Herbs are valuable for so many reasons. Lets talk about a few….
Reason 1: Medicinal
Most people think of herbs as for medicinal purposes only. Herbs are great to use as medicine for yourself, your family, and animals. A few examples of herbs to help medicinally are yarrow which stops bleeding, gumweed which is used for asthma, cramp bark which is used for muscle spasms, and feverfew which is used for headaches. There are so many ailments and so many herbs that can help!
Reason 2: Vitamins and Minerals
Comfrey is a good example. It is used for many things including healing wounds quickly. It can be taken internally and externally. If taken internally, you are getting vitamins and minerals that your body craves because comfrey has an extremely long and deep taproot. It pulls those vitamins and minerals up from the earth that you may have been always missing. Why take man-made synthetic vitamins when you can have the real thing?
Reason 3: Bartering and Trading
What if SHTF happens tomorrow? Will you know what herbs are used for what? Your knowledge might help save your life. You could barter your knowledge of herbs to help your sick child or put food on the table for your family.
Reason 4: Animals
Did you know you can use herbs as medicine for your animals too? You could potentially save a veterinarian bill with the knowledge you have of herbs. Wouldn’t it be nice to be growing your own pharmacy in your backyard and you go grab some medicine as you are walking to where you house your livestock animals?
Reason 5: Food
Herbs are not only used medicinally. Many of them are completely edible and can be used as food for yourself and for your animals. If you were starving and had nothing to eat, it sure would be nice to have the knowledge to pull plantain leaves or any part of the dandelion and eat it. There are hundreds of herbs just like this that most people consider ‘weeds’.
Reason 6: Landscape
Have you walked by your neighbors house and saw a beautiful landscape? The flowers were so attractive and it just made the house look really nice? What if I told you some of those flowers may have been actual herbs Yes, you can use many herbs in attractive landscapes and no one would know the difference. No one would know you were growing a pharmacy! And what’s more is that most herbs are perennial so they will come back year after year.
Reason 7: Pollination
Going along with landscape, pollinating flowers is always a plus. Many herbs will attract pollinating bees and having bees are a good thing! Even if you are highly allergic to bee stings like I am, herbs can treat that too. Bees will help pollinate all those herbs you have in your yard, not to mention all the vegetable plants you have in your vegetable garden. It’s a win win!
There are many more ways that herbs can be used on your homestead. I just wanted to briefly touch on a few. I encourage you to start by learning a couple of ‘weeds’ that grows in your yard naturally and understand them. Then you can branch off and learn more and more. Before long, your yard will become your pharmacy and you, your family, your neighbors, and your animals will thrive because of it!
Instead of growing herbs, you may want to purchase them. If you want to purchase herbs, please consider using this affiliate link to purchase it. I highly recommend this link because of how they process and store herbs. You can’t always trust who you purchase from online, but with this company, I truly do feel it is top of the line and high quality.
If you would like to find out more about the author or learn about other herbs, please consider visiting this link.
Stay natural!
~Dr. Amanda P. Cartwright