Medicinal herb garden

I’ve been thinking I might start a “medicinal herb garden”. I really enjoy gardening, but don’t always make enough time for it, so maybe this is a good excuse to do something I enjoy that might also be useful. I also have a real itch to get outside and see things grow right now…

Where we live is known for sailing, which is the reason we moved here. After everything that has happened, it is not really practical for me to maintain an old wooden boat or go sailing very often. I am looking for something that might interest me, but also fit some of our lifestyle constraints, and maybe meet some people who are interesting and have some fun doing it.

So many medicinal herbs are really fragrant and beautiful look at, and I’ve always been interested in learning more about them. I already have a “kitchen herb garden”, but the “medicinal herb garden” I would want to do separately. I have some borders that I’ve been meaning to find something to do with, and I really like perennials and self seeding plants so I don’t have to do much maintenance.

Where we live is also known for seed cultivation, they call it “Seed Valley“. It will also help that we have the National Seeds and Herbs Museum down the road from us. There is also a really nice traditional medicinal garden at the Zuiderzee Museum, which is a really nice open air maritime and historical museum in the next town over that maybe I can learn from.

Another nice thing is that my mom who is a long time gardner, my brother and sister, and a few friends can probably help me too, and it is something we can easily share remotely.

I’m just starting on idea’s, and hope to add to this more as I go. For example, The red corn poppy is native here, and considered a weed, so maybe I can get the California poppy to work also, though the farmer across the road may not like me for it. I also had success with a blue passion flower vine until I accidently tipped an herbal weed killer onto it’s roots — oops, it was a bit too effective. I’ve never tried valerian but will give that a go along with skullcap, chammomile and some others.

I also struggle with the names of plants in Dutch and to know what will work in our garden. We get a lot of rain, have a lot of clay in the soil, and don’t have a lot of areas with much sun. After many years in the Netherlands, I just now figured out that we are in hardiness zone 8. I have a lot to learn!

I’ll be a little nervous about actually using anything we grow, but maybe I’ll get the nerve once I learn more. Even if it takes a while, we can still enjoy the plants and I can have some fun doing it. Who knows, maybe it’s something that will also interest Rob.

I’m always leery about herbal supplements, because generally manufacturers don’t have to prove their products are safe or effective, so I will be treading cautiously, and only getting seeds specifically made for the purpose.

This seems like a good site about herbal supplements with supporting research. It also gives interactions, and what is great for me, the latin names so I can find them in Dutch: WebMD Vitamins & Supplements. I will also be checking in relation to epilepsy and found the Epilepsy.com Herbal Medicines information helpful. I’ll also be checking effectiveness in published scientific studies like the NIH PubMed database and talking with our doctors about anything before trying them.