Wild Medicinal Plants to Forage

John Moore: [00:00:00] Welcome to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends Podcast. The world is full of aromatic, flavorful, medicinal, and powerful herbs, and we’re taking a whole podcast episode to celebrate just a few of them. In this episode, our returning MOTHER EARTH NEWS friend, Bevin Cohen of Small House Farm, highlights some herbs you can forage or cultivate around your area and incorporate into numerous dishes and products to enjoy.

This is MOTHER EARTH NEWS.

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[00:01:23] Introducing Bevin Cohen

Jessica Mitchell: Well, good day everyone, and we appreciate you for joining us on another exciting MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends podcast. I’m Jessica Mitchell, and joining me today is Bevin Cohen of Small House Farm. At MOTHER EARTH NEWS for 50 years and counting, we’ve been dedicated to conserving our planet’s natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources.

And today we are doing an herbal spotlight podcast episode on some really awesome herbs. Instead of focusing on herbs that are super popular right now on social media or even in the [00:02:00] grocery store, like thyme, chamomile, lavender, basil, which are all great herbs, we’re gonna take some time to get to know some other ones that don’t always get that mainstream spotlight we see nowadays on some herbs. And so Bevin is here to talk about that and how these herbs are super important and can find a place in your herbal practice if they aren’t already.

So Bevin has joined us in the past to talk about seed saving and making your own pressed oils at home, and we’ll link those podcast episodes in our show notes. And today he’s here to share his knowledge on herbs. So welcome to the podcast, Bevin.

Bevin Cohen: Jessica, I’m so happy to be back on the show. Thanks for having me.

Jessica Mitchell: Thank you. I’m very excited for this episode. So, can you tell listeners a little bit about what you do at Small House Farm?

Bevin Cohen: Sure. Well, we do a lot of stuff here at Small House Farm. It’s a busy little place, you know? So like you talked about, we do a lot of seed saving here. We grow a lot of seed, not only just for personal use, but for [00:03:00] historical preservation as well as commercial sales. We sell a lot of seeds online through our website, a lot of old heirlooms and herbs and flowers and veggies and that sort of thing.

We own, uh, an apothecary. We have an apothecary business. So we grow and forage a number of different herbs, all sorts of different stuff, that we craft into a wide selection of beauty and wellness products. We cold press seeds and nut oils. That’s kind of how we got started here. And we use a lot of those oils, not only in our kitchen of course, but then in our herbal products that we offer.

And then I travel a lot, especially in the spring and fall, offering educational programming for folks so they can learn how to use seeds and herbs and, and the benefits of locally grown food. So it’s a happening little joint.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, that is awesome. Definitely keeps you busy.

Bevin Cohen: Yeah, that’s an understatement for sure.

Jessica Mitchell: And you’ve also been at our MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fairs, and, and you’ve started coming to some of them this year already, right?

Bevin Cohen: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I love going to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair. And I’m already looking forward to the ones coming up.

Jessica Mitchell: Yes. So if anybody is wanting to come to the fair, you can definitely see Bevin and [00:04:00] see some of his presentations.

So on the topic of herbalism, how did you find yourself an herbalist?

Bevin Cohen: That’s a good question. I mean, I’ve always been fascinated with plants ever since I was, you know, just a little kid. My, I lived with my grandmother and we live really on the edge of town, right up against a large stretch of forest. So I’d spend a lot of my days, you know, as a young boy, just kind of wandering around in the woods and doing things that kids do, you know, um, like tai chi and stuff, cuz that’s a normal thing for kids to do out in the woods.

