Download - Plants for all our needs
Plants for all our needsCo-Created by Josh Gomez &
Rosie Stonehill
Human needs &
some plants which fulfil
them
Medicinal / Therapeutic
•Aloe Vera
•Comfrey
•Yarrow
Food
•Tomato
•Peach
•Butternut squash
Cosmetics
•Avocado
•Camomile
•Geranium
Textiles
•Flax
•Nettle
•Hemp
Building and Carpentry
•Hazel
•Straw
•Bamboo
Paint and dyes
•Woad
•Pokeweed
•Beetroot
Fuel
•Willow
•Mimosa
•Medronho(Strawberry tree)
Paper
•Papyrus
•Hemp
Domestic products
•Cider Vinegar
•Lemon
•Peppermint
We are working towards supplying as many of our needs as we can
with plants (or the animals we can feed with the plants we can grow).
In this way we are intent on reducing our negative impact in two ways:
More use of biological and (potentially) renewable resources hence less
reliance on petro chemically based or grown, synthetically produced
materials, medicines, cosmetics, foods and household cleaning products:
Garlic and vinegar as natural anti worming medicine
Lemon peel surface and dish cleaner
Essential oils of Tea Tree and Lavender for sterilising nappies
Home made Tooth powder instead of commercially produced
toothpaste (even herbal commercial toothpaste requires a lot of
industrial input to make it and conventional toothpaste is highly
questionable due to the assortment of chemicals added)
Many of these plants we can grow for ourselves thus reducing the area of land taken out of
natural ecosystem on our behalf
As much of our food as we can
Wide variety of medicinal herbs – Also, considerate wild forage is great for this.
Fuel efficient wood burning rocket stove means we can use yearly
prunings for cooking fuel
Personal Action
Naturally caring for our own healthWe have been interested in and using medicinal herbs and plants for many years. There is
an enormous range of possibilities when it comes to caring for your health with plants, both
in a preventative sense and also for specific dis-eases and conditions. It seems very
important that we retain and regain this knowledge of how to keep ourselves well to be truly
non-reliant on a largely unproductive and destructive system. Here are some examples of
ways in which we regularly use herbs in our lives:
Chamomile tea to aid sleep
Peppermint tea to soothe tummy
Tea Tree and Lavander oil for sterilising, cleaning and preventing or removing
infection in wounds
St John’s Wort in an infused oil for first aid cleaning and healing of cuts and grazes
Home made Balms for various different medicinal and cosmetic purposes
We have amassed quite a collection of books and which we use for self study and in the
minute reference about a specific condition
See Bibliography for a list
Gathering herbs to dry for herbal infusions,
culinary use, addition to herbal remedies, make
into infused oil etc
Yarrow
St John's Wort
Calendula
Carqueijo – Only ever seen this in Portugal,
dried for restorative, mood lifting tea and
lowering blood pressure
Thyme
Rosemary
Sage
Oregano
Mint
Plaintain
Basic Medicinal Herbs Workshop 20th and 21st May 2010 Rosie attended a weekend workshop in basic medicinal herbs. This
was a really enjoyable, practical and useful experience, especially for learning more about the
things I could make with the herbs I was collecting.
We firstly went for a walk around the land, looked at some herbs, talked about their properties
and learnt about propagating them using cuttings (by doing some hands on) We also discussed
some basic ideas of including herbs into our gardens or finding them in the wild.
We then had hands on learning of how to make:
Herbal preparati
ons
Soaked / infused
oils Dried herbs
Medicinal oils for specific conditions
Shampoo
Conditioner
Tooth powder
Soap
General household cleaning
paste
Healing salves
Deodorant
Incence
Medicinal/Therapeutic Herb Garden in Design I feel that almost all of the plants that would be used in a medicinal herb garden have so
many other properties and possible beneficial roles to play in a garden that, as well as
making an intensive herb area, I would also interplant them in amongst all the other
plants in all areas . Some examples of their benefits include: deterring pests due to strong
aromatic quality, harbouring the pest predators, actually enhancing the quality and yield of
surrounding plants (look into Companion Planting for more details – Good book
“Carrots love Tomatoes and Roses love Garlic” by Louise Riotte).
