How do you get into herbalism, and just generally making things with plants? Would a class be a good start? Buying a few books? How does one go about doing that?
Herbalism
How do you get into herbalism, and just generally making things with plants? Would a class be a good start? Buying a few books? How does one go about doing that?
I'm doing this and it's slow going. You want to look for books on medicines and edible foods in your locality or where you can most easily go PrepHole. What I've found is that a lot of these books are very broad showing your entire country and they do not specify lookalike plants. You also want to have at least a general understanding of botany to make identification easier.
I'm now at the point where I think I've identified plants with stimulant and depressive effects but there are such ever so slight variations I'm not willing to attempt it as the lookalikes are poison. By far the best way to learn this stuff is by having a person show you and train you in it that means going out with them not once but many times. I got lucky a befriended a guy who was a chef who would forage his own mushrooms so I learned mushrooms but everything else I've had to teach myself. I'm Australian and although the aboriginal Australians do run courses where they teach you this stuff, they don't do it in my area, and I would have to pay a lot to get one to come here and each me, you may be able to find a guide in this near you if you're lucky who you just pay for the knowledge.
Thanks, anon. I'll search around near me. I was actually getting pretty good at identifying what grew near me at my old house, but recently moved to another US state hallway across the country with family. It kind of put me back at square one for a lot of outdoor stuff. I'll look into finding a local who knows their shit.
part of it is just trying different herbs on yourself. you can look up traditional uses, but personal experience is pretty valuable. so the other part is building up your supply.
That's pretty good advice. Do you usually look up a use for something, try that use, and see how it goes?
i don't have a ton of experience applying this stuff. but i mostly just found stuff that's edible/medicinal in local plants and tried it and paid close attention to how things change, like calming mood or stimulating digestion or whatever. definitely you can go the other direction and look the effects up first. the truth is always where bottom-up and top-down meet.
stuff you collect outside can be put in bags in the freezer for later use if you think its worthwhile, but it's also nice to have some fun things growing that are fresh too.
maybe the most useful is having options for infections. when cold and flu season comes around you can try making teas and such and will probably notice the anti-microbial effects of fresh plants are legit
Get a book about your region, try some plants out, see what works, rinse and repeat.
When I worked at a mining camp, I successfully treated some knee pain by chewing young willow stems. I also poured minced plantain leaves soaked in near-boiling water onto a towel, which I pressed onto my knees. Woke up without a trace of knee pain.
The herbalist system of medicine has different approaches than institutional medicine, which uses a very specific drug to treat a single affliction. Herbalism, on the other hand, uses the blend of chemicals that plants contain to cause more broad-spectrum healing.
The strength of herbs lies in their ability to treat the whole body. For example, if I took advil for my knee pain, the single anti-inflammatory compound in advil would fix my inflammation. The herbs, on the other hand, contained many anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that hindered inflammation and absorbed the free radicals and oxygen that naturally accumulated in my tissues. Side note: These plant compounds can also bind to heavy metals and reduce their concentration in the body.
I have mad respect for people seriously into medical herbalism. It is fascinating and albeit complex. I'm not talk new age stuff either. Alexander the Great treated soldiers with comfrey leaves and salve. Milk thistle cleans the liver. I wish I had the time and attention to learn it. Might pick up a boom.
that's basically what I want to do. light healing when necessary. I never want to be some hack who thinks he can cure cancer with lavender though
thanks anon. i'll look more into it all and try this out. the freezer point is very good advice.
This guy is single handedly keeping the tobacco industry alive. Pretty nice little intro to the practice though. Natives definitely have a head start on learning this stuff, since it's still passed down in their communities. Thanks anon.
i wish i could learn to be a wood elf like this but im dumb and would definetly poison myself
Before I moved, I would just go in the backyard and identify weeds (with no pesticides). I then started making salads with wild greens/weeds that I found around our property. I wanted to keep going with that, but now live in entirely different biome. Start with food I suppose, as that is the easiest way to start identifying stuff.