But you know, one day I was out there and I was just kind of sitting around and I came across some wintergreen plants, and that’s really where my whole journey started was with these little wintergreens. I thought they were adorable. The little fruits. As a little kid, they kind of reminded me of like little apples, and I just thought, oh, I loved them. I thought they were so cool. And then I started thinking about if just in this little patch of woods that I’m in, there’s so many different cool plants, how many awesome plants are there in the whole world? And it really just triggered something inside of me. This curiosity that I’ve, I’ve never been able to satisfy. It’s just an endless opportunity to just explore the world and [00:05:00] find all these cool plants and all the cool things that they offer us. And then being able to teach other people about this wonderful world that we live in is a cool opportunity that I have. I’m really blessed to be able to teach people about plants, so then I get to see other people get as excited about plants as I am.

So it just kind of organically took over and it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just become a way of life for me now.

Jessica Mitchell: That’s so wonderful, and it’s so cool hearing how just that some of those small little moments as a kid just sparks that passion. I love that.

[00:05:28] What is an Herb?

Jessica Mitchell: Now on the topic of herbs, I thought we could first set the stage with just this whole idea of what an herb is. Because I think sometimes, at least me coming from a background of, of not knowing a lot about herbs until I really got older, um, there can be a little bit of confusion of like, what defines an herb?

So Bevin, I thought that could be a great question to start off with, with, um, what, what really defines an herb and what an herb is.

Bevin Cohen: That’s a great question. I’m actually gonna give you two different [00:06:00] answers. Now, botanically speaking, an herb is defined as a seed-bearing plant that does not have a woody stem and that dies down after flowering.

But if we’re gonna go by that definition, we’re gonna be leaving out a lot of great plants. The first one that comes to mind to me, um, is rosemary. Right before we came here for the interview, I was watering my rosemary plants. And with that woody stem, it wouldn’t technically fall under the definition of an herb, but we of course think of rosemary as an herb, right? So I like to think of an herb as any plant that’s got leaves and seeds or flowers that we can use for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume.

So sometimes, you know, we’re gonna get a little broad with our definition of herbs. Um, sometimes I, I work with trees, you know, we’ll work with mushrooms. We’re gonna be working with roots. All these different things that may not technically botanically be considered herbs, but I like to consider herbs any plant that has a wonderful use. And that’s almost all of them really.

[00:06:49] Herbs as Food, Herbs as Medicine

Jessica Mitchell: Yes, definitely. And so I know we kind of talk about how herbs are, are really, you can use them in culinary ways, medicinal ways, ornamental ways. What makes herbs [00:07:00] so great when you’re cooking with them, using them as medicine, or even just using them as decoration?

Bevin Cohen: Yeah, what makes herbs so great? Um, I don’t know if the show is long enough for me to list all of those different things, Jessica.

Jessica Mitchell: I know that’s a long explanation.

Bevin Cohen: Herbs are so great. Um, you know, well, let’s just, let’s start in the kitchen with our plants. And we’ll think about, uh, all the different, the nuances of aromas and flavors that herbs can bring to our meal.

Now, certainly the vegetables and, and, and meats that we’re cooking, they have their own flavors, but we can enhance that and make it even better by utilizing these herbs. If we think about herbs in the apothecary, all medicines traditionally have come from plants, right? And herbs botanically speaking, or by our, our, our looser definition that we like to use are, are the basis of all medicines, right? Whether they be traditional medicines or modern medicines that were originally also derived from plants. So we need to utilize those herbs that way as well.

And if we wanna think about herbs as ornamentals, well, gosh, they’re beautiful. I mean, they’re awesome, right? And I love even just a bundle of herbs hanging up in the [00:08:00] kitchen. That’s practically it, it sits there for drying, right? But gosh, it looks cool. It’s, it’s a beautiful plant. And we can make wreaths with our herbs. We can do all sorts of wonderful things with them.

