Interviews on Herbal Radio with Thomas Dick | Featuring Ruby Daniels
This week’s episode of Herbal Radio features the botanical spiritualist, conservation-focused farmer, and owner of Creasy Jane’s herbal remedy store, Ruby Daniels. As a young girl, Ruby spent many of her summers in West Virginia roaming around the outdoors and crafting herbal concoctions with plants she’d find along her adventures. Inspired by her grandmother, a wise herbal healer in her community, Ruby was intrigued to unlock the spiritual connection between humans and the botanicals surrounding us. Today, Ruby is an advocate for sustainable farming and wild harvesting practices through her soil conservation work with USDA, along with sharing Afrolachian history and herbal remedies through her business, Creasy Jane’s, which was inspired by her grandmother and many other herbal healers in her community.
Sustainable Benefits of a Bioswale and Rain Garden
In Oregon, winters are notoriously known for rainy days, cloudy skies, and wet everything. Some may find it challenging to live without consistent sunshine, but there are many benefits to a seasonal abundance of water. The bioregion of Cascadia consists of numerous rivers, streams, and waterways that carry life to the land, providing nourishment for all species from the top of mountains down to the Pacific Ocean. In some areas, annual rainfall can reach up to 200 inches! So, what do we do with all this water?
Here at Mountain Rose Herbs, we are always thinking about how our business impacts our local watershed and how our company decisions regarding landscaping, stormwater runoff, and rainwater management can affect habitats further downstream. Our headquarters in Eugene, Oregon are adjacent to Amazon Creek and the Stewart Pond Wildlife Refuge. We have a clear daily visual of the ecosystems directly impacted by our presence. We built a rain garden and bioswale to prevent pollution and debris from entering our beloved waterways.
Sprouts: Growing Sustainable Food On Your Countertop
Eating sprouted seeds is a relatively recent culinary trend in the U.S., even though they are ridiculously easy to grow and can be an excellent source of potassium, magnesium, folate, beta-carotene, calcium, vitamin C, and vitamin K. These days, bean sprouts, grain sprouts, and salad sprouts are readily available at farmers markets, natural foods stores, and in the produce section of many grocery stores. But I grow my own because it’s easy to do, saves me money, and I like to keep control over the process to ensure that the sprouts I feed my family are safe and at the peak of flavor and nutrition.
Sprouts: Grow Sustainable Food on Your Countertop
Eating sprouted seeds is an easy, delicious way to capture a botanical’s nutrients, minerals, and vitamins at their peak. Depending on the sprouts you choose, they can be an excellent source of potassium, magnesium, folate, beta-carotene, calcium, vitamin C, and also vitamin K, which is a key vitamin for bone growth and blood clotting. They add flavor and texture to a wide variety of foods: salads, sandwiches, bagels, stir-fries, soups, frittatas, scrambled eggs, and more! These days they’re easy to find at farmers markets, natural foods stores, and in the produce section of many grocery stores, but did you know they are remarkably simple to grow right on your kitchen countertop? All you need is a jar, a sprouting screen or cheesecloth, seeds, and water.
Plant Stories | Featuring Kristy Bredin
This week’s Plant Stories episode features the marine herbalist, purveyor of seaweeds, and founder of Mermaid Botanicals, Kristy Bredin. With a passion for exploration, wildcrafting, and utilizing the medicinal plants of the Pacific Northwest, Kristy found herself drawn to the eldest marine ancestors of all botanicals we know today, seaweeds! We sit down with Kristy and learn about her journey that began through apprenticeships with wise herbalists who embarked her on her journey into the vast ocean of herbalism, wildcrafting, and seaweed activism. Kristy shares with us her profound knowledge of the ancient history of seaweeds, responsible seaweed harvesting practices, utilizing seaweeds as plant medicine, and even her recipe for kelp pickles!
Plant Stories | Featuring Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz
This week’s guest on Herbal Radio is the wise-spirited author and curandera (ku·ran·de·ra), Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz. We recorded our interview with Felicia prior to her keynote presentation for the 2023 Fall Virtual Free Herbalism Project, so be sure to check out her recorded presentation after listening to this episode!
In Felicia’s words, Curanderismo (ku·ran·de·ris·mo) is a 500-year-old traditional healing practice that is still in existence today. It is influenced by Spanish, Indigenous Mexican, the Moors, West African, and Native American traditional healing practices, and is a result of the blending of these cultures during colonization.
