a lot about my health a lot of even these well-meaning interactions will sometimes result in people saying well do you think your tattoos caused your chronic illness or do you think the fact that you eat plant-based caused your chronic illness and there’s a few layers to this that I think we should unpack first of all the suggest questions seem to always revolve around something that I do that might be seen as a little bit controversial right like maybe you don’t agree with my value system that allows me to be okay with not eating meat or to get tattoos these are things that I think people kind of look for to find a reason why I shouldn’t have done what I did because they don’t agree with them and maybe that’s even subconscious and I don’t like hold it against anybody for having those subconscious biases like it’s just kind of natural it’s a part of who we are but the other part of this that I find so interesting is that people who don’t have a chronic illness really can’t fathom the idea of something being unfixable or being out of their control with their health and their body and I’m am I’m honestly kind of glad that they can’t to it I think part of what I’m doing by talking about my pain and everything is trying to raise awareness so that people are a little bit more conscientious about the lived experience that others are going through but I mean hey if if I could make it so that no one ever had to understand what I was going through because no one ever had to experience what I was going through that would be great I think it makes people really uncomfortable to think that there’s nothing that can be done and the doctors don’t have an answer because it’s genuinely very scary it’s scary for me a lot of the time to think oh my God they don’t know either what’s wrong with me or what to do about it that fear doesn’t really go away once you have a chronic illness but you accept it because it’s forced in your face you can’t avoid it It’s tricky because I think like I said a lot of the times it’s very well-meaning they think may have the answer to something that has been making my life really hard and believe me if it was as easy as somebody sending me a DM and suggesting something I hadn’t thought of before that would make all my problems go away that would be great but I think the bigger issue here that I’m trying to talk about it’s not really about me it’s about the fact that we all have a really hard time understanding other people’s lived experiences and we make a lot of assumptions and that’s part of my job I totally acknowledge that is just part of my job people are going to make assumptions about my life they think it’s perfect they think I have so much money but I have to show a more curated version both to protect my privacy and also because there’s only so much context I can fit into a short video right however when you say something like that to somebody where you imply that if they had just done something differently then they wouldn’t be sick or whatever it is I have the mental strength to parse that out and think about it critically and say to myself that I know that’s not what they meant and then and I know it’s not true but these conversations are happening in people’s everyday lives as well they’re happening when people say that they can’t attend an event and a well-meaning friend might say well you just need to drink more water you just need to get more sleep these things aren’t quick fixes and we still need to do those things but they still don’t make it so that we can function the way an able-bodied person can I think that’s why I decided it was so important to share about what I was going through online because so many people are suffering silently and they don’t have the bandwidth to explain themselves to their friends and family so if even 10 people see my videos and they think oh I never thought of it that way I never realized that you know my cousin was struggling so hard I thought they were making it up I thought they were exaggerating I thought they just hadn’t found the right doctor I thought they just needed a different diet if I can be the person that makes things a little bit easier for somebody else when they’re navigating those conversations with their friends and family then it’s literally worth every single message I get making these suggestions but I do think it’s important for people to know while you may be well-meaning in saying these things believe me this is my whole life I’ve thought of everything if there was one thing that could fix this I I would do it if I had to eat steak every single day for the rest of my life just to not feel the way I feel after not eating meat for 20 years I would do it but this is also why we have doctors I love herbalism I love connecting with plants in this way I think there’s many benefits to using medicinal herbs as part of taking care of yourself but I also think Western medicine is pretty important and I have asked my doctors is there a diet that I should be on that would make my inflation better and they’ve told me and I’ve Googled that there’s absolutely no scientific backing to the anti-inflammatory diet to the carnivore diet to the paleo diet it doesn’t matter in terms of improving your outlook with a chronic illness not saying there’s no benefits at all I’m sure that there are and I’m sure this entire message is going to ruffle some feathers with some people who feel very strongly one way or another and that’s fine I’m sure that those things do help some people doesn’t make it worth it in my specific instance because if you think about it somebody with chronic illness already sacrifices so much on a day-to-day basis every single day so a lot of the decisions that we make do have to be based in quality of life and so when we’re talking about making additional sacrifices on top of the ones that are being forced Upon Us by our illness and our bodies it starts to feel like well what’s even the point what am I doing here like if I can’t have ice cream or I can’t get tattoos or whatever the case may be these are all highly individual personal choices that people can and should make for their health based on what makes them feel empowered I know lots of people with chronic illness who feel empowered by making those choices and they don’t feel like sacrifices to them and that’s totally fine for me and my specific scenario the idea that if I had just done something right this wouldn’t have happened to me it hits a nerve it hits a Nerf so just something to think about I’m very interested to hear your perspective in the comments though I know this can be kind of a heated topic and like I said I know I’m opening myself up to criticism by talking about my health on the internet and I know these comments that I get are overwhelmingly coming from a very good place but it’s just interesting to think about and it’s something that I think about a lot so I’m curious to hear what you think about it too also I’m sorry but how cute oh my God I don’t love the label that I’ve done here but you know it’s just the vibe okay and then there’s a million different ways that you can destem your herbs but if you have a colander it doesn’t have to be a tiny cute fancy one like this if you have any colander you have everything you need to destem your plants so this is lavender oh my God this is that variety I don’t remember the name of it but it wasn’t going to I bought it and then it wasn’t going to overwinter in my zone so was so disappointed because the smell is like even better than regular lavender so if you can put it in kind of Against the Grain that works really well this one’s a little bit thick so I’m not going to try to do that but you just poke it through one of the holes and then you pull on it and as it goes it actually D stems the lavender for you and contains it I’m sorry what that’s probably one of my favorite internet hacks I’ve discovered definitely not taking credit for it I don’t remember the first place I saw it maybe curly cultivators but it’s so much easier so easy and really satisfying honestly [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a oh [Music] [Music] all right friends friends thank you so much for practicing some herbalism with me today but if you have any questions definitely let me know in the comments thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next one