Where I think that we might really wanna think about this is when we take herbs and separate them into three categories like we just did here. Ornamental and culinary and medicinal, almost we’re doing ourselves a disservice because I feel that all of those three things really overlap. Those are are the same to me in a way, right? Now, through the proper lens, we can see that our food is our medicine. So from culinary points of view, that’s a medicinal application of herbs as well. And ornamental things, things that are beautiful, that raises the spirits, that makes us feel better. It helps us feel more calm, whatever it might be, that could be considered medicinal as well, right? So all of three of these things are really all the same thing to me.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, that’s a really great point. I love that answer. Now on that topic of the herbs we’re gonna highlight today, we had mentioned earlier that we see [00:09:00] nowadays with social media and even walking through the grocery store that we can see certain herbs like basil, oregano, just always there, or they really get a huge spotlight on online platforms, which well deserved, they’re great herbs. But why do you think some herbs don’t necessarily always get that sort of attention?

Bevin Cohen: Well, I think lavender’s got a great marketing team. I think that’s what it is. Um, you know, right. I mean, I love lavender, don’t get me wrong. I think that maybe sometimes we see herbs, um, more often than others, for maybe a few different reasons.

One, they’re very easy to grow. A lot of the herbs that we had mentioned when we were talking earlier, we were talking about oregano or thyme and lavender and those sorts of things. They’re all members of the mint family. So they’re very hardy plants, very easy to grow, people in all sorts of different areas and different climates can grow these herbs successfully. So they really have that broad appeal. They’re very flavorful, they’re very aromatic. We commonly see them used if you watch cooking shows on [00:10:00] TV or in recipes and cookbooks. You know, they’re just really out there for sure.

I think that a lot of it comes down to some of these plants are very vigorous growers, so from a commercial standpoint, you can produce a lot of herb with very little work, very little input, and then that makes it more profitable to get those things to market. So that’s why we see those in the grocery store more often, I think.

So then we have this thing where these herbs become prominent and we see them all the time and they’re wonderful plants and they have a multitude of uses and that’s great. But when we focus too heavily on these, uh, superstars if you will, there’s a lot of herbs that are just as wonderful that we maybe don’t get to see as often. And I think that’s a shame. So that’s why it’s cool that we’re doing this show cuz it’s nice to focus on some of these plants that don’t get the spotlight as often, but deserve it just as much.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, absolutely. And on that note, why in your opinion, is having an herbal diversity in the world important?

Bevin Cohen: Diversity in everything is important. That’s how nature works, right? Uh, if we just have one thing, if we just have [00:11:00] a monoculture of one particular herb or one particular plant, or even one particular way of thinking, it’s detrimental to our, our overall wellbeing. Diversity is key because that’s how nature works. That’s how we work as people. Diversity offers us many, many different things in one place. If we can have a lot of different plants in one area, then we have all the food, flavors, and medicine that we need. If we only have one plant, then we only have what that one plant offers us, and we’re missing out on a lot of great stuff that way. Diversity is key to success in everything that we do.

[00:11:34] Precautions Before Consuming Wild Medicinal Plants and Herbs

Jessica Mitchell: Now before we jump into highlighting some of these herbs you have for us today, I thought we could do a quick note on any sort of caution or precautions for people, because herbs can be medicinal and they can be very potent. So before introducing a new herb to someone’s health regimen or diet, do you have any recommendations on how people should exercise caution and really just [00:12:00] understand the potency that a lot of herbs carry?

Bevin Cohen: Taking a little bit of time to research these plants before we start to ingest them is always a good idea, um, as it is with any new thing that you’re gonna introduce into your diet or lifestyle, getting to know it a little bit better. Uh, we live in this wonderful world right now where we have access to lots of information practically at our fingertips, right in our pockets. Everywhere that we go is all the information in the world. So just taking a little bit of time to research these plants before we utilize ’em is a good idea, especially if you are taking different medications. Cuz sometimes these herbs can interact with our medications and that’s not a situation that we wanna find ourselves in.

So you definitely take the time to research these things. If you have a health practitioner, whether it’s a traditional doctor, a naturopath, an herbalist, whoever that you’re already working with, communicate with them, ask them some questions, tell them that you’re thinking about introducing this new plant into your life, and see what they have to say about it.

