Our calendar for the year

Feb12

We decided to plan ahead this year, and we’ve set the topic and dates for the coming months.

Please note – dates ARE subject to change. We’ll try to post the announcement each month when the date is settled and let you know the location and directions then.

Sunday March 24, 2 pm – Red Clover
Tuesday April 9, 5:30 pm – Kudzu and other Medicinal Invasives
Saturday May 4 – Herb Day Celebration
Saturday June 22 – Summer Solstice
Sunday July 28 – Passionflower Harvesting
Saturday September 21 – Seed collection techniques
Sunday October 20 – Review of sessions from the Southeast Women’s Herbalist Conference
Sunday November 10 – Sharing Blanket and Swap

Please join us – it’s lots of fun, and everyone has knowledge to share and things to learn.

Heal the heart with Hawthorn

Feb3

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NEXT SUNDAY, Feb. 10, join us at Whitestone Farm, Talking Rock – 3 to 6 pm.

Our Herb to Study – Hawthorn. And we’ll have discussion on herbs for the heart.

We will also tour some of Whitestone Farm. If you haven’t been to Whitestone Farm, you will enjoy this outing. If you have, you know how wonderful it is there already! 🙂
Info about the Farm: click here 
Directions: Click here

Our group will give donations to go toward the purchase of Hawthorn tree(s) to be on Whitestone Farm. Please consider donating money either before or during this meeting for this. Thanks!

Other meetings of the herbalists coming up this year:
March 24 – Red Clover
April 7 – Kudzu and other Medicinal Invasives
May 4 – Herb Day Celebration
June 22 – Summer Solstice
July 28 – Passionflower Harvesting
September 21 – Seed collection techniques
October 20 – Review of sessions from the Southeast Women’s Herbalist Conference
November 10 – Sharing Blanket and Swap
Please join us – it’s lots of fun, and everyone has knowledge to share and things to learn.

Celebrate abundance at the herbal Treasure Share!

Oct30

Mark your calendar for Sunday, Nov. 11, from noon to 4 pm. It’s our first Treasure Share!

Time to reflect on our first year together, plant ‘idea’ seeds for next year, and share our gratitude and our love of plants and herbs with each other.

Location:  The beautiful Twelve Stone Farms has graciously offered to host us.

576 Bunch Court, Talking Rock, Georgia 30175

Have extra of a specific tincture, or dried herbs from your bountiful yard? Bring to share. How about seeds or seedling plants of special herbs? A budding gardner would treasure it! Ready to retire a book from your shelves on plants, herbs, natural living, healing, etc?

Let it educate someone new! Have a hobby or craft that is bubbling out of you? Celebrate it with us! I’ve just listed a few ideas here, but there are no limits, great or small or unique or everyday.Two kinds of Treasure Share – bring something for one, or both!First is the “giving blanket” – every participant puts one share item (maybe the “best” one, or one that has personal meaning) onto the blanket. Then, one by one, we choose something from the blanket that speaks to us. If Crystal starts, and picks the item brought by Jasmyn, then Jasmyn is the next one to pick. Etc.Second is the “share fair,” where all items are laid out on tables and we can all just walk around, browse, and take what we need – or what jumps into our arms!Treats and Drinks – Everyone is invited to bring something to eat and/or drink to share with the group. Let’s try to be creative and get some herbal treats and drinks. (Surely, someone is excited to learn all about herbal cordials!) Don’t let the idea of having to bring something keep you away though. It is you that is that is the most important item to bring. 🙂

Burn baby burn (moxibustion, that is!)

Sep6

Ever wondered about moxibustion – the Chinese practice of burning mugwort?

Guest expert Sylvie Augustin will explain and demonstate the techniques at our meeting Sept. 27. She is a local practitioner of medical qi gong, and a food adviser, as well as co-owner of Whitestone Farms (and a dance instructor, too!).

Moxibustion as explained in Wikipedia is used “to warm regions and acupuncture points with the intention of stimulating circulation through the points and inducing a smoother flow of blood and qi.”

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) will be our ‘Herb of the Month’, so study up!

The moxibustion portion will take approxiamtely one hour and we will spend any remaining time discussing the herb from our studies and our personal uses.

We’ll sample mugwort tea for the evening. Be sure to bring a mug/cup.