I have included a possible design for a very diverse cottage industry home scale herb
garden with a wide range of herbs for ease of planting, maintaining and harvesting in
quantities sufficient for a home scale industry. I would locate this garden close to the
house in zone 1 or on the boundary with zone 2 so as to be easily accessible as it is a
place I would visit often.
Home scale cottage
industry medicinal
/ therapeutic herb
garden
1 metre wide synergistic
garden raised beds with
sheet mulch on top
All beds
contain a diverse
mixture of herbs.
Some possible
examples listed in
the beds...
Herbs placed
according to
sun and water
preference,
height in
relation to
nearby plants
and beneficial
companion
plants
Path opens
to each of
the four
directions
There are also many other ways in which herb gardens can be included into design:
•Urban Intensive Potted Herb Cabinet – Even in the most crowded city, with no actual
ground space to use it is still possible to grow at least some of the herbs
you may need. This could be in window boxes or a number of pots, on
your window sill or out on your balcony.
•Tea bed – Specific choices reflecting your favourite herbal teas
•Healing herb spiral – as shown in the centre of my design, one of the
most productive ways to use space, with vertical stacking and huge
reduction of path required for large bed
space. This is a feature which can be
added into any (and every)
garden design!
•Sensory Garden – Most likely to be in a larger
scale design, perhaps in a school, hospital, care home,
community centre, community garden... Fill a garden
with plants which stimulate all the senses, with bright
colours, strong aromatic plants, rustling grasses and
running water, tasty herbs and plants with interesting
textures to touch.
Kitchen Garden DesignThere are many useful design features and components which can be included in a zone 1
kitchen garden to create the greatest possible abundance and providing the widest range of
your vegetable and herb requirements as close to your living space as possible.
These include:
Raised beds
Keyhole beds
Herb spirals
Huge diversity
Polyculture and guilds
There are also very many ways in which your intensive garden can link to other elements of
your wider land design to greater benefit the whole. Examples of this are:
Grey water system – providing nutrients and irrigation water (see stand alone
designs for example)
Chicken/Poultry coop – Situated close by this can be a source of manure for the
garden and also a sink for any excess garden clearings, slugs and snails if they
ever get out of hand.
I have not included a specific kitchen garden design as there are examples of different
possible designs throughout this portfolio.
•Vale da Lama Kitchen Garden
•Quinta das Aguias Garden design in the Lifestyle Design Section
Properties
•Aromatic
•Bitter
•Astringent herb that reduces inflammation
•Promotes perspiration
•Relieves indigestion
•Diuretic
•effective in
•lowering blood pressure
•relaxing spasms
•Arresting haemorrhage
Medicinal uses - Internal
•Internally
•Feverish illnesses
•colds
•influenza
•Measles
•Catarrh
•diarrhoea
•dyspepsia
•rheumatism
•arthritis
•Menstrual & menopausal complaints
•hypertension
•to protect against thrombosis after stroke or heart attack
Combines well with
•sambucus nigra/ elderflower & mentha x piperita / pepermint
•for fevers
•Tilia
•for high blood pressure
•Chamaemelumnobile / chamomile
•for digestive disorders
•Salvia officinalis/ sage
•in Ayurvedicmedicine
•as a tonic for the nervous system
Medicinal Uses - External
•healing wounds
•nosebleeds
•haemorrhoids
Caution
•Prolonged use may cause
•allergic rashes
•skin sensitiveity to sunlight
Yarrow/ AchilleaHistory of name
Sticks used to Consult the I Ching
In essential oil
Anti-inflammatory Azulene
Special characteristics
Mat-forming
possible to use as multi purpose
edible lawn plant
Example
Break down of
plant
properties
© Copyright 2011 Rosie Stonehill and Josh Gomez