At the end of the day, herbs, herbalism, is just like everything else in life, I guess. It’s all about relationships. It’s developing these relationships with getting to know ourselves better and getting to know more about these plants around us. So take the time to get to [00:13:00] know these plans before you introduce them to your body. Um, I think that’s just, that’s smart for everything that we want to do.

Jessica Mitchell: And what should people keep in mind in regards to sourcing herbs? So whether that’s ordering them, finding them to plant their own gardens. Do you encourage choosing herbs that can grow in their local climates or hardiness zones?

Bevin Cohen: I tend to get on a soapbox when it comes to local plants. Um, that’s the thing that I do. I think it’s so important to get to know the plants that live in our regions, the plants that we share the land with. I think is very important. Herbs that, you know, even cultivated herbs that are gonna thrive well in our gardens. I mean, that seems like a no-brainer to me, that those are herbs that we wanna get to know.

But to say that, there’s also some, some wonderful herbs out there that are quite exotic. I use a lot of, well, let’s say cinnamon. I use cinnamon a lot. I don’t grow cinnamon very well here in Michigan. Um, but I’m not gonna limit my, limit myself to not having cinnamon because of it. So in those situations where we do need to source herbs from other places, some of us might not have gardens, whatever it might be. If you’re [00:14:00] purchasing herbs online, take the time to get to know the supplier. Again, that’s yet another relationship. Make sure you’re getting herbs from reputable suppliers. There’s a lot of groovy herb farms in every area. Like even by me, there’s herb farmers that if I don’t have the space or time to grow an herb, I can source it from them. I can get to know who’s growing it. I can see how it’s being grown. Taking the time to make sure that we’re getting quality ingredients. Just if you talk to a chef, what’s one of the most important things to creating a nice meal? Quality ingredients. It’s the same thing for the herbalist, making sure you have quality ingredients.

Jessica Mitchell: With all that being said, we’re going to take a break to hear a word from our sponsor, and when we return, Bevin is going to talk to us about a few different highlighted herbs he’s prepared to share with us today. So it should be a really fun conversation and we’ll be right back.

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[00:15:19] Herbal Spotlights: Fennel, Chicory, and Garlic Mustard

Jessica Mitchell: All right, well, we are back with Bevin of Small House Farms. Today we are talking about some really cool herbs, how you can incorporate them into your life. So we talked in the first half just about the importance of having herbal diversity and addressing some things to keep in mind when using herbs.

And so now, Bevin, you can take it away with three herbs today to share with us and just talking about how to use it, why they’re super awesome. So I will just, uh, let you go ahead and start with our first herb.

[00:15:50] Fennel Benefits: Fronds, Roots, and Seeds

Bevin Cohen: Fantastic. Jessica, thank you so much. Now this was quite a challenge, you know, anytime that you need to select a few herbs to talk about, I struggle with that. I’m like, oh, I want to talk about all the plants. Uh, I get so excited [00:16:00] about so many things. So to pick three herbs for us to talk about today. I really took some time to try to find ones that people might know already, certainly, but we can explore new ways that they can utilize them, right?

So the first one that I wanna start with is fennel. Now fennel is an herb that I’m sure we’re familiar with, but we’re gonna use this limited, our experience in the kitchen is relatively limited, right? Well, are we gonna use fennel seeds for, uh, we see it obviously like in Italian sausages and stuff like that. But where do we really utilize more fennel seeds in the kitchen? Not as often as we probably should because it’s absolutely delicious. And then in the apothecary, people might be familiar with using fennel seeds, making a tea from fennel seeds cuz it’s wonderful for digestive complaints. And it, it certainly works for that and that’s probably one of the most common uses for it.

Even if you visit like an Indian restaurant, you’ll see up by the cash register, um, candied fennel seeds that you can snack on. Cuz even eating these funnel seeds really helps with the digestive complaints that might come from eating too much Indian food or something like that.