Date: Sept. 27, Thursday

Time: 6 pm

Location: Natural Market Place, 69 North Main Street, Jasper. Get directions here.

 

THIS SUNDAY field trip to Twelve Stone Farm

Jul24

Passionflower – Samuel Greenberg via Facebook

For July, the Pickens Herbalist Guild celebrates the beautiful and very medicinal passiflora incarnata. We’ll have a day outing on Sunday, July 29 to Twelve Stone Farm in Talking Rock to harvest and celebrate it!

Arrive in the morning at your preferred time. Start time is marked for 8 am to avoid the heat with an early start, but you can join in whenever you like.

We’ll walk to the edge of the field and down to the stream/creek and see what we find along the way. BRING YOUR PLANT ID BOOKS!

Sometime along the way in/out we will harvest passionflower that grows at the farm. Jerilyn and Elaine have verified that it is not sprayed.

We can have lunch together either at the creek or by the lake – open for suggestions. If we do it by the creek, bringing food would mean a sack lunch type deal. Lunch will be around 11:00 – leaving us time to play, explore, harvest at our leisure before leaving for the day. Just to note that we will be harvesting mindfully and ethically – more on that on Sunday.

Do we want to make medicine there? If so, we need to bring alcohol and bottles.

This is a wonderful opportunity to explore Twelve Stone Farm. The farm is at 576 Bunch Court in Talking Rock – get directions by clicking here.

They are excited to learn about the plants on their property that is medicinal and how to harvest. As a thank-you, we will make some passionflower tincture as a gift. We’ll discuss the hows and wheres and whens on that day.

Other things to bring:
Plant ID books
Harvesting Tools (passionflower is easy to harvest by hand, but scissors/snips/clippers/trowels may come in handy)
Harvest Bag/Basket
Water bottle
Food for lunch
good shoes (no flipflops, use your judgement, we’ll be walking thru pasture and woods and by water)
sunprotection
insect repellant
notebook/pencil (for notes and perhaps sketching if you are inclined)
camera (if you want)
something to sit on (lightweight! cloth, towel, even a garbage bag)
alcohol and mason jars with lids (if making medicine on site)

Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

Jun6

While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

via Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression – Articles – Permaculture College Australia.

A walk through the garden

May10

Jim Smith is well-known to local gardeners for his long career in the study and care of plants.  As a leader in the Georgia Native Plants Society and frequent speaker on the subject, Jim has given many of us seeds to keep these local greens going.

He’s invited herbalists to come and see his own garden on Wednesday, May 23rd, at 5:30 pm. Attendance is LIMITED to 10 people!

Please RSVP to Crystal Merrell  cdmerrell@etcmail.com to reserve a spot, and she will send you directions to Jim’s house.

Wholesale herbal medicine – in 1939

Apr25

Ladies’ Slipper root, 70 cents a pound. Blood root, 30 cents a pound. Dandelion root – washed and split up – 20 cents a pound.

That’s the wholesale prices at Elliott D. Richard’s wholesale shop in New York, in 1939.

Have a look! [Thanks to Crystal for sharing]

Yellow root: This Thursday!

Apr23

Yellow root in bloom

Our plant for the month is the bodacious yellow root, which loves rocky streamsides in North Georgia.

Berberine is the active ingredient that give yellow root some of its power – but there’s lots more information to be had about this wonderful plant’s properties, so start doing your homework!

WATCH OUT – there is misinformation at eHow and other sites.  Hydrastis canadensis = goldenseal, and Xanthorhiza simplicissima = yellow root. They both have berberine, and treat many of the same health problems – yellow root is used as a substitute for goldenseal – but they are not the same plant.

We’ll meet this Thursday, April 26 at 7 pm, at the Creative and Performing Arts Academy – 95 Whitfield Drive, Jasper. [View Map · Get Directions]

Can’t make it? Please, if you have not already done so, click here to tell us your preference for a meeting time.

Bring:

  1. What you learned in research
  2. Contribution for the room rental (a dollar or two each if there are 10+ people)
  3. Grain alcohol if you want to make tincture / or a contribution for someone else’s supply
  4. A jar if you would like to take home some of the communal tincture we make
  5. Fresh yellow root if you can gather from private property – here’s some detailed illustrations to help you identify it