A text written for everyone who likes to harvest and process their own herbs from the wild or from their gardens. This volume includes comprehensive instructions for making herbal tinctures, oils, salves, vinegars, teas, and syrups. Finnish herbalist Henriette Kress focuses on herbs that are easy to grow or find in northern Europe―stressing teas over tinctures, as local tradition dictates. Practical Herbs 1 is fully illustrated with colour photographs. Henriette Kress learned her first herbs at her grandma's knee and has studied herbs and their uses ever since. A practicing herbalist since 1998, her website, http://www.henriettesherbal.com, is one of the oldest and most comprehensive on the Internet. Practical Herbs 1 By Henriette Kress Aeon Books Ltd Copyright © 2018 Henriette Kress All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-911597-57-5 Contents The Basics, Picking herbs, Identification, Picking rights, Healthy plants, Unpolluted area, Protect the stands, Picking equipment, Harvesting time, Processing your harvest, Cleanup, Drying your herbs, Hanging, Stripping the stems, Cutting the stems, Flat drying, Dehydrator, Oven, Microwave oven, Drying cabinet, Wood-burning cookstove, Sauna, Drying without extra heat, Storing dried herbs, Shelf life of dried herbs, Making and using herbal teas, How to make an infusion, How to make a decoction, How to make a maceration, Nice herbs for tea blends, Fermenting, An herbal bath, A footbath, Herbal oils, Which oil should I use?, Which herb should I use?, Dried or fresh?, How to make herbal oils, A fast oil in a water bath, Tips for a bain-marie, Straining your oil, Problems with herbal oils, Bacteria in oils, The difference between infused and essential oils, Herbal salves, A basic herbal salve, A few other herbal salves, Problems with oil-based salves, Tinctures, Tincture stability, A simple tincture, A more official tincture, Alcohol strength and tincture quality, Herbal vinegars, How to make an herbal vinegar, Chives flower vinegar, Herbal syrups, How to make an herbal syrup, Dark spruce syrup, Good herbs for herbal syrups, Problems with syrups, The Plants, Angelica, Bitters, Quick help: Painful menses, Beggarticks, Plant families: Carrot-family carminative plants, Black currant, Calendula, California poppy, Plant families: Mallow-family mucilaginous plants, Chickweed, The cinquefoils, Cleavers, The coneflowers, Advice for flu season, Dandelion, Field horsetail, Hyssop, Plant families: Mint-family anti-inflammatory plants, Maral root, Quick help: Digestive upset, Nausea, Meadowsweet, Red raspberry, Plant families: Rose-family astringent plants, Rose, Rose beads, Speedwell, Stinging nettle, St. John's wort, Quick help: Earache, Vervain, Quick help: Itching, Willowherb, Quick help: Bleeding, Yarrow, Quick help: Toothache, Yellow dock, Quick help: Sciatica, Index, CHAPTER 1 THE BASICS — picking, drying, and preparing your herbs. PICKING HERBS Before you take your basket and go out picking, remember these rules. IDENTIFICATION Pick only the herbs you know. Learn to tell dandelion ( Taraxacum ) from coltsfoot ( Tussilago farfara ), sow thistle ( Sonchus oleraceus ), and other look-alike yellow-flowering composite plants. Learn how stinging nettle ( Urtica dioica ) differs from, say, white deadnettle ( Lamium album ), and how shepherd's purse ( Capsella bursa-pastoris ) differs from a host of pennycresses ( Thlaspi species) and similar mustard-family plants. Be especially careful with the umbellifers. Before you pick even one Angelica, be sure you know how to tell this beneficial species from its deadly doubles the water hemlocks ( Cicuta species). Edible and medicinal fern-leafed umbellifers can closely resemble the deadly poison hemlock ( Conium maculatum ). Don't pick large quantities of an herb you've finally located after years of searching. Instead, pluck a twig, a flower, and a leaf, and take those home with you. Then double-check what you wanted the plant for, and which part of the plant you should gather for that purpose. Once you've identified a plant in the wild, you'll spot it more easily in the future. PICKING RIGHTS In Finland and Sweden we have a law called "Every Man's Right," which permits the gathering for personal use of aboveground parts of nonwoody plants in forests and meadows. We may take only berries from woody plants, and we may not pick aboveground parts in quantities large enough to sell. We are prohibited from digging roots or taking lichens and mosses without a landowner's permission. Learn your local laws — and always seek permission before gathering anything from private property. Be polite: take only what you need, and leave the area looking nice. Share some of your herbal products with your host, and you'll be welcome to return. Always leave endangered and rare plants to grow and prosper. HEALTHY PLANTS Gather p