Harvesting Mugwort for Healing / Healing Garden

Today we're harvesting our herbs in the garden, anything that's ready. With mugwort, we harvest it when there's flowers on it. You want to harvest it before it goes to seed. So that's what I'm doing currently. Some I'm going to actually leave on there to save seed, since that'll be also something that we offer for you guys. So mugwort is also like a variety of ragweed. So it can be invasive if you don't want it to, you know, spread everywhere. You're going to want to cut it right now anyway, so that way the seeds don't go everywhere. It is a perennial for us here in Wisconsin Zone 5, so that's really nice. It's a really beautiful plant. A lot of times people use them as a hedge in gardens and just to add that that tall visual in your garden. And it's just so beautiful as you can see. So we're going to harvest it for its medicinal uses. It almost swallowed me up. And it's kind of cool because today is a full moon. And I love a full moon. I just feel like so much more energetic on those days. And today I felt really inspired to start, you know, getting more of our herbs harvested and cut down. And then I realized it was a full moon and I'm just like, yeah, that makes sense. So with mugwort too, when you cut it, it will continue to grow and flourish. You can also harvest its roots, which you want to cut it first and then you can harvest the roots. So we're going to use this in teas. You can make tinctures. You can also use it in food. It's not going to hurt you. It's used a lot for digestive, immunity, and joint pain. So we're going to make a really good tea with a lot of these beneficial herbs together. We're going to enjoy it this fall and winter. So as you can see, some of the flowers here are starting to turn brown. We're going to leave some on because we're going to actually go ahead and collect some of those seeds. We don't need all of these seeds. So I am going to trim down some more because I don't want it going everywhere. Mugwort is a very, very beneficial medicinal plant and it's used a lot for digestive and even for depression and they're also saying it's anti-cancer. It can help fight those types of things. There's still more research being done on it, but it's really interesting and I really, really highly suggest you guys to take a look at this plant. All right, so we've got a lot, a lot here. I do have my big drying bins, but these I'm going to actually hang for a little bit because I do want to add some into some healing bundles so that way we can sell some dried healing herbs together. But for now we're gonna band them and then we're gonna hang them. So pretty! Look how pretty! I love it. So this is our back hallway. It's shady and darker, cooler. You can hear my laundry going. Got a multi-task this time of year and now it's just gonna stay here and we're gonna let it dry a little bit. Oh my goodness! I don't know what's going on in there, just towels. And I think it's very clear that our garden is our sacred space. We really truly just grow what we like to eat and what we like to see and what draws in, you know, all of the bees, the butterflies, all these beautiful insects and nature into the garden. It's really fun to just relax in here and take a breath in here. And so this year we're using our garden in that new way that we've been talking about all season. And a lot of the new plants we're growing this year aren't really new to us. They're already, they've already been growing in our garden, but there's a few new ones and we're just learning new ways of using them because everybody's talking about preparedness, right? And for us it's not just about the food, it's also about the medicine. I've grown up learning how to grow food and flowers. That's something that I've always known. I was very fortunate to grow up in that industry and to learn it from a baby since I could walk. And that's what I love sharing here. But, you know, I felt like what I didn't know, what was really lacking, was the depth of the information of the plants I was growing. And that type of information being healing. So, healing through your mind, body, and spirit. You know, we're not always, like, going to be the ones that know everything about every single medicinal or beneficially useful plant in our garden. This has been a learning journey and it's been kind of one that's also, you know, when you're sharing as you're learning it can, it can feel very like a very vulnerable moment. And I do feel, though, that it's very important to share as we go. But I'm looking forward to next season after we harvest all of these plants. And once we harvest them, then we use them over the fall and winter months. So that way we can really get our own feel, our own experiences to share with all of you. Even through the winter in the greenhouse and in the house with mixing, making teas, tinctures, bundles, oils, hydrosols, all of that fun stuff. And this is really exciting for me because I love putting and playing in my garden. And maintaining it is really, like, me playing. So that's what I love about it. And this is like a whole new way to play with everything. So we're also going to be, you know, saving a lot more seeds, which we've been doing over the years. But we usually just save our most favorite varieties. But this year we're saving additional and more seeds just because we want to be able to offer our seeds from our garden to you guys, to your garden.