Mimosa

 We have always liked the Mimosa Tree. We decided early on when thinking about our Farm that we would have them on the property, my plan calls for six of these fast growing, Summer flowering, lovely things. We found a tree in town and took a few seed pods, then sprouted a few and one has been in the ground for three years now. The other is in a five gallon pot waiting for me to get busy and dig a hole for it. We liked it for the pretty. But as it turns out the Mimosa is a medicinal tree too. Something worth discussing here.

Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) comes in many shapes and sizes, under slight variations as to name. For our purposes we're going to stay with the tree, rather than the schrub, and the pink flowering "silk" tree as well. This is the most common version of the species. 

It is fast growing and very popular in landscape design world wide and it sees to grow redily in most temperate zone climates. Because it is fast growing it is prone to disease and is thought of as slightly invasive die to prolific seed pod generation. The tree is deciduous but weathers well in our garden during Winter months of cold and snow.

Use: The bark and flowers of this tree are most often used to make anti-anxiety and anti-depressive teas and tinctures, but salves and even jellies are made from extractions. In some places the tree is called the "Happiness Tree".  Medicinally the main medicinal portions are the flowers and the tree bark. While the flowers tend to have more uplifting and mood enhancing properties, the bark is more sedative and lifts the spirit when there is grief, sorrow, insomnia and anxiety. The plant is said to be anti-oxidant and cancer fighting as well. But it is mostly used to lift the spirits and help raise depressive moods. This is the use we are most interested in. There are no indications that remedies made from this plant have ill side effects or drug interactions if taken in moderation. Preparation: When preparing to use the bark, to make tinctures or teas, find branches that are a few years older than the newest growth, these will have bark with a thicker interior sub-surface. Pruning a Mimosa tree is always a good idea since the tree is very fast growing and, since it can reach as tall as fifty feet in just a few short years and become quite heavy in the branch which leads into wind damage. After taking your cuttings, simply slip a sharp knife between the branch and the bark and you will be able to pull strips of bark off easily. Preparing tea is as simple as putting one teaspoon of bark (preferably dried, but this is not necessary) into a cup of water and simmering for fifteen minutes. For tinctures it is always best to dry the bark first and this is made easier by the low density and moisture contained in the bark itself. Just lay it out on a table in the heat of Summer and it should be ready in a day or so. Then follow the normal tincture routine. The tincture will be usable in four to six weeks. When preparing flowers for use, simply collect as many as you can during the high Summer months. This tree flowers in great abundance so taking flowers will cut down on seed pod cleanup in early Winter. Drying the flowers before use in a cool dry place or dehydrator set on its lowest setting will give a better result when making tinctures. Preparing tea might use fresh or dried flowers, but if you plan on storing the flowers you really should dry them to avoid mold. Making tincture takes quite a few flowers and it is best to dry them before making tincture. Dosage: Boiled bark tea can be mixed with many other medicinal and flavorful herbs. The tea on it's own is a bit bitter so adding cranberry or stevia and mint to your tea will make it taste a bit better. Using Earl Grey or Orange Pekoe as an additive won't change the effects much but improve the flavor. After the tea cools a bit drinking as much as a half cup, four time a day, should give you the lift you need. With Bark tinctures it is always a good idea to start with a teaspoon dose and increase dosage if needed. This can be repeated up to four times a day without worry of over-doing it and there are no significant drug interactions to worry over. Flower based remedies are much the same for dosage. Further distillation of alcohol tinctures can lead into the realm of the unknown.

Making Tinctures

Tincture Bottle

 Tinctures are the easiest means of getting medicinal plant essence into the blood stream. Simply applying a tincture under the tongue will get a quick reaction. Eating a tincture, or infusion rich food, will slow the amount of supplement and delay the effects. Both of these can be very useful in using Home Remedy Herbal Supplements. There are two basic sorts of tinctures. Alcohol tinctures, which use alcohol to strip the plant material of it's beneficial essence; Vinegar tinctures, which are used less except by professional makers.

You may read, in other sources, that you may use either fresh plant materials or dried plant materials, much to the same effect. These sources will tell you that the difference is found mostly in the water content. But I am recommending that you always use dehydrated, or naturally dried, plant materials. When water leave a plant there are new molecules created by the drying and the plant matter is more easily broken up without releasing bitter chlorophyll flavors and colors into the mix. 

Making an alcohol tincture is really quite simple. You put whatever herb you are extracting into a Mason Jar of sufficient size and pour alcohol into the jar to cover. Sealing the jar's lid the mixture is set aside in a dark place for six to eight weeks and then strained through a cheesecloth to remove the plant material. You can double filter the mix using a coffee filter as well. Then pour the mix off into Tincture bottles or nearly anything else that holds water and use it.

