My work with herbal medicine has so far been focused on clinical use and creating formulas for individual clients. I have started doing a bit more medicine making this year, which has been great fun! I won’t ever sell products commercially, just for me and friends and for the experience, and for getting my hands into the earth.
Earlier this year, while in Southern New Mexico, I harvested some nettles and valerian with a local herbalist as my wild crafting guide. We were high up in the appropriately named town of Cloudcroft. Valerian has small delicate roots, each plant I dug up, I had to do with care. I brought it home with me on the plane, wrapped in damp paper towels and ice packs, I cleaned it and got it marinating in grain alcohol. About 6 weeks later I strained it, and had two nice small bottles of tincture.
Last week I bought organic dandelion root at the farmers market, and during a class I taught the next day we chopped it up and again, got it marinating. We will strain it in the next class, it will have a month to sit and for the alcohol to draw out the medicinal properties. We will see how it compares to other commercially made dandelion tinctures.