Fennel, the, the entire plant’s beneficial. It’s not just the seeds. We could talk about the, the, the fronds, the [00:17:00] bulbs, all those things can be utilized much like you would use the seeds for all of these stomach complaints, gastrointestinal issues, and that sort of thing. But also, fennel is great for cold and cough, sore throat, congestion, that sort of thing. I like to take my fennel and I’ll brew it into a tea and incorporate some honey and make a syrup. You can make a really nice fennel-seed syrup that is absolutely wonderful for soothing a sore throat and a hacky cough or something like that. I think that’s a fun way, and it’s, it’s got a nice flavor to it too. I enjoy it a lot.

Topically though, we could utilize fennel. It’s antibacterial, it’s anti-inflammatory. So we can use, again, the fronds, the bulbs, whatever the part of the plant you have accessible to you, and you can make it into a, uh, a poultice or a compress and use it topically for that sort of thing. I like to make, I’ll infuse my fennel in oil. And I like to make a lotion and use that topically on the skin. It’s really nice to boost the collagen. It helps with wrinkles. It’s really to beautify the skin. Fennel’s a really nice herb that we can use.

Then of [00:18:00] course we can look at utilizing fennel in the kitchen outside of just using, you know, the seeds as they are. I like to take the whole plant. Of course, you take the fennel bulbs and I chop ’em up and I’ll roast ’em with veggies, and that’s incredible too. But I’ll take all the fronds and stuff and I’ll wrap them in foil, like with fish or chicken or something like that. When I cook ’em on the grill, it brings a delicious flavor to the dish and I use the seeds. One of the tricks that I found working with the seed, like with any seed or nut, is you want to toast it. Lightly heated up, and that’s gonna really bring those essential oils out. It’s gonna increase the flavor. So I like to toast fennel seeds with coriander seeds, toast ’em together, and then I’ll grind it up into a spice. And you can use that in sauces and soups and curries. You can rub it on meat, you can do anything with it.

Fennel is an incredibly versatile plant. Far more than our limited experience might let us think that it is, right?

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, absolutely. And if people wanted to grow fennel, is it a pretty easy herb to grow? Does it have a, a few complications?

Bevin Cohen: Good question. So one of the things, we wanna make sure that we grow our fennel in a [00:19:00] full sun area, and it’s really gonna do a lot better in the sun. You’ll also notice that when you grow your fennel that it’s got, it actually produces a, a pretty significant tap root.

So if you’re gonna grow it in a container, you wanna make sure it’s a large enough container to accommodate the space that it’s gonna need. Or if you’re starting it and then transplanting it out into your garden, you don’t wanna leave it to get root bound at all, cuz that tap root’s really gonna struggle, um, and get it out there.

You’ll find that there’s a couple different types of fennel that we’re gonna come across. If you’re growing fennel for the bulb, it’s called ‘Florence fennel.’ In Italy they call it finocchio, which I absolutely love. So I’ve been going around the gardens. Isn’t that fun?

Jessica Mitchell: Oh my gosh, I did not know that.

Bevin Cohen: It’s cracking me up. So I’m out in the garden. We grow a lot of it, so I’m always calling it finocchio and my kids are laughing at me and it’s super fun. So we grow the bulb, the Florence fennel, but that plant, because the way that you have to harvest the bulb, it really is gonna be an annual plant in your garden.

But typically fennel is a perennial herb. So once you get it established in your garden, you’ll have it for years to come. We like to grow bronze fennel. I’m telling you, it’s [00:20:00] gorgeous, right? It’s got these beautiful bronze, reddish leaves, beautiful plant. And what I love about it is a fennel flower is yellow. So you get these yellow flowers on this bronze leaf, oh, it’s just the way that it pops in the garden. It’s such a cool plant. And you can harvest the, the fronds from it and, and the stems and the seeds later in the year. You can harvest the flowers and eat ’em. It’s delicious. And then it’s popping up. It’s been pretty chilly here in Michigan. Spring’s taking a minute to kick in. But my fennel plants are already almost two feet tall. I’m already using fresh funnel right outta my garden, and you can’t beat that.