We do it specifically to infuriate you. Though in reality, it has been said that way since the French invented the word (theirs is pronounced more like eerb, while Americans say urb). It is the Brits who created the h sound in the word to anglicize it.
>it has been said that way since the French invented the word
The French are less competent at pronouncing the letter "h" than they are at winning.
The real question is why have Americans started saying "Erbs" in the past few years??
The "H" isn't silent.
It infuriates me.
Get started with foraging, that's probably the easiest way.
Get a really good foraging book, covering edible plants. It should have 5 defining characteristics:
Decent pictures - Good enough for you to accurately determine what plant it is you have before you.
Good structure - Have the book ordered in a good way. This can be by location or by leaf shape.
Good text - that explains, in detail, how to know what type of plant it is.
Explanation of the uses - Should cover uses for food and medicine. Stuff like how to prepare the plant, what parts are edible, medicinal uses (tea/stir fry/oven food/etc.)
MOST IMPORTANTLY a list of plants that you can reasonably confuse this one with, as well as if those other plants are poisonous, how poisonous they are, and how to tell them apart.
Bonus points if the book isn't too big - should be pocket sized. It covering more plants is obviously nice,
Then get started with going PrepHole, pay attention to the plants, try to determine some, slowly learn.
There's some super common ones with great medicinal and culinary uses, some even growing all year round. Stay away from plants that are too close to popular trails and grow in dog pissing height. It's pretty fun, easy to get started, and free.
As for gear, shit I carry in my foraging backpack:
- Backpack
- Knife (I usually carry a mora and a opinel, the mora is a bit overkill though)
- vegetable nets (something like picrel), they are easy to carry plants and unlike plastic bags it doesn't start sweating as much and desintegrate as quickly
- a pair of PU covered gloves. Great for nettles, digging and whenever thorns are involved
- a trowel
- 2 bottles of water, one for drinking one for cleaning plants
I also carry a magnifying glass (for bugs I find or to see fine details on foraged plants) and a 8 times monocular (for birdwatching) as well as a shemagh for general versatility.
If you have a garden or balcony, you can also grow your own, that's fun, too.
Thanks anon, this is very helpful. I'll look for a good foraging book this weekend. I'll have to screenshot this on my phone when I go look for it. I think I have most of that gear already too, except maybe the magnifying glass. Do you whip out your book when you find a new plant to read the article, or do you do a lot of research first and just do small checks when you get out there?
I know this is bait, but I was actually considering focusing on sage as my first main plant to grow and play around with lol
>I'll look for a good foraging book this weekend.
It'll depend on your language of course, but remember that quality is more important than quantity generally (as in how many species are covered). I have two books (in german, so they won't really help you) and each has its up and downsides. One is ordered by location (where you'd find the plant), has a lot of great images and goes into decent detail covering a total of 50 plants, while the other is small and portable, is ordered by leaf shape, covers 150 species, but doesn't go into as much detail and the pictures are just "enough" at best.
The stuff I mentioned in the previous post is enough to get a good book, as a bonus you can look if it has a calendar in it as well (when to pick certain plants), that's convenient. Imagine a plant or look up 2-3 maybe before going to the store, then take the book into hand and pretend you are in the woods looking at a plant. Does the structure make sense? Would you be able to find this plant? If not, then it's not a good book.
>I think I have most of that gear already too, except maybe the magnifying glass.
While the magnifying glass is fun, unless you have exceptionally bad eyesight you probably won't need it. Don't buy one on impulse, you can still get one if you are ever PrepHole and notice that you could really use one next time. I mostly use mine for curiosities, observing bugs and to identify pests on my plants (like specific aphid types and shit). I haven't really had a situation where a magnifying class would make or break a identification.
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Picrel isn't a great picture, because I didn't have natural lighting for the pic, but that's my backpack I take with me when foraging, since it's not more than a dayhike I don't need to use a certified PrepHole or hiking backpack.
