Get growing - herbs are good medicine!

Have you ever wondered why products made with herbs are effective?

I mean, why do herbal supplements, and food and drink with herbal ingredients actually help people heal?

Well, the answer is simple.

For thousands of years, herbs have been used as food and medicine all over the world. This wouldn't still be happening if herbs had no effect. Singly or in combination, herbal healing is a gentle way to heal many complaints of modern life - from stress and digestive upsets to insomnia and women's health issues, among others.

Funnily enough, ask a young person to guess what's in a bag of crumbled dried herbs and they'll snicker as if the answer is obvious - 'Something to smoke, duh!' It's kind of sad that we've become so disconnected from the bounty that nature provides in forests, fields and gardens that we can identify only one herb, and one that's illegal in most countries to boot!

Herbal drinks and foods have healing qualities that modern research has identified from studying the individual components and found them to be good medicine. Lemon balm, calendula, hyssop, ladies' mantle, nettle, peppermint, spearmint, catmint, red raspberry leaves and berries, are just some of the herbs growing in my garden in Southern Canada.

I love using my own organically grown herbs in soups, teas, stir fries, lemonade, salads etc. And they're all so easy to grow! Now's the time to start a few plants, even if you only have a window box for two or three kitchen herbs. I promise you, it's worth it.

Here's a recipe for a spring rejuvenating herbal infusion (tea) that tastes delicious and is full of minerals and vitamins:

Spring Tea
1 tsp each dried peppermint & nettle
3 tsp dried lemonbalm
Measure herbs into a tea pot with a stainless steel or glass strainer. Pour just-boiled water over herbs and let steep 5-10 minutes - longer for more nourishing and healing benefits. Enjoy 3-4 times daily. Note: You could re-use the herbs once for a second pot of tea. If you can get fresh herbs, use three times the amount of dried herbs and shred or crush the leaves to release their healing ingredients.