Backyard Herbology: Yarrow

Recently I took a 4 week Practical Herbalist course at Little City Farm. I learned so much! What was really inspiring was realizing how many useful things grow around us, usually considered as weeds! Last week I was browsing through this book looking at a plant called yarrow when Dave peers over my shoulder and says "Hey, I think we have that growing in the front lawn". Turns out he was right!

Side Note: Turns out when we "forgot" to mow the front lawn for a few weeks a bunch of cool stuff popped up! Besides yarrow we found wild strawberries, thyme and daisies! Love it!

So with my trusty harvester Iris, we snipped all the yarrow flowers that were growing out of our overgrown lawn to make a tincture. A tincture is basically just where you steep/infuse something in alcohol. I currently have a jar of all our yarrow flowers infusing in a jar of vodka on our windowsill. You may be asking, what the heck are you going to do with a large jar of weed vodka?! Ha! Well after a few weeks I'll strain it into a few small dosage bottles and it can be used for a bunch of low-key medicinal purposes such as reducing fevers, relieving stomach cramps and indigestion, and for *ahem* crampy lady problems. Plus tinctures last a loooong time so I'm looking forward to learning other ways I can use it too.

This is one of the first medicinal herb things I've made so I'm curious how it turns out and works later. I've always been a bit skeptical of natural or alternative medicine but hey I'm willing to try new things! Especially when it's just for everyday kind of maladies.