Jessica Mitchell: Wow. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Now with fennel, are there any big contraindications that you wanted to highlight? Now, of course, if anybody’s going to use it medicinally, we always like to encourage people to do their own research, but if there’s anything at the moment that you wanted to highlight?

Bevin Cohen: Actually fennel, and I try to keep that with the herbs that we’re gonna talk about today, fennel is relatively safe for all people. Of course, research the herbs before you use ’em, you know that’s important. But fennel for the most part is gonna be relatively safe for everybody to consume.

Jessica Mitchell: [00:21:00] Wonderful. I can’t wait. I actually started eating fennel, I remember when I was in Italy for a time as a student, it was in like a sandwich or something that I was having, and it tasted so good, and it’s always something I like having in the kitchen. Was there anything else about fennel you wanted to share we, before we moved on to the next herb?

Bevin Cohen: Uh, no, I think that covers it. I, I think that, um, you know, fennel seed is super easy to grow. Fennel’s very easy to grow. So I guess I, I wanna say that even novice gardeners can easily grow fennel. It’s, it’s a simple, simple plant to grow, for sure.

Jessica Mitchell: All right, well, what is our next one?

[00:21:34] Chicory Health Benefits

Bevin Cohen: So the next herb is chicory. Now chicory is an herb that we’re probably familiar with, uh, not only from just seeing its beautiful blue flowers along the roadsides in the summertime, and you see it all over the place, but we also might be familiar with its use.

Many people will harvest the roots from the plant and roast them and use that as a a coffee alternative. And I say alternative, a lot of times you see it referred to as a coffee substitute, but I don’t really believe that there is a substitute for [00:22:00] coffee. You know, it’s an alternative. We can use this alternatively to coffee. I like to incorporate it with coffee, right? And you see that that’s pretty common. You know, if you go down to New Orleans or whatever, the coffee down there has a lot of chicory in it, and it’s delicious. It’s delicious.

Now one of the interesting things about chicory root is it has this compound in it called inulin, which is a soluble fiber. So the consumption of it actually helps you feel full faster. So you see people a lot of the times utilizing chicory root as part of their weight loss regimen to help them if they’re struggling from overeating or whatever it might be, to help them feel full sooner so they can kind of, uh, get a little bit control over eating too much. So that’s as as nice as a weight loss herb.

A lot of the things that we’re gonna use chicory for medicinally would be very similar to what we’d use dandelions for. And I think that that’s funny because we will often gather chicory early in the year. The rosettes, just like we do our dandelions, we’ll go out cuz it, they’re delicious edible leaves. Okay? So we’ll go out and we’ll dig up these chicory leaves. The rosettes. They’re gorgeous. Practically the exact same time we’re picking our [00:23:00] dandelion roses, our early, early spring dandelions, and they look very similar. They have a very similar appearance out there.

And then medicinally, we’re gonna utilize them in very similar ways. So they really go hand in hand. And dandelion, um, is seeing quite a renaissance in the herbalism world. Everybody’s talking about dandelion, the benefits of dandelion, and that sort of thing. Well, chicory is right there next to it, practically doing the same work and not getting the credit that it deserves. So I think that we need to get out there and use a little bit more chicory. Great for your liver. Just like the dandelion is. And then the topical portions of the plant, just like dandelion, uh, you can use them topically on your skin. Um, infuse them in oil or what it might be for itchy red rashy skin conditions. Chicory leaf, chicory flour is absolutely wonderful.

