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Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health
Survival medicine 101: Three natural remedies for pain relief, infections and for improving heart health
(Natural News) Herbs and plants make for potent medicines and holistic treatments for a range of ailments, from muscle pain to bacterial infections. These natural remedies also do not cause harmful side effects like drugs and are cost-efficient to boot.
In one of his recent articles published online, prepper and natural medicine proponent Claude Davis shared three of his grandfather’s most potent remedies made using medicinal plants. These remedies succeed despite the failures of modern medication to treat the same health issues, said Davis.
He also noted that each of these remedies performs for a particular purpose. One helps neutralize pain, another combats life-threatening bacterial infections and the last eliminates cholesterol plaque, a major biomarker for heart disease.
Potent natural remedies
The three remedies are made from plants that can be found in abundance throughout the U.S. These plants include Cotyledon tomentosa, Usnea barbata and Crataegus oxyacantha. Read on to learn about the in-depth benefits of and preparation methods used for each one.
Angry bear paw
According to Davis, his grandfather had used this first remedy to either treat hurt soldiers on the battlefield or ease the pain of dying ones. His grandfather had learned it from a Native American healer adept at using medicinal plants and remedies.
It involves using the leaves of bear’s paw (C. tomentosa), a plant endemic to South Africa. Davis’ grandfather ground and boiled the leaves and kept stirring until he had a dark and viscous substance.
He strained it and then left it to simmer for another three to four hours until the substance became darker and thicker. This can then be consumed as is like cough syrup for fast-acting relief from intense pain.
Log man’s mending fur
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How to Make Your Garden Have Less Weeds?
HOW TO MAKE YOUR GARDEN HAVE LESS WEEDS?
In crop gardens, we sometimes get into a spatial race with weeds, and the solution is to replace the weeds with “designed weeds” to take up the space. This can be done with green manure mulches to fertilize the gardens and supply quality mulch. This is an example of how understanding the inner workings of weeds allows us to harmonize with natural systems to both repair the earth and create production for ourselves.
It’s important to understand that the term “weed” is applied to any plant that isn’t wanted in a particular area. While we now call dandelions weeds, they once were sought-after greens. Banana trees are so prone to take root in the tropics that someone might consider them a weed, removing them from the yard, though they are the best-selling fruit in the world. The point is that just because we call a plant a weed doesn’t mean it lacks value. “Weeds” can be useful, or they can be prevented. Often, it’s us, as cultivators, who make and foster these choices or pick our small battles.
Mulch – The best way to have a weed-free garden is to prevent them in the first place, and organic mulch is probably the best way to go about that. Thickly (about 5-10 cm) mulch gardens with straw or leaves to effectively suppress weeds, and those weeds that do make it through are much more easily pulled. Not only will mulching help with weeds, but it’ll reduce the need to water, support soil life, and prevent erosion. Ultimately, the mulch will break down and continually replenish and improve the soil.
3 Medicinal Herbs You Can Grow Indoors
3 Medicinal Herbs You Can Grow Indoors
The advances in modern medicine are obviously wonderful and have added years to the average American’s lifespan. But what will you do when medical care isn’t so readily available, such as in a survival scenario or for a mild ailment? Hopefully, this list of three medicinal herbs that everyone can easily grow in their own home will help you decide if herbal medicine could be of some aid.
The use of traditional remedies increases when conventional medicine is ineffective in the treatment of disease, such as in advanced cancer and in the face of new infectious diseases. Furthermore, traditional medicines are widely perceived as natural and safe and non-toxic. Although that isn’t necessarily true, especially when combining herbs with chemically made medicines, each person should still decide for themselves if they would like to begin growing medicinal herbs. If you decide that’s right for you, here are three herbs that anyone can grow in the comfort of their own home!
1.ALOE VERA
Aloe vera plants have many benefits, and not just for the skin. Most people know of using aloe vera gel to soothe a sunburn. When you snap open an aloe vera leaf, you’ll immediately notice the clear gel inside. That gel is packed full of nutrients that are great for common skin ailments such as cold sores, minor cuts, and rashes. Aloe gel will help soothe the pain and itching and speed up healing.
Basil: What Every Permaculturalist Should Know
BASIL: WHAT EVERY PERMACULTURALIST SHOULD KNOW
In a design system in which we are looking for each element to perform multiple functions, there are few plants that can show off quite the way basil does. As a rule of thumb, things are expected to warrant their placement within our designs with at least two useful attributes, but basil performs well all over the show. It dazzles in the kitchen, the garden, the herb spiral, the food forest, the medicine cabinet, the artisanal products, and the blender. This article is here to delve into that, the seedy world of basil. (Warning: Basil is not good for making puns, even for practiced writers.)
