Garden Prep and Rewards

As a person who has a chronic pain problem, doing the hard work at the beginning of the season can take a lot out of me and take a long time. This year I am trying things different and doing small amounts of time daily to get the garden ready for planting. Oregon's Spring transition into Summer is usually predictable with lots of sunny cool days mixed with some colder wet days. We will get a week or two of some really warm weather and think that Summer has arrived only to get the next week of frosty mornings and 50 degree days. So it is smart never to plant too early but you can always start seeds and get the ground ready to go. We are so lucky to have perfect weather for bulbs and tubers and flowers are everywhere by Feb into March with Daffodils, Tulips, Cherry Blossoms, Dog Woods, Magnolias, Iris and more. It is MY FAVORITE time of year!

So this is the mess my garden is right now. Loaded with dandelion, purple dead nettle, nipplewort, and a few other things I am not sure what they are but there are plenty of them.I am going in about 30 minutes a day and pulling weeds. I feed my birds the greens daily and I harvest the dandelion roots. It is better to harvest roots in the Fall, but I need my bed cleared for the starts I will plant sometime between Mother's Day weekend and the Strawberry festival, whose parade makes sure I don't leave my house all day and brings the whole town to my front door. Last year, we dumped a lot of dirt and compost where we had some potatoes growing and the soil never really became compacted after we harvested them in the Fall. Pulling the dandelion roots after a good rainy day is pretty easy. Even only working for a short time gets a good handful of roots.

I take the roots in the kitchen and scrub them with a toothbrush, chop them up and put them on a paper towel to dry in my pantry window. After a few days they are nice and dry and they go in a jar with some silica packs to keep them free from moisture.

To prepare dandelion root for use, we would do it decoction style. One ounce of dried root to one pint of water, simmer down to reduce by 1/4, strain, cool and use as needed.

"Dandelion root and leaf could protect against oxidative stress linked atherosclerosis and decrease the atherogenic index" (Choi, 2015).

Some people find the root a good coffee substitute. Some people use it to support liver and kidney function and help with lactation. More info about the uses of dandelion can be found at the University of Maryland Medical center site, here. 

Read more about the benefits of Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and make use of that harvest as you prepare your garden this year! 

http://www.herballegacy.com/Chhabra_Medicinal.html 

https://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dandel08.html

WebMD uses, side effects and warnings 


references:
Choi, Ung-Kyu et al. “Hypolipidemic and Antioxidant Effects of Dandelion (Taraxacum Officinale) Root and Leaf on Cholesterol-Fed Rabbits.”International Journal of Molecular Sciences 11.1 (2010): 67–78. PMC. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Parsley root decoction

Petroselinum crispum root used to make a decoction can be used for a myriad of conditions including arthritis, asthma, difficult urination, gout, hepatitis, high blood pressure, jaundice, rheumatism and sciatica, among others.

Making a decoction is easy. Use 1 pint of distilled water and add 1 ounce of parsley root, bring to a boil on the stove and let simmer until the liquid is reduced by ¼. The liquid will absorb quite a bit into the dried roots and it only takes about 10 minutes of simmering to reduce it. Pour the decoction through a strainer. I used the infusion stainless steel strainer. Then press the liquid out of the root to extract all available decoction. This first time I tried this decoction, there was not much liquid left. Decoctions keep for only a few days in the fridge anyway, so taking 2-4 Tbls 3-4 times a day, seems like the perfect amount. 

The dried root smells a lot like the parsley we are used to using in culinary practice. While it is simmering, the smell resembles a urine smell which I found interesting since parsley is identified as a diuretic, an herb that will support kidney function, cleansing the blood of toxins while helping the kidney act as a filter. It tastes sweet and is easy to swallow but does still have kind of a urine smell. Mixing this with another herb for palatability might be helpful for those who are bothered by it, chamomile might be a good one. 

It is important not to use parsley for more than culinary use when pregnant or lactating for the risk of elevated heart rate in babies. It is also not recommended for people with inflamed kidneys.

I am using the decoction I made and hope to see an improvement in my joint pain. I have a condition that causes arthritic symptoms and have had some problems with my wrists, neck and shoulders lately. Looking forward to seeing if this is helpful and depending on the results, will be adding parsley to my garden this year! 

Some resources on using parsley medicinally:

WebMD

Botanical.com

Drugs.com