January 2023 Winter News
2023 Four Farmers Herbalist CSA
Get your monthly dose of VT healing ! June-October pick up your share of hand made herbal products and join us for a potluck.
This is a collaboration with Anjali Farm, Lotus Moon VT and Mama Wu's plus add-on local makers and growers to provide you with a wide array of herbal goodies.
Check out Four Farmers Herbs VT for more information and to sign up. Join by January 15 to receive our Early Bird Appreciation Gifts.
Grow, Gather and Create with Mama Wu
Would you like to learn how to make your own medicine? I will mentor you as you create your own apothecary. Make a medicine garden at your home or come work in mine. We'll harvest and make remedies together. There's nothing like hands-on experience for learning!
White Pine Tea
I like White Pine for warming and opening up the chest. The way I make tea is to take some needles and small twigs and place in a pot of cold water. Bring to a boil and turn down to simmer for 5-10 minutes. Strain and drink. Tasty and refreshing!
A big wind storm blew down some huge pines at our house. I'll be collecting some to dry for tea and to make oil which can be used to make chest rubs, massage oils. Tincture will be used as part of formulas for lung issues and liniments.
Thank you White Pine!
I want to hear from you!
When you think of herbal medicine,or flower essence therapy how do you want to engage? Do you want products, lessons, personal consultations? A mobile herb bus that comes to you for appointments or to a central location near you? What would work best for you? If you had a personal herbalist- how do you see that working? Send me an email or message on the contact page.
NEW Year, New Greenhouse, New plants, New ideas!
February 2022
I enjoy celebrating the Lunar New Year. It does seem to mark the start of spring because you can feel the energy quickening with the longer days here in the northern hemisphere. Seed catalogues litter the flat surfaces of my home. My fellow farmers of the Four Farmers Herbalist Collective are making plans, ordering supplies and we are opening membership to our 2022 Community Supported Apothecary. The deadline to sign up is March 21, Spring Equinox. You can find out more at www.fourfarmersherbstvt.com
The CSA is one way we hope to make herbal medicine more accessible to more people.
Mama Wu has a new greenhouse! We put it up last year and are looking forward to planting in it this season. We don't have heat or irrigation yet. I'm so excited to be able to extend the season and try some plants that like it warmer. We live on a mountain so we have less growing days that those down lower.
This year I am experimenting with Hibiscus sabdariffa or Rozelles. You use the calyxes for tea that is a tart, astringent and deep red. Very cooling in the summer. I like it with mint or basil. I also was successful starting some passion flower (Passiflora incarnata) which will be tinctured and dried for use in nervine formulas. Ginger is another crop to try in the greenhouse. I have it in a pot like a houseplant but I think it will like more room in a warm and sunny environment. Another experiment is saffron. I've got some bulbs planted in the greenhouse and hope for some tasty stamens this fall when they should bloom. A gardener never runs out of new things to try!
Depending on how things grow this year, we may be able to offer a pick-your-own herbs to our CSA members. Instructions for what you can do with the herb will be available. I would love to hear about any ideas you might have that would help you access and incorporate more herbal or flower essence healing into your lives. Send me an email with your ideas.
Warm Winter Blessings to All of You!
December 2021 Winter- the time to rest, rejuvenate, incubate
Snow. Cold. You might love it or hate it but did you know it's good for the plants? It provides some insulation from the freezing and drying of winter weather and is water storage to be released in the spring. The freezing and thawing of the ground is like natural digging to loosen things up and mix things around. Space is made for roots and other subterranean creatures to move around.
Our Vermont native plants are perfectly adapted to our changing seasons. Waxy coatings, foliage dying back, making their own kind of "antifreeze" are strategies they use.
Slowing down activity is one adaptation we can emulate. Conserving energy for the more active times of the year. Farmers get to take some time off and attend to other tasks that have been put off. We plan for the coming season, order seeds, clean and repair tools, think of new ideas or better ways to do things.
Going with the flow of Nature feels good.
Winter is a good time to learn how to identify trees by their bark, buds and twigs. Get some good books and see what you can discover.
It's also a good time to harvest bark for medicine. You can also go our after a storm and see what the trees might have gifted you- dropped pine or poplar branches for example.
As you are contemplating the coming seasons consider if you would like to learn more about keeping healthy with herbs and flower essences. Mama Wu can custom design a class for you and your friends. Let me know what you'd like!
In 2022 the Four Farmers Herbalist Collective witll again offer the Herbal CSA. $350 gets you the June-Oct. monthly share, discounts on classes and Mama Wu's health consutlations, the member celebration. You get a variety of products such as body care items, syrups, tinctures, honeys, flowers and herbs fresh and dried. tea blends, insect spray, oils, salves, etc. To learn more go to our website
https://fourfarmersherbsvt.com/
Enjoy your winter dreamiing!
Trees are in Flower!
April 2021: It's Spring! Time to make flower essences.
These are red maple flowers. Did you know that trees have flowers? Sometimes they are very showy and sometimes hidden. Get outside and take a look! They usually don't last that long.
Now is a great time to make some flower essences from tree flowers. They each have their own vibrational energy that you can feel. Visit different trees and you'll see what I mean. A pine feels different from a maple or an apple or birch.
Here are a few of my favorite essences.
Hemlock- Tsuga canadensis. This is one of my most recommended tree essences. I think of it as "sanctuary". It offers us a safe, protected, quiet place. If you've ever been in a hemlock grove you'll have felt it. A hushed sense of being in a holy space. Peaceful. Sheltered. A place where you can let down your guard and relax.
Use it when you want some space to be left alone for some down time or to get away from all the busyness of life. Helps protect you from unwanted interaction. Provides a space where you can tune in to Nature, Spirit, Yourself.
Sugar Maple- Acer saccharum. Briing forth with joy! Think of the sap rising in the springtime. From that deep rooted source you can bring up the energy you need to do what you want or need to do, For when you want to do something but feel you don't have the oomph. Helps you connect to the endless reservoir of energy available to us and bring it to rise up for your use. Refreshing, invigorating, I've used it for laboring moms when they get to that point of feeling like they can't do it. Sugar maple helps them do it.
Rose-Rosa spp., Hawthorne- Crataegus spp., The heart protectors. The thorns protect while allowing the heart to remain soft. Also allows you to be more in touch with the inner self.
There are so many flowers and each is unique in what they offer. Experiment with the ones you are drawn to. Just sitting with them or contemplating on them can invoke their healing energy!
In my class "Growing and Making Your Own Plant Medicine" we will be making flower essences as well as growing plants, wildcrafting and making other medicinal preparations. We will meet one Saturday per month from 9am-1 pm. The $450 fee includes seeds, plants, and supplies. Payment plans are available.
Community Supported Apothecary
4 local farm-based businesses- Mama Wu's Good Medicine, Lotus Moon, Vermont, Anjali Farm and Full Moon Blooms are collaborating to bring you healing from the Earth. Check out what we are offering in 2021! Still time to join! Payment Plans and Shipping Shares available.