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The Sacred Gardener
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Author: megan spencer

The Shadow of Silviculture, part 2

The Shadow of Silviculture, part 2

By megan spencer January 9, 2021 January 10, 2021

Silviculture (growing ‘tree gardens’). When we live in the bush or on a farm, cutting trees is a reality we must face or we will …

Continue reading"The Shadow of Silviculture, part 2"
Harvesting Elecampane, Part 1

Harvesting Elecampane, Part 1

By megan spencer December 31, 2020 December 31, 2020

Steven Martyn of The Sacred Gardener School talking about Elecampane in a two-part video documenting the fall harvest of 2020. Part One: Steven talking about …

Continue reading"Harvesting Elecampane, Part 1"
Summer Kimchi

Summer Kimchi

By megan spencer August 16, 2016 January 15, 2020

| By Megan Spencer | The garden’s abundance these days is awe-inspiring, and incredibly gorgeous. It’s a tremendous joy to look down at our plates, …

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sacredgardener

Seeding earth wisdom since 1989. Home of The Sacred Gardener School.

The Sacred Gardener
Remembering summer magic In the Angelica Patch.... Remembering summer magic In the Angelica Patch..... This plant has hollow stalks, and when we harvest them, we have a drink of pure angelica waters. Flowery and refreshing, she'll connect you with the divine. She grows tall, leaving a shady understory, which our kids (and many kids at heart) have enjoyed days on end wandering around in. Here Steven watches Andrew take the plunge. One of many possible wild adventures one could have here at The Sacred Gardener School. Our early bird ends February 1! Thanks to @galcaponephotography for capturing this moment in time. #herbalmedicine #herbs #angelica #harvest #sacredgardener #sacredgardenerschool
The snow’s been slow coming this year. The feeli The snow’s been slow coming this year. The feeling that a big snow’s on it’s way has been creeping up on us, and then it came. Such beauty, and a sigh of relief with the building up of what will bring nourishment in the spring when it melts. #winter #snow
😂😂 😂😂
Echinacea, Snake Root and Snake Oil Recently I st Echinacea, Snake Root and Snake Oil Recently I started thinking about ‘snake oil’ and I knew even before I started looking I’d found gold. This term is seldom used these days but was still in common use when I was growing up. “Snake oil” basically means something is fake. My Grandmother, who was born in 1900, used it with regularity. She grew up with ’snake oil’ as the name of an actual product, a liniment, and lived through the takeover of naturally based medicines by pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry was born in the late 1800s and grew up in the early twentieth century. In the initial stage of this boom, many medicinal products were in fact just traditional medicines, such as herbs, that had been processed and packaged up into pills or liniments. So I wasn’t surprised to find snake oil is in fact a traditional North American and Chinese remedy. As the doctrine of signatures might suggest, rattlesnake works very well for poisoning, inflammation and arthritis. It was also reputed to be able to turn around an ornery ‘rattlesnake disposition.’ In the 1880s the first patent on a herbal snake oil was registered by a Dr. Meyer. It contained Echinacea, known then as ‘snake root’ and was sold as panacea; a cure-all. Having harvested bulk herbs to make commercial products for thirty years or so, it’s easy for me to see that as the product’s reputation and sales grew it would be difficult to keep up with the harvesting of these special plants. In the case of Echinacea not only is harvesting seasonally dependent, but only the older roots are traditionally harvested for medicine. In a flood of interest and income it seems inevitable that less scrupulous folk would generate look-alike products of lesser quality. There were no quality controls and so it’s likely in the fervor people would even sell just the mineral oil itself or the oil infused with more available but less effective herbs. Thus, “snake oil” came to have its modern meaning and connotation. https://thesacredgardener.ca/echinacea-snake-root-and-snake-oil/ #snakeoil #echinacea #echinaceaangustifolia #makingmedicine #herbalmedicine

sacredgardener

Seeding earth wisdom since 1989. Home of The Sacred Gardener School.

The Sacred Gardener
Remembering summer magic In the Angelica Patch.... Remembering summer magic In the Angelica Patch..... This plant has hollow stalks, and when we harvest them, we have a drink of pure angelica waters. Flowery and refreshing, she'll connect you with the divine. She grows tall, leaving a shady understory, which our kids (and many kids at heart) have enjoyed days on end wandering around in. Here Steven watches Andrew take the plunge. One of many possible wild adventures one could have here at The Sacred Gardener School. Our early bird ends February 1! Thanks to @galcaponephotography for capturing this moment in time. #herbalmedicine #herbs #angelica #harvest #sacredgardener #sacredgardenerschool
The snow’s been slow coming this year. The feeli The snow’s been slow coming this year. The feeling that a big snow’s on it’s way has been creeping up on us, and then it came. Such beauty, and a sigh of relief with the building up of what will bring nourishment in the spring when it melts. #winter #snow
😂😂 😂😂
Echinacea, Snake Root and Snake Oil Recently I st Echinacea, Snake Root and Snake Oil Recently I started thinking about ‘snake oil’ and I knew even before I started looking I’d found gold. This term is seldom used these days but was still in common use when I was growing up. “Snake oil” basically means something is fake. My Grandmother, who was born in 1900, used it with regularity. She grew up with ’snake oil’ as the name of an actual product, a liniment, and lived through the takeover of naturally based medicines by pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry was born in the late 1800s and grew up in the early twentieth century. In the initial stage of this boom, many medicinal products were in fact just traditional medicines, such as herbs, that had been processed and packaged up into pills or liniments. So I wasn’t surprised to find snake oil is in fact a traditional North American and Chinese remedy. As the doctrine of signatures might suggest, rattlesnake works very well for poisoning, inflammation and arthritis. It was also reputed to be able to turn around an ornery ‘rattlesnake disposition.’ In the 1880s the first patent on a herbal snake oil was registered by a Dr. Meyer. It contained Echinacea, known then as ‘snake root’ and was sold as panacea; a cure-all. Having harvested bulk herbs to make commercial products for thirty years or so, it’s easy for me to see that as the product’s reputation and sales grew it would be difficult to keep up with the harvesting of these special plants. In the case of Echinacea not only is harvesting seasonally dependent, but only the older roots are traditionally harvested for medicine. In a flood of interest and income it seems inevitable that less scrupulous folk would generate look-alike products of lesser quality. There were no quality controls and so it’s likely in the fervor people would even sell just the mineral oil itself or the oil infused with more available but less effective herbs. Thus, “snake oil” came to have its modern meaning and connotation. https://thesacredgardener.ca/echinacea-snake-root-and-snake-oil/ #snakeoil #echinacea #echinaceaangustifolia #makingmedicine #herbalmedicine
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