June 21, 2000
Herbs: A walk on the wild side
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Look down the next time you are outside and you may find pieces of a natural medicine chest right at your feet.
Many of those tenacious weeds that many homeowners work so hard to uproot are really wild herbs that have a number of nutritional or medicinal qualities unrecognized in our culture.
"Extremely potent medicinal herbs do grow in the cracks of sidewalks," said Scruffie Crockett of Kingsley, who has been growing, studying and using herbs for 30 years. "Maybe gardeners would see their weeds differently if they know what they were."
Crockett led 25 budding herbalists on an Herb Walk through the grounds of the Grand Traverse Commons Saturday morning, finding shepherd's purse, comfrey, pig weed, lamb's quarters and two kinds of mint along the way. Even the ubiquitous dandelion has medicinal properties that should not be overlooked, Crockett said. It can also be used in a salad of greens.
The study of herbs is an ancient one, dating back to times before manufactured medicines when the plants nature offered were the only option to help an illness or injury. In fact, many medicines today can trace their roots to herbal beginnings.
"Many of the herbs we call weeds were brought to this country by colonists who used the plants in their native country for food or medicine," Crockett noted.
Sponsored by Oryana Natural Foods Co-Operative, the Herb Walk gave gardeners a taste (literally) of what grows in the area and how to use them. During the walk, Crockett discussed finding, harvesting, processing and discussed how to make different tinctures, teas, baths and salves using the plants discovered. Another idea is to freeze cubes of herbal teas for use on scrapes, cuts or teething gums.
"The whole process of gathering, then preparing and then seeing the results seems like a spiritual experience," Crockett said. "When harvesting, you must also be respectful of the plants themselves, never clear cut them."
The Herb Walk drew interested walkers like Barb Spinniken, a Traverse City resident who has grown and used culinary herbs for years. While she has never taken the next step beyond flavoring food to using medicinal herbs she is interested in learning more about it.
"I have been interested in herbs for a long time and like to experiment with them in cooking," said Spinniken. "This walk was a unique experience because she was talking about the ones that just grow wild. So many of them grow under your feet and it was interesting to know which ones are native to the area."
Crockett began studying herbs when she was pregnant with her first child nearly 30 years ago. She also used to have a business that grew and sold dried herbs as well as her own all-purpose salve. Her research and own growing led her to write a small book on herbs native to the area, which Oryana is updating and reprinting.
"I just wanted to be as healthy as possible and bring into the world as healthy a baby as possible," recalled Crockett, who is now the program director at the Doula Teen Parent Program. "Then when they got here, I thought, 'What can these herbs do for them?'"
Crockett found many ways that herbs helped her three kids through a host of childhood illnesses, including chicken pox, sinus infections, colds and ear infections. She also has used herbs to soothe poison ivy or athlete's foot, noting that nature often provides a gentle but effective remedy that helps the body's own healing processes.
Crockett's herb garden is anywhere there are plants. She wanders fields near her home and often walks the grounds at the Grand Traverse Commons, finding and harvesting treasures everywhere she goes.
As a long time gardener, Crockett has found that her cultivated garden space shrank proportionately as her interest in herbs grew.
"My herb garden is the whole area," Crockett said. "In our garden, what grows between the rows is sometimes as revered as what we plant. We don't even plant spinach anymore, we grow herbs like Pig Weed to eat."