appalachian herbalism at camp pleasant

Last weekend we hosted our first publicized herb workshop here at Camp Pleasant Farm. Admittedly, I did little for this effort, since my head is stuck in pickle, kraut, and farm world, but Melissa, together with our friend Andrew Ozinskas from Henry County, pulled off a wonderful day of working with herbs. We had about 20 people attend a 5 hour day complete with fresh lunch.

This blog post is just to share a glimpse of this kind of work that is being done here; it is in no way an attempt to pass on knowledge of herbs or how to process and use them. If you are interested in learning and attending gatherings in the future, don't hesitate to get in touch. We think this was a success and we plan to do more of this kind of workshop in the future. That said, enjoy some pics...

After a little meditation to get us all in the mood, we ventured out into the landscape to look at plants and listen to Andrew. We didn't make it far before we were circled around a plant we all recognize in July, Queen Ann's Lace, which I am sure is known by many herbalists by a more complex and fitting scientific name. If anyone can take a common"weed" and talk for 20 minutes and hold everyone's attention despite a heat index of 100, it is Andrew, who is a young, and frankly brilliant, herbalist. I am honored to have him at Camp Pleasant and I hope we continue to facilitate learning environments with him.

Crossvine, a powerful medicinal which was found and talked about. Each of us in the workshop were encouraged to pick a plant from the landscape and fill a jar with it. Later, when inside, we talked again about each herb and added alcohol to the jar to prepare a simple tincture...so everyone went home with a little something.

After working on individual tinctures, we moved onto a larger process of distilling essential oils from plants. Andrew gave us a nice description of what essential oils actually are (chrystalline particles on plants), which I will not attempt to recreate here. Again, I only want to give people a taste of the workshop and encourage you to get in touch if you would like to learn this stuff for yourself. (I'm a farmer and a very amatuer blogger, not an herbalist in any fashion...)



The essential oil distillation setup, including a pot of boiling water on the left, feeding steam into the large glass carboy filled with a mugwort-type plant. The steam travels around the plant matter, absorbing, among other things, the essential oils, which then travel to the right and through a condensor, which is being cooled by water being pumped around it via a small fish-tank water pump in the plastic bucket near the carboy. The essential oil and hydrosol exits the condensor at the bottom right of the picture and is deposited into a little funnel-type container where the hydrosol can be drained, leaving behind the essential oils.
A chalkboard drawing of a simpler distillation setup, which might be the topic of a future workshop, where participants would be given plans and details of the components of a small essential oil-extraction system for the home. Yes, that is a chalkboard on the wall. Just get a can of chalkboard paint and cover up a part of your wall, and presto, you have a chalkboard in the house. We have two. We love them.