I like to add chicory flowers to my tea. They don’t have a lot of flavor to ’em. If you eat ’em, they’re a little bitter, maybe, maybe a little sweetness to ’em, but they’re beautiful. So I’ll gather chicory flowers and add ’em to my tea blends. Just add a nice little pizzazz to the tea blend, that sort of nice.

But what a lot of people might [00:24:00] not realize is that chicory is something that you can find in most supermarkets for sale. A lot of the times you’ll see in some grocery stores, they sell very large bundles of dandelion leaves. They call ’em sometimes Italian dandelion leaves. Nine times outta 10 that’s actually chicory leaf that they’re selling. And then you’ve got radicchio, which radicchio is a, a pretty common, um, at grocery stores. Beautiful little purple head. That’s chicory. It’s the same species as the wild chicory that grows out there. It’s just over time, it’s been, uh, cultivated and developed to form this head, but it’s the exact same species.

So we can utilize the radicchio in the kitchen, most certainly, but we can just gather the leaves that are growing wild and use those in our kitchen as well. So I think that’s kind of cool.

Jessica Mitchell: That is really cool. Now, you talked about how the, the little flowers don’t really have much of a taste. Does chicory in general tend to have a more of a mild taste and scent?

Bevin Cohen: Well, the, the, I think that the flowers do. The leaves can get quite better. Again, just like our, our found dandelion, they do have a bitter flavor. The older [00:25:00] they get, the more bitter they’re gonna be. When they’re very young, we can harvest them and eat them raw. Most certainly we put ’em in salads and stuff, but as they get older, we’re gonna wanna cook ’em, chop ’em up, put ’em in our stir fries, mix ’em with our eggs, whatever it might be.

Take a whole bundle. If you can dig up a whole rosette right outta the ground, you can chop, you know, wash it up, of course, chop it in half just like you would a radicchio, toss in a little oil, and put it right on the grill and cook it. Oh man. Delicious. It’s, that’s so good. It’s got that little bitter flavor to it, but I think it’s just absolutely delicious. For sure.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, that sounds really good. If people want to go look for wild chicory, is it found in most places across North America? And I say North America cuz most of our listeners are, are listening from there.

Bevin Cohen: It is, you’re gonna find chicory in most places across North America. This is the things that you wanna consider. One, we certainly don’t wanna necessarily grow it in our garden. It’s almost invasive. It spreads pretty quickly. So don’t introduce it to your garden because then you’re gonna regret that in the long run. Most certainly.

And it’s abundant in nature. You’re gonna find it growing along [00:26:00] roadside and stuff. It likes that full sun area. It likes that disturbed soil. But we don’t necessarily want to go and gather our food and medicine from a busy roadside. So I recommend looking for it maybe in an open field. Because those are similar conditions and you’ll find it quite often growing out there. Or what I like to do, especially I have the benefit of living in a relatively rural area, if you can head out to a rural area with roads that aren’t quite as busy, then you can pick some up from the roadside and it’s gonna be okay. You’re not gonna have all those pollutants and things coming off of the cars, so that’s really nice.

It’s a short, short-lived perennial plant. They’ll live on average, you know, three to four years, but they’re gonna drop plenty of seed and stuff. So once you find a good patch of chicory, you’ll be able to revisit that same place for years and years and get all the chicory you’ll ever need.

Jessica Mitchell: That’s awesome. And that’s a great point too in, in terms of foraging, understanding where you’re foraging from, especially if it is near a road like that.

Bevin Cohen: It’s very important that we’re aware of where we’re gathering our plants from, and we could bring that right back to what we were talking about earlier about quality ingredients. Making sure that we’re [00:27:00] utilizing quality ingredients for our food and for our medicine is at the forefront of making sure that we’re taking care of our bodies.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, that was great on chicory. All right, our final one, I’m very interested in this particularly, so I can’t wait to hear about this one.

[00:27:15] Garlic Mustard: Weed or Herb?

Bevin Cohen: So I try to think of something that might be a little more controversial for everybody cuz I think it’s an important topic of conversation. So I’ve chosen for our third herb today, garlic mustard.