IN THE GARDEN
Basil is a great addition to permaculture gardens. Despite having plenty of perennial varieties, the big challenge can be that they are not particularly frost-hardy. They like a lot of sun, and in tropical climates, they can endure both wet and dry season without much bother. For places that dip below freezing, basil might work better as a potted plant that lives inside for the winter, and there it will still need plenty of light, six to eight hours of sun or ten-plus of artificial light. Hey, it’s a big world, to each place its own, but if basil is in your wheelhouse, it is worth it. It works overtime in the garden.
• As with any member of the mint clan, it does well to confuse many garden insects, so it works as a pest deterrent on behalf of the other plants within its system.
• On the other hand, bees absolutely love a flowering basil plant, so it will invite those pollinators in to do their work.
• Basil is very aromatic and simply walking by it, or brushing up against it, fills the area with something lovely to breathe.
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Perennial Polycultures-The Biomass Belt: Fertility Without Manure
PERENNIAL POLYCULTURES – THE BIOMASS BELT: FERTILITY WITHOUT MANURE
We’ve been looking into fencing our plots, and how to meet fertility demands of the establishing perennial crops such as fruits, nuts, herbs and perennial vegetables without relying on animal manures and imported compost, and have come up with a polyculture that may meet both of these needs that we call the biomass belt.
WHAT IS THE BIOMASS BELT?
The biomass belt is a perennial polyculture dedicated to growing mulch and fertilizer fodder that can apply to annual and perennial crops. It’s a very simple closed system that can quickly provide a supply of nutrient dense liquid fertiliser or nutrient dense mulch material as well as valuable habitat.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The polyculture is composed of mineral accumulating comfrey in raised beds, Nitrogen fixing ground cover sown into the pathways and a Nitrogen fixing hedgerow. Local native herbaceous annuals and perennials are also encouraged to grow within the hedgerow.
The comfrey is grown in raised beds for biomass and can be cut from 4 – 7 times each year with the material being used to make liquid fertiliser or used directly as mulch. The deeply rooted comfrey mines nutrients deep in the subsoil that would otherwise wash away with the underground soil water or remain inaccessible to other plants. Some of these nutrients are relocated within the comfrey leaf biomass. As the biomass is cut and applied as the mulch or converted into liquid fertiliser, the nutrients are delivered back to the top soil and again accessible to crops and other plants.
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8 Common Plants to Grow For Their Medicinal Benefits (All Great For Indoor Container Gardens)
8 COMMON PLANTS TO GROW FOR THEIR MEDICINAL BENEFITS (ALL GREAT FOR INDOOR CONTAINER GARDENS)
If the soil could be fixed by adding quality organic biomass, reinvigorating an entire ecosystem, then why couldn’t we do the same thing for our bodies, ecosystems in their own right? My wife Emma and I started watching documentaries like Food Matters and Simply Raw, reading books about herbal medicine and fermentation, and learning from people we were meeting through permaculture. We suddenly found ourselves thinking about enzymes, probiotics, gut flora, and antioxidants. We became fast fans of fresh herbs in every meal and including certain beneficial spices and veggies regularly. Undoubtedly, it felt right, and we felt better than ever.
What we found was that some of the most powerfully medicinal foods had been right at our fingertips all along. They were easy to grow, required little space (could work in pots, in fact), and naturally strengthened our immune systems, regulated blood sugar, steadied blood pressure, lubricated joints, prevented inflammation, helped our skin, and generally bettered our well-being. We adopted simple ways to include them in our meals throughout the day, and we started sharing our new dietary practice and home production methods. And, that felt right, too.
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Magic in the Garden: Five Plants With Medicinal Properties
MAGIC IN THE GARDEN: FIVE PLANTS WITH MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
The sparkle of mystery in my son’s eyes as he told me his story brought a smile to my face, and memories to mind. As a young girl, I can remember how wonderfully magical my grandparent’s garden was. It was full of beautiful flowers, herbs, and plants. A bridal wreath shrub grew, succulents thrived beneath the awning of the shed, and hydrangeas and peppermint herbs lined the side of the house. Wisterias grew along a re-purposed lattice fence next to lovely miniature azaleas. The whole scene was beautiful, bright, and so fragrant.
This also gave me the inspiration for this article. As many of you may have guessed, the plant that my brother in law showed my son was an aloe vera plant. I explained how helpful aloe vera gel is to our skin, and that this was the magic ingredient in the medicine I put on his skin when he gets sunburn.
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