Growing herbs has become a wonderful hobby for me. I grow all kinds of herbs and plants, medicinal and culinary but also those I just admire for their beauty. It really is always a small miracle: you put some seeds in the soil, water them and protect them and finally beautiful plants are pushing out of the earth. And after a while all the plants will become your friends. There are plants that I always cherish. With others one season I can't have enough of them while the following year other plants draw my interest a lot more. I learnt that often those plants I feel attracted to the most can also help me the most in my current situation.
Not all plants will grow everywhere. Here in North America there are US hardy zones. To see if a plant can grow where you live you have to make sure that it can grow in your hardy zone. Otherwise you could try to grow them in a container. Some plants make great container plants while others won't grow there at all. Some that can't survive the winter can still be grown as annuals. I save seeds at the end of the season and so can grow them again the year after. Others I take inside. But unfortunately I always have some loss as not all of them survive the winter indoors.
Some plants are perennials, they grow back by themselves every year from their roots. Others are biennials, which means they will grow back every second year. And others are annuals, meaning they die at the end of the season and new plants grow from seeds the next year. But not all seeds survive the cold. Borage and cornflowers are annuals that mostly come back by themselves every year even here unless the winter is very cold. But many other annuals like calendula or dwarf nasturtium need to be freshly sown every spring while in warmer climates they survive and come back by themselves the next spring.
Different plants have different needs. Many need a lot of sun, a few like to grow in the shade, some need a lot of water, a few are even drought resistant. Different plants like different soils. Their neighbouring plants also influence how well they grow. Basil will wither when you try to grow it next to rue for example.
Some plants are declared invasive but I have found that in our garden this isn't always true. Some invasive plants don't grow well at all while other plants that are said to spread very slowly soon cover more space than I had alloted to them.
Plants can teach us a lot of things. They can teach you that everyone has their right place. Camomille will grow best when healing is necessary. Often if there is a danger lurking somewhere a magic healing potion is growing not that far away. Think of plantain growing near plants that might cause allergic reactions to humans. Plants can give you food and they can heal you. They are the best medicine that we have. Plants can teach you that we are part of nature and earth and that everything is interconnected. It is really fascinating to learn about plants and once you start you will never stop learning.
It seems to me that we don't know and understand a lot of things yet. It is for example said to be good to have an elder tree growing in your garden as they will act as teachers helping other plants to grow up to their full potential. But I haven't found an explanation yet to why this is so.
Plants can heal us. They have been shown to be especially effective for chronic diseases as they will heal your body and not just manage the illness. They also tend to have a lot less side effects or none at all. Scientific studies do exist but not as many as necessary and often they concentrate on one particular ingredient instead of looking at the plant as a whole. The sum of a whole can be much bigger than its parts. Think of a car. If you only look at its isolated parts, the wheels, the motor, the chassis, the brakes you would never guess that put together it can bring you from point A to point B. The same is true for plants but unfortunately this is too often neglected by our scientists. Mostly studies are done to make money for big pharma and not to bring healing.
In general it seems to me that we are missing a lot of knowledge about everything, the plants but also our own bodies. How else can we explain that far too many medicinal studies even of conventional medicine can't be replicated? I think new thinking and a new approach is necessary. Maybe not everyone reacts the same to medicine because of the different food we eat and different life styles we live. Throughout life people are exposed to different pollutants which could also play a role. And then there is the psychological or human side. We are not machines. With machines you can exchange a defective part and the machine will start working properly again. With humans the different organs and parts are much more intertwined. And if the psychological mind you are in wouldn't matter, placebos couldn't be successful.
I wished doctors and scientists would be a lot more humble and curious and wouldn't try forcing medicine on people even though they have no idea what it really does. And I wished people wouldn't just trust a doctor because she is supposedly an expert instead of trusting themselves and taking their health in their own hands.
So until all the mysteries are solved we can only experiment and look more into folk medicine to find effective methods for healing that really work. Luckily it is a very interesting and rewarding journey and adventure! Happy gardening and happy healing!
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