A Vinegar Tincture is made much the same way, but vinegar is used to extract the plant's essence in place of alcohol. Vinegar Tinctures are often made to impart flavors into foods directly. Pepper seed tinctures are relatively common  Perhaps the best way to store them is in the original vinegar bottle. 

Be aware that alcohol is flammable whether you are using eighty proof vodka, my favorite, or 190 proof Everclear there is a danger to it. 

 Tinctures contain the essence of the plant and have almost no home remedy benefits on their own.  There is no dose for Tinctures without plant essence in them.  Once infused, dosage becomes about trying to find a therapeutic amount of Tincture and then holding to it. In the case of the Purple Dead Nettle Tincture I found the dose which works is about half a teaspoon dispensed by the eye dropper that came with the Tincture bottle. My need is to relieve swelling in a knee which has a bad meniscus tendon. My wife uses the same Tincture, but about a full teaspoon, but she is treating Osteo Arthritis in her hands and back, where swelling is only a partial symptom. The plant itself doesn't come bearing any serious warnings about dosage, so finding the right dosage is about finding the level that works then gently increasing or decreasing the dose for better or worse. 

Tinctures are easily made, generally safe, and can be very effective when used correctly.  With few warnings most tinctures can be tried without too much danger, but common sense comes to play when talking about using any medicines and if there is any doubt or worry at all, consult your doctor. 

Lemon Balm

 Working with the plants I have in abundance here at Creekside Farm is my first priority. Each plant must be identified and researched, then tested using the research I have to work with. Lemon Balm, a cousin to the extraordinary mint family, is one such plant. 

One of the properties I have always admired in Lemon Balm is the Lemon Pledge smell it puts off whenever it is agitated. I have not seen Lemon Pledge, a furniture polish, on the grocery shelf for a very long time, but the smell of lemon Balm always takes me back to my childhood where my mother used the stuff. 

Generally speaking:  Lemon balm is called Melissa Officinalis. The literal translation of this scientific name is bee honey used pharmaceutically.  This is a member of the Mint family and other plants of this family include many herbal medicinal plants. The leaves are heart shaped and have a lemony scent when crushed of disturbed. The serrated edge makes finding this plant in the garden fairly easy.  Lemon Balm is used as a food flavoring, but it is also considered a medicinal plant with many sedative and calming effects.

Lemon balm contains chemicals that seem to have a sedative and calming effect. It might also reduce the growth of some viruses and bacteria. People use lemon balm for cold sore, anxiety, stress, insomnia, indigestion, and Dementia, but there is no good scientific evidence to support many of these uses.

• Hot water extracts have antiviral properties. 
• Creams containing extracts proven effective for cutaneous lesions of the Herpes simplex virus. 
• Aqueous extracts inhibit cell division of tumor cells; 
• Spirits of Melissa demonstrated effective in psychiatric disorders.

Extracting Lemon Balm

Tincture of Lemon Balm is called Spirits of Melissa and this is made using the Tincture method of alcohol extraction. But unlike many tinctures Sprits of Mellissa are of limited use, primarily as a psychiatric supplement. 

Salve Jar

Lemon Balm Salve can be made at home using just a few simple ingredients and is quite useful as a skin treatment for skin lesions, herpes sores, and skin rashes. It is said that this salve may have an effect of skin cancer cells, but there is little research on this effect.

To make about two cups of salve you will need:

• 4 cups of dried lemon balm leaves
• 1 cup of coconut oil (or Bees Wax)
• 1 cup of olive oil (or Shea Butter)
• A clean cheesecloth

Salve Tin

Place the lemon balm leaves and olive oil in a food processor or blender and pulse until they're finely chopped, then transfer the mixture to a double boiler over a small saucepan on low heat. Infuse for 2 hours on low heat, then strain through a cheesecloth or coffee filter. Clean the pot used to infuse the mixture and clean it before putting the infusion back in. Over a low heat add the coconut oil and stir until the beeswax has melted completely. The salve will remain soft, but will change as it cools so pouring the mixture into a salve container of jar while it is hot is a good idea. Keep this salve in a cool dark place and it should last for at least six to eight months.

Purple Dead Nettle

 