Plant Stories | Featuring Lucretia VanDyke
We are so pleased to feature another interview with our friend Lucretia VanDyke. On Herbal Radio, we have learned about Lucretia’s upbringing and what led her to work with plants, but we have never gotten to learn what plants she loves and why. In this Plant Stories episode, Lucretia talks about her favorite edible plants of New Orleans and the significance they played in her upbringing that began her herbalism journey.
With a journey that began when she was a little girl mixing herbs, mud, and roots on her grandparents’ farm, Lucretia VanDyke has had a lifelong connection to the plants. She has been in the wellness industry for over twenty-five years. Her quest for knowledge and storytelling has led her all over the world to learn about remedies, traditions, and ceremonies from indigenous healers.
One of the foremost experts on Southern folk healing arts, Lucretia integrates rituals, plant spirit meditation, holistic food/herbal medicine, and ancestor reverence into people’s practices.
Lucretia has worked and trained with many internationally known spa and skin care companies. She is a holistic educator, speaker, herbalist, sacred sexologist, ceremonialist, spiritual coach, intuitive energy practitioner, diviner, author, and world traveler. Lucretia brings her vivacious spirit and her message of ancestral connection in herbal practices to inspire others to embrace their unique relationship with the plants. Teaching herbal classes, cooking, storytelling, and foraging in the woods learning native medicine charges her soul.
Lucretia’s book African American Herbalism: A Practical Guide to Healing Plants and Folk Traditions is now available through Mountain Rose Herbs: https://mountainroseherbs.com/african-american-herbalism
Mountain Rose Herbs Seed Stewardship Project
As many of you know, at Mountain Rose Herbs, we invest time and energy into striking a balance between offering as many sustainably grown and harvested organic herbal allies as possible and simultaneously supporting the conservation of at-risk and endangered plants. We are excited that more and more people are recognizing the abundance Mother Nature has to offer and the many benefits that the botanical world provides. Unfortunately, the increasing impact of overharvesting on wild plants has left many of our most important botanicals at serious risk.
With this in mind, Mountain Rose Herbs has been working with United Plant Savers (UpS) to launch a new Seed Stewardship Project! With the help of UpS Executive Director Susan Leopold, we have chosen a variety of at-risk plant seeds that we are giving away to people who are able to plant them and help rebuild our at-risk plant communities. Now, when you place an order on MountainRoseHerbs.com, you will have the option to select a seed package for FREE. Plant them in a window box, in your back yard, or in a natural area where these plants once thrived—together we can ensure their survival one seed at a time.
Seed Stewardship Project: How You Can Help At-Risk Plants
At Mountain Rose Herbs, botanicals are our business, and the industry has been growing year over year as more people realize the health-supporting benefits of our plant allies. Sounds great, doesn’t it? In many ways, this is a wonderful return to valuing the abundance the natural world has to offer while utilizing the myriad benefits that botanicals provide. Unfortunately, the ongoing and increasing impact of overharvesting wild plants has left many of our native populations at significant risk of decline or even extinction. For this reason, we have invested our time and energy in striking a balance between increasing the availability of the number of botanicals we offer and supporting the conservation of the most at-risk plant varieties.
The Benefits & Uses of Catnip | Featuring Shana Lipner Grover
When we think about catnip, we of course think about cats, right? They can be wildly entertaining when they get their paws on this bountiful herbal ally. Nepeta cataria may make our kitties highly stimulated, but it has the opposite effect on humans; it is a fantastic nervine, a calming, relaxing botanical that is ready to help when we’re stressed or have muscular-skeletal tension, and when we’re menstruating. It’s also an aromatic bitter, so acts as a soothing ally when our gut isn’t happy.
We recently went on a plant walk with our friend Shana Lipner Grover from @SageCountryHerbs to learn more about this gentle herbal ally. Hear what she’s got to say about how this beneficial member of the mint family can be a helpful addition to your apothecary.
Find organic catnip here: https://mountainroseherbs.com/catnip
Grow your own herb garden: https://mountainroseherbs.com/catalog…
Shana is a clinical herbalist, health and nutrition educator, and field botanist. She was a student of award-winning herbalist Michael Moore and also one of Mountain Rose Herbs’ favorite herbalists, Howie Brounstein. Today, she is the director and primary educator of Sage Country Herbs School of Botanical Studies in San Diego, CA.
You can learn more about Shana and the Sage Country Herbs School by visiting htpps://www.SageCountryHerbs.com or by following her on Instagram @sagecountryherbs
