Herb Lore and Holistic Philosophies

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Comment by Mama Fortuna on September 28, 2009 at 9:50am

Now that's an idea I can relate to. How does it look? I live in an upscale area and don't want the local beautification board on my back.

Comment by Laura Perry on September 28, 2009 at 9:48am

Hmmm...I bet you'd need an awful lot of seed for a whole lawn, even a small one. Grass seed is sold by the pound. Maybe there's somewhere you can buy chamomile seed in bulk. Seeds of Change is one of my favorite places to buy bulk seed but I just checked and they don't have chamomile in bulk.

What I did for my lawn was to buy a bunch of packets of the different herbs I wanted, about 10 packets total, and sprinkle them in bare spots in the lawn. I wasn't starting with bare dirt, but with a patchy lawn, so it didn't take so much seed. The cool thing is, the herbs are slowly taking over from the grass! The creeping thyme, well, creeps :-) and the other herbs drop seed and spread themselves that way. It may be a few years before I have a mostly-herb lawn but in the meantime it smells wonderful when my husband mows. Oh, that's another thing...once the herbs have taken over, we won't have to mow any more because none of them grow higher than 6 inches.

Comment by Mama Fortuna on September 26, 2009 at 10:24am

Yes, thanks. Burpee has it in little seed packs. I wonder how many of them I would need for a lawn? Maybe I need to stop by a nursery and get some local advice, too.

Comment by Laura Perry on September 26, 2009 at 9:12am

Hey Mama, do you mean using chamomile instead of grass for a lawn? I haven't tried it but apparently it's popular as Burpee now sells chamomile seeds packaged specifically for lawns. I bet it would smell WONDERFUL to walk through! I've filled in the bare spots in our lawn with clover, mint and creeping thyme, but now you've got me thinking of chamomile as well :-)

Comment by Mama Fortuna on September 25, 2009 at 7:58pm

Not to change the subject, does anyone has experience with lawn chamomile?

Comment by Laura Perry on September 25, 2009 at 8:06am

Maybe I'm not as uptight about the high-potency herbs because I use the fresh herbs from my garden. It's really rare that I make or buy a prepared extract. I can see regulating the extracts because they're so potent - and that's the case with many herbs, not just comfrey. And people do tend to abuse pretty much anything they can get their hands on, regardless of their level of education about the stuff. They seem to think that because something is natural, it must necessarily be harmless. My usual response to that is that belladonna, arsenic and uranium are completely natural but you wouldn't catch me eating any of them! LOL

I have often wondered about the things deer eat. When we lived in TN we had a herd of deer that trooped through our small town every morning and evening, eating all the stuff the books say deer won't eat - daffodils, lavender - even though they had plenty of rich grazing in the fields just outside town. I never did figure that one out. I did notice that they never touched my jack-in-the-pulpit, mayapples or bloodroot, though, so they must have some instincts about what is simply too poisonous to eat.

BTW, MedLine is @#$% expensive. It was first paid for as a gift when I started practice years ago and I've kept it up simply for the information, even though I'm now 'semi-retired' and working mainly on the Board of a non-profit org. I could waste lots of time reading all the studies and articles! LOL

Comment by Mountain Witch on September 24, 2009 at 1:29pm

Laura, nice to know someone has a MedLine subscription - the abstracts just don't give you enough information! (And no, I probably *wouldn't* be amazed at who funded which study.) I do tend to agree, though, with the German way of dealing with comfrey as a medication - it's available but tightly regulated. If you're going to use an extract, that's the way to do it to hopefully ensure dosages, etc.

I prefer to err on the side of caution & will use comfrey only if a) I don't have another herb that will do essentially the same thing or b) the other herb isn't giving enough relief (as in your uncle). And I use a tea or poultice, not an extract, and for as short duration as possible (haven't encountered a chronic issue like Crohn's).

BTW, the deer occasionally munch on my comfrey leaves. It's interesting to see what the wild critters eat - it gives you an idea of what might be ailing them at the moment.

Comment by Laura Perry on September 24, 2009 at 8:48am

That PubMed article is a compilation of emergency medical records, not a research study. There's a difference :-) I have a Medline subscription (I'm an N.D.) and have gone through the actual research studies in the medical journals. They all used extracts, not actual comfrey, and in high doses. Just like kava, sage and other herbs that are high in pyrrolizidine alkaloids, comfrey can cause liver problems in people who already have a weakened system or previous liver compromise. Also, I find it instructive to do a little legwork and find out who funded each study. You'd be amazed.

That said, I wouldn't take comfrey internally just as a casual daily tea. It's a medicine, and as such should be treated with care. I wouldn't take poke root tincture casually either, but it has its place as a powerful medicine. My uncle uses comfrey tea for his Crohn's disease and it helps more than the prescription steroids do. He actually likes the taste, and I'm reminded of something one of my herbalism teachers told me a long time ago - if your body needs something, it will taste good to you, even if normally it tastes bad. There have been a couple times when I was sick when goldenseal tasted good to me, and normally I can't stand even to smell the stuff.

I grew up on a farm and the horses would eat the comfrey at the edge of the pasture occasionally. My grandparents said they were self-medicating instinctively.

Of course, there's one negative application of comfrey that you find out if you grew up on a farm. If you piss someone off, they'll threaten to throw you naked in the comfrey patch! LOL

Comment by Inwë Carnesîr on September 23, 2009 at 6:07pm

I agree, Comfrey root should never be taken internally, only the leaves. My mom drank one cup of comfrey tea a day since the 70's to help her arthritis (she said she could tell a difference when she didn't take it). She died last year at 83 years old. Mint sweetens the comfrey tea so when I drink it, it mix the two. I don't drink all the time like she did, but then I don't have the arthritis she had.

The main reason I grow comfrey, and have for over 30 years, is because of it's powers to draw out poison. My youngest got blood poisoning when she was in the first grade (small scrape on her wrist with a line going up to a swollen sac in her armpit). No "medical" doctors around so I called the areas "hippie" doctor who told me to put comfrey on it and bring her in in the morning. Long story short -- by morning there was no line and no sac. Comfrey is a great healer.

Comment by Mountain Witch on September 23, 2009 at 2:44pm

All the "negative PR" isn't necessarily from the pharmaceutical community. Extensive research has been done on comfrey all over the world (including Germany, where the Commission E monographs are produced) which indicates that comfrey can be hepatotoxic in moderate doses. This is an abstract of a German study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11276298?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=4&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed

I'm a trained Master Herbalist and will use comfrey tea from leaves internally sparingly and only use the root externally. (BTW, the tea is bitter.)

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