The stuff in the side pockets is fun, but not needed, the stuff in the main pouch you should take with you, with exception of the sunglasses probably (unless you expect a lot of sun) and you really only need one knife, not 3. I just like having options. Even a small pocket knife like the opinel no. 6 is absolutely enough 99% of the time.
The important part is the book, nets, a knife and the gloves, while not essential the trowel is good to have too, if you want to go for roots or rhizomes. Everything else is optional.
>Do you whip out your book when you find a new plant to read the article, or do you do a lot of research first and just do small checks when you get out there?
Both and neither. There's some plants you probably already know and that are common - favorites of mine are dandelion, elderflower, wild garlic, various nuts and berries, but stuff you will for example almost certainly find includes nettles, beech and spruce, clover and buckhorn, or acorns. Maybe not the most exciting plants, but easy to identify for a beginner. Especially buckhorn and nettles have a lot of medicinal uses.
When I got my books I read them once in order, giving them a quick glance, looking if I had ever heard of or seen that plant before. I think looking at everything once, even if you can't remember, will make recalling it easier when you are in the wild. If it was a plant I knew or thought I was likely to find, I'd read the section, if not I'd just look at the pictures and description of location. Then I looked for plants that were likely to grow where I would go, and that are either in season or grow year round. Those I gave special attention. As you can see I also have some yellow sticky notes in there, (last cont I promise)
(last cont)
those sticky notes are for plants that I am likely to find, but not sure regarding identification - or ones that have toxic counterparts so I want to look them up to make sure. For example one is elderberry (sambucus nigra) but when I find one I want to make sure it's not danewort (sambucus ebulus), so I mark that part to quickly find it again.
Then after I have read the book once and have a rough idea of what I may find I go PrepHole, for a nice stroll through the woods. As I go I pay attention to my surroundings - especially if a plant has fruit, berries or is flowering, but in general I just look at different plants and pay attention. Chances are I will find a lot of plants I already know, but every time you will find one or two new ones. If I suspect it may be edible/in the book, I stop and try to identify it. If it isn't in there, tough luck, if it is, I just identify anyways to make sure I don't have a lookalike that will give me liquid shits or something.
The easiest time for identification is when the plants have fruit or flowers, the hardest is if you go for rhizomes and the plants are mostly dead above ground.
So I kinda do both, I read beforehand and I whip the book out when in the woods and near something that makes me curious.
I am considering getting a general plant identification book for all the plants that I try identifying that aren't in my edible plants book, simply for the curiosity, because it's super fun being able to say what each plant is, but the edible plant book is more than enough to get started.
Dang, thank you for all of that! Very helpful stuff right here. I'm making a little word doc of all the advice here, and this is probably going to make up a big part of it.
No problem, you're welcome.
Two more bonus tips:
Something that may have indirectly helped me is watching youtubers talking about medicinal plants/edible plants. It's something you can have run on another screen, and for me at least some of it stays in my head. Not enough to "learn" everything, but enough for me to pay extra attention when stumbling across it, be it in a book or the forest. Alfieaesthetics ( https://www.youtube.com/c/AlfieAesthetics ) gets posted on PrepHole sometimes, and while he doesn't seem to post anymore he has a few videos on edible plants/medicinal plants and teas.
Second thing is if you do have internet access where you are you can consider using apps for identification - some of the AI based models are really impressive. https://identify.plantnet.org/ has given me correct identifications from some pretty fricked pictures before. Just don't rely on it - I'd say if you want to use it, use the AI, then use the identification book to double check the plant. But knowing where to get started looking can help. Personally I don't really use it when PrepHole but it has come in handy when I look at some picture I took /innawoods/ and I am curious about a plant.
Sage is good to grow to wipe your anus, makes it smell nice too. Women can't resist a man with a herb smelling brow eye