Another update. The original post was done exactly one month ago on June 24th, 2024. This note is on July 24th, 2024 and is simply adding information, not changing the original post. . . I have been using this tincture for just over a month and the benefits seem to be accruing. My torn meniscus tendon injury, twenty years of pain and progressively horrid dysfunction, has nearly cleared up. The injury is still there. I feel the pain in my knee whenever I walk too fast or am not careful how I position it when I sleep. I still cannot cross my legs comfortably. But there is quite an improvement in function and significant pain relief. I began using the knee almost normally once more and the strength lost due to keeping my leg artificially straightened and stiff, to avoid pain, has allowed my legs to return to proper uses slowly. I began climbing low stairs with some normalcy at the onset of this experiment, but yesterday I carried a fifty pound sack up stairs on my shoulder without trouble. (I weigh 280, so I carried 330 up stairs without much trouble.) At work around the Farm I can spend four hours walking and the only trouble I have is in my feet. I have begun reducing my weight to help out there but losing weight is trouble at any age. The knee, though easy to make angry, isn't much of a problem and any trouble I start doesn't persist. I can now lift my knee above my hips while standing, making dressing easy, and can rise from the ground with far less effort and no pain. But the benefits go on from there. As a sixty-five year old man, and quite a large man who has some of the troubles associated with my prostate, I was having some incontinence and erectile trouble due to prostate swelling. This is ended. My labido, or at least the outward appearance of my labido, has returned to nearly full function. This loss of function is called "erectile dysfunction" these days but this is a normal result of aging so I might argue the issue is centered more in life choices than actual loss of function. Today, if I think about it, I can perform almost normally and all incontinence is ended. The prostate swelling seems to have abated for the most part. Being sixty-five there is no normal to return to, this is all untested ground. But the results are significant. Again. I cannot make medical advice, or give real evidense for anything whatsoever. This is only to document my experiences. But the experience I am having is positive as of July 24th. Last week we added Marijuana to a sample of this tincture to try compounding and the trials are ongoing, but really positive for pain and anxiety relief at the same low doses. We have also harvested Mimosa Bark to set up new experiments in compounding an anti-depressive tincture. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Original Post: An Update on our purple Dead Nettle Experiments from early April. In this I discussed finding the plant growing in my derelict garden in early Spring and then about my research effort and tentative trail use.

We found out about this wonderful little plant this Spring when it was growing voraciously throughout our garden beds. I had seen a YouTube video about Stinging Nettle and went looking for it, but found Purple Dead Nettle instead. This cousin to the mint family had certain medicinal qualities and so I tried it out simply by chewing a bit of it and then spitting it out. The anti-inflammatory effects were nearly immediate and a problem which has caused me endless knee joint pain for years decreased significantly because the swelling went away. So we did some research and decided to make a medicinal tincture from it.

The process took eight weeks and used a quart of organic potato vodka (so it doesn't trigger Ann's gluten allergy) to draw out the medicines. The processing was simple and we had done extracts before, so knew something of how to keep the downsides out of the mix. In the end we made three different jars, one was straight Purple Dead Nettle (not purple, not dead, and not a nettle at all). The second jar was Purple Dead Nettle with some Spearmint leaves thrown in for flavoring. The third we added Chocolate Mint. All three jars had to sit in the dark for eight weeks.

When we pulled them out I tasted them all using a kitchen teaspoon and put about a tenth of a teaspoon under my tongue at a time. Taste wise, the Chocolate Mint brew was better tasting so we bought a few tincture bottles, the sort with an eye dropper in it, and filled one of them with the stuff. Then the real experimenting started.

I began using this last Tuesday at breakfast. I simply pulled about a half of a teaspoon into the eye dropper and squirted it under my tongue and left it sit there for a half minute before washing it down with juice or whatever I had in my glass. Because of the alcohol content, putting the stuff under your tongue imparts the medicine almost directly into the bloodstream and the effects are nearly immediate.

For the past three days I haven't thought much about my knee, the pain dissipated, any swelling disappeared, and the joint became useful once more. When I sleep I am no longer awakened by twinges of pain from my knee and it is no longer sensitive to being positioned less carefully. The knee joint was always painful, even when sitting or laying down, and it caused me to limp noticeably most of the time. I injured it by misusing the thing and never wearing knee pads, so this has been a long time of often intense pain which could not be avoided. The pain is mostly gone today.

Today I am walking almost normally and beginning to put weight on the leg when climbing stairs and rising from the ground or chair. Being able to work on conditioning will only make things better over time. There simply is no swelling and the nerve endings have calmed to a point where I can walk naturally. I gave up using Voltaren (a topical analgesic with side effects and warnings) this week as unnecessary and go half the day before noticing my knee except to notice there is nothing wrong with it. My knee is still physically injured, this is only going to be fixed by surgery on the meniscus tendon. But using the tincture of Purple Dead Nettle it looks a though I won't need to have things fixed at all. The stuff is amazing.

Ann has had Osteo-Arthritis in her lower back and hands for the past four years, some days nearly debilitating, all days suffering some ill effects. She too was doing half a teaspoon in the morning and it was doing her some good. She was using Voltaren on her hands at bed time and in the morning to help stave off the pain and allow her to work. Today she upped the dose to a teaspoon and is moving around normally. She still has some twinges of pain, but the pain is not associated with the swelling, it is of the bone itself. Her pain was much more acute than mine, but it too is beginning to slack off and allow her to do the work we have to do here.

If you want to try some of this tincture out. Get in touch and we will hook you up. No side effects to be expected. Nothing in it that might hurt you that we know of. It is something of a miracle in a two ounce bottle and makes me wonder what other good ideas we might find out in the garden.