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Is anyone planting a medicinal herb garden with stuff like chamomile, echinacea and St. John's Wort in it? My neighbor and I are becoming interested in assorted herbs for medicinial use (no, not THAT herb, just the old traditional herbal medicine ones). At the moment we are still compiling a list of the ones we want to grow and then we will have to find seeds, starts or if we can even grow it here at all.
Does anyone know if the health food store in Pahoa has bulk herbs? We've already found quite a few of the herbs we are looking for at the other health food stores, we just haven't made it out to the one in Pahoa yet. It is much better to grow the herbs and use them fresh, but until we get our herbal gardens growing, the dry stuff will have to do.
We have a recipe for cough tea which is hyssop, elecampane, plantain and mullein and it seems to work pretty well. Plantain is a "weed" in most lawns and mullein is another found everywhere weed. The hyssop and elecampane will have to be grown or bought.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Here is the name of an organic seed catalog that has many herbs you might have a look at Seeds of Change www.seedsofchange.com
Edited by - Jim R on 05/08/2007 16:17:55
I've only managed to grow a few culinary herbs here (basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary at present), but I'd be interested whether these other herbs will go.
I've grown a few hypericum's (St John's) in Northern California, a tough plant and one I much enjoyed having for its flowers and foliage alone.
Also have grown Echinacea, which goes dormant in winter and will make it in Alaska.
The fact it grows in Alaska makes me a little dubious it can handle year round warmth, but hope to learn differently.
Chamomile is easy to grow (although again I've only grown it in California), but Chamomile Nobile, the common plant, is not the chamomile used for tea, although it makes a fine ground cover.
The one you want for herb tea is Matricaria recutita aka M. chamomilla. As a side note, some people have allergic reactions to chamomile (chrysanthemum relative), and some people are allergic to echinacea.
Sunset doesn't say it can take Hawai'i, only to Zone 24, bet it would like Waimea though, and maybe Honoka'a.
Hope you'll post how it goes for you. I'm very into herbs and gardening, but oddly, I've never grown my own medicinal herbs ... I'm a little scared of getting the potency wrong; some of them are very powerful. But I like the idea of it.
PS. St. John's Wort (herbal prozac) can make people hypersensitive to sunshine, similar to the effect of NSAIDS like naproxyn.
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We were hoping other folks had already done the learning curve on herbs in Hawaii, but I guess we will just plant seeds and see what happens.
Even if they don't grow for us, though, that may not mean the specific herbs we plant wouldn't grow in Hawaii. Neither my neighbor nor I have had much luck growing lavender yet just fifteen miles further up the coast, there's hedges of lavender growing everywhere. We can grow rosemary into hedges which seems very similar to lavendar, but there is enough difference between the two plants that one will grow and the other one won't.
We will have to make our list of seeds to order by the different herbs we want instead of by what grows well in our area. Sometimes a different variety of the same type of plant will grow, too, so perhaps if we find some that don't quite work out, we could try a different variety. Oh well, we haven't even ordered seeds yet since we are still at the trying to figure out what might grow well stage.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
Hotzcatz, I look forward to hearing your results.
Lavender and rosemary both hail from the Meditteranean, and both need excellent drainage, but lavender in particular is prone to root rot in warm humid conditions. It can handle chill better than rosemary (depending on variety). None of the lavenders are rated to grow well in Hawai'i ... even though it happens, but rosemary is.
Both lavender and rosemary get woody and unsightly with too much fertilizer and water, do best when neglected.
It's great finding this garden forum.
See, I wouldn't have thought to look for seeds to get new varieties of plants. I've had very little luck with seed packets here, except cosmos, which doesn't count. And they're expensive! Please post which ones you find to be rewarding.
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I split the seed costs with my friend since there are usually enough seeds to share in each packet. She gets different varieties than I do and we swap seeds or plants. I had a whole flat of a variety of different seedlings going well and then Buffy dug it all up. Dratted chicken!
On the GardenWeb forum folks have been discussing planting lavender in rocks instead of soil in areas of higher humidity and rain. They also said it will start from cuttings, so once I get my rock wall stacked up, I'll try planting some lavender in it. It is also upwind of the house, so hopefully the lavender will grow.
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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(this is what i do when i look for help with garden experts on the island.....)
there are alot of the plant vendors that sell herbs at the makuu market - it would be easy to pick their brains with what works and doesn't work and maybe support them in an inexpensive purchase....wink, wink.....some may even invite you to their farms if they don't have anything you want in stock or bring it for you the next time.
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I keep hearing good things about the Makuu market, one of these weekends we will have to wander out that way. I'm up the coast about halfway to Waimea and we usually head the other direction for Saturday's yard sales. What day of the week is best for the Makuu market? (Is it on more than one day?)
"I like yard sales," he said. "All true survivalists like yard sales."
Kurt Wilson
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Every Sunday only...they have tried to get something going on Saturdays, but I think people in the area are so used to it being the Sunday thing to do...it just hasn't taken on Saturdays. It's getting bigger and bigger though...lotsa fun.
Carrie
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Try Hiiaka's - Barbara is the person in HPP growing medicinal herbsHCR 2, Box 9620
Kea`au, HI 96749
(808) 966-6126
goddess@hiiakas.com
www.hiiakas.com
Edited by - kapohocat on 05/15/2007 11:13:59
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