I’ve been busy wildcrafting and IDing everything in sight! On Father’s Day I was driving home, turned a corner, looked over to my left and BAM! HUNDREDS of Mullien plants. Yes, I turned the car around, picked a couple of whole plants (roots and all) and topped off a few flower stalks.

I have mullien flower oil and tincture going. I put the flower stalks in a glass of water like any cut flower and await the blooms to add more to the tincture or oil. (Note: soak the things under water for a few hours to help extract any little “bibbits” crawling or flying about in them. Bugs love mullien.) I also started an oil and tincture of the leaves and am drying out some leaves for medicinal and magical uses later on.

I have also collected some Dandelion flowers which I’m making an oil from. What? No tincture? No. From the uses of this plant, I would only really want a tincture from the leaves for the health benefits but I only collected the flowers this week. (me and my handy empty coffee cup from work after hours in the field already would have looked suspicious, LOL) The picture doesn’t do it justice though, even now after a few days it’s a much brighter yellow than it shows.

Another plant I’m currently playing with is Yellow Wood Sorrel. Medicinally it’s nothing compared to the others but it is edible and a good vitamin C source so I’m tincturing a little bit to see if the sour of the leaves transfers that way. If so I might consider doing a vinegar tincture to add to oils for a salad dressing. I’m drying some too since magically it is used for healing spells. Never know when you might run into a need for it.

So that is what I have been up to lately. I also made an AWESOME scrub but it’s not “herbal” per say so that will be for another time.

You may have noticed my use of baby food jars. I think these are the best things on earth for a beginner herbalist like myself. I’m playing and experimenting and learning (which means making mistakes) and it’s better to mess up with 2 oz of olive oil than a whole quart. Besides, I haven’t figured out what I’d do with a quart of Mullien leaf oil yet. It saves on if I don’t use it and it goes bad.  It also makes gathering easier. It took no time at all to fill a small jar with mullien flowers where I don’t know if I could have had the patience to fill a quart jar.