Useful tips for gathering herbs in nature.
Going over things to keep in mind when picking herbs for your health, things to become familiar with, various drying methods, and proper storage for most preserved herbs.
‘These leaves,’ he said ‘I have walked far to find; for this plant does not grow in the bare hill; but in the thickets away south of the road I found it in the dark by the scent of its leaves.’ He crushed a leaf in his fingers, and it gave out a sweet and pungent fragrance - J.R.R.Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Wild herbs have a variety of uses. Today I want to discuss skills to distinguish helpful herbs from harmful ones—such as identifying natural plants, harvesting them properly, and storing them. Nature holds many health benefits but we often overlook medicinal plants as ground coverage or weeds. Those naturally occurring ground plants we treat with disrespect, and usually try to kill off are sometimes most useful to us. Dandelions for instance have immune boosters in them, the entire plant is edible and grows in abundance all over. Yet, we kill them off yearly in our yards, as “weeds”. Much of the knowledge we hold sacred about the plants in our world has been lost with medical advancements. At some point, we stopped using the plants around us and started synthesizing their properties into pharmaceutical drugs. However, you can teach yourself that knowledge and take control of your health from within your home.
You start by learning how to identify medicinal wild herbs. Identification relies on color, leaves, flowers, and stems. Because plants are classified into families and all plants of the same family will have similar qualities, familiarizing yourself with the separate families is helpful. Generally speaking, there are families we can safely pick any member of and ones that we can not. For example, you can not harvest poison ivy for any beneficial use. Most members of the ivy family are harmful to us. Knowing how to spot poisonous plants is a must. If a plant flowers, the flowers are categorized by petal shape, color, and the shape and size of the piston. If the wild herb produces no flower then use the color and shape of the leaves and stem to help identify them. Wild herbs once identified properly can be safely picked and harvested for later use. Alternatively, some plants are only useful for the roots, so familiarizing yourself with the root structure of useful plants is also beneficial. Wild parsnip is a perfect example of this, the surface parts of the plant are harmful to us but the roots have nutrients and fibers we benefit from. The root of wild parsnip is edible. The same is true of some members of the Nightshade family. This is one plant family that has exceptions to the general rule. We eat the fruit or roots of many nightshade plants. Potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers are all members of the nightshade family, with edible fruit and roots, however, the leaves and stems of the plant are harmful if digested. It is important to study your material and bring reference guides with you while harvesting in the wild.
Once harvested, the plants gathered will have to be dried and stored properly to keep and be useful to you at later dates. Drying and storing herbs can be done in several ways. The first way to do this is the tried and true method of hanging them upside down by the stems in a cool dry place and letting the moisture from the plant evaporate naturally. Hanging herbs to dry is best done over concrete floors or bare earth if possible. This helps pull the moisture in the plant downwards and out. The hanging method preserves the most beneficial nutrients that any plant can offer.
The second way to dry herbs is by using an oven. An oven on low heat can be a quick and easy way to dry out herbs, especially flowers or leaves. This cuts the drying process down from days to hours. However using heat to dry leaves, flowers, and stems can remove some of the nutrient value. This is not recommended with wild herbs that have extreme heat sensitivity. I encourage you to thoroughly inform yourself of each plant you harvest before drying to decide which drying method is best. Heat-sensitive wild herbs will be of no use if dried incorrectly.
The third way to dry herbs is with a dehydrator. Dehydrators are nice because they reduce moisture content without taking away beneficial nutrients or vitamins. You can also use the sun's power to dry your gathered herbs and plant material. I prefer hang-drying most of the herbs I gather versus the other options. It is the safest way to preserve as many health benefits as possible from what I take out of nature, and it provides a nice aesthetic when they all hang in view. Drying and preserving picked wild herbs is all about maximizing properties that can be extracted later. I want to help you start wildcrafting and point you in the proper direction for knowledge and safety.
Herbs can be stored in glass containers or plastic. Glass containers are preferable however, glass jars can get expensive. If plastic containers are easier for you to come by they will do just as well. Even zip-lock baggies will do the trick in a pinch. All harvested material must be completely dried out before being put into containers. Any remaining moisture can lead to bacteria growth and mildew. This would make all your hard work useless. If the harvested material begins to mold it is no longer safe to consume. All containers should have lids that create an air-tight seal. Lids that create an air-tight seal prevent herbs from becoming contaminated. Any organic material you intend to use as health remedies or food should be kept in clean sterile containers to avoid anything from getting bad or making you ill. Once in jars and sealed, the herbs should be stored in a cool dry place that is out of direct sunlight. Don’t forget to date and label EVERYTHING!
In the same way that excess moisture can create mildew inside the containers, so can the sun. The excess heat can speed up bacteria growth. Storing the jars or containers that hold your herbs properly is just as important as the herbs being fully dried and placed in sterile containers. All these things play important parts in the success and longevity of your gathered material. Keep in mind it is not usually wise to hold on to organic material for longer than one year. At the year mark, it is advised to throw the old material out, perhaps add to the compost pile if you have one, and gather new and start the process over again. Alternatively, I take my old “expired” herbs and I use those in my spell work. The herbs themselves can no longer be consumed by me but the universe will always take them back as offerings or spell ingredients.
Even dried and preserved properly, all things have a shelf life, and herbs lose potency over time after they’ve been gathered and dried. Dating your jars or containers is important. That is how you keep track of when each jar is dried and stored away. Using old herbs that have lost their potency is not a fatal mistake but it will take more of an herb to make a difference the less potent its properties are. Of course, fresh herbs are always best and recommended whenever possible but this is not always the case. This is why preserving herbs is an important skill. Plants are seasonal, especially the medicinal herbs that are useful to us. They often only grow fresh and in abundance for a little while.
Knowing what to look for, how to handle it and preserve it once you find it, and how to store it properly and keep track of its age are the basic steps into wildcrafting and harvesting herbs for medicine and/or magical uses. Often in my studies, I have found that medicinal uses for plants often coincide with that plant’s magical uses as well. Remembering to watch out for the look-a-like plant varieties that mimic the helpful ones and familiarizing yourself with the toxic and poisonous plants in the area you will be gathering from is a step you can not skip. These things are crucial before bringing anything back home with you. Keep several baskets with you when picking herbs, this way keeping everything separate is much easier. Having a plan before going out on how the plants will be dried and where they will be drying once you get them home is also a useful tip. The area can be prepped and cleaned beforehand and ready to receive once you return home. Taking references and field guides out with you is also important. Knowing your information is best, however when out gathering it is good to have a source to refer to if unsure. You can never be too careful. When the goal is health improvement, misidentifying an herb can be a fatal mistake.