I think garlic mustard is a wonderful plant and some people are gonna maybe wanna send me an angry email for saying that because it is quite invasive here in the United States, and there’s a lot of folks that do not want garlic mustard. It definitely can outcompete a lot of our native plants, and I can see where in the long run that can be a certain issue. Some people would say even in the short run, that that could be an issue.

But the best way to reign in these invasive plants is to use them. Harvest them, pick them, eat them, make food and medicine out of them, pull them out of the environment, is the best way to control these things. [00:28:00] So I think that by singing the virtues of garlic mustard, we’re actually being conservationists in a way.

So garlic mustard, we do know it as an invasive plant here in the United States. It’s originally from Europe. The colonialists brought it over here with them, possibly intentionally, maybe on accident. It’s, it’s hard to say for sure. But in Europe, it’s uh, it’s a common plant that is gathered from the wild and used as a vegetable. They use it to make medicine. They’ve used garlic mustard to make herbal medicines for, you know, hundreds of years. So, although here in the United States, we see it as an enemy, in Europe, it’s celebrated in in many situations. You know, it’s not a bad plant at all.

Of course the youngest leaves are gonna be the most enjoyable to harvest. As it gets older, you know, it’s, it’s in the mustard family, it’s gonna get a little bit more bitter. But when it’s young, it’s got a nice little garlic kick, you know, just like the name would imply. So people like to make it into pestos. That’s a real common use for it. The seeds are edible, so you can even make it into kind of like a mustard condiment. The root is edible and it has a flavor similar to horseradish. I was just in Wisconsin a couple weeks ago. [00:29:00] I was just, had a little bit of a book tour , promoting one of my books. And, um, I was chatting with some folks in Wisconsin about garlic mustard, and she had talked to me about how she, uh, she takes the, the root, the whole root from the garlic mustard, and she’ll put it in the crock when she makes sauerkraut. And it adds like this, uh, horseradish type of flavor to the sauerkraut. And I’m telling you, that sounds fantastic, right? I haven’t done that before, but she talks so highly of it, I’m gonna try that this year. We always make sauerkraut here, so I’m gonna do that for sure. I got plenty of garlic mustard roots out here.

When we bought Small House, along the side of the house, and this would’ve been, you know, 10, 12 years ago. When we bought this place, there was a pretty good patch of garlic mustard growing along the side of the house. And um, so we immediately started picking it and, and using it and pulling it up and getting the roots and that sort of thing, and utilizing it in our recipes as much as we could. We’ve really been able to control it. It has not spread, knock on wood. It has not spread from that area. And the, the size of the patch has gotten significantly smaller over the years. So by [00:30:00] celebrating this plant and making use of the gifts that it offers us, we’re actually have been able to keep it under control and stop it from spreading. And I think that’s pretty cool.

It’s high in vitamin A. It’s high in vitamin C, minerals, micronutrients. It’s, it’s actually quite a delicious plant, um, if you like the flavor of garlic, I suppose. Outside of the kitchen, we can use garlic mustard for a number of things for herbal medicine as well. And I, I did a, a bit of research to find some old traditional European medicines that they would make utilizing garlic mustard, because that’s where the plant comes from. So I thought we’d go right back to the source. Garlic mustard is an antiseptic plant, so they’d use it quite often on minor abrasions, you know, cuts and scratches. You can chew up garlic mustard and put it on bee stings and bug bites exactly like you would plantain, but it helps with the itching and swelling and inflammation. I thought that was pretty cool. They used it in a lot of formulations for cold and flu. Sometimes they would make garlic mustard tea. It opens you up, helps you breathe. It’s great for congestion and that sort of thing. You can take the garlic mustard and chop it up into, into a [00:31:00] bowl and add some hot water to it and and use it as a steam and breathe that in, and that’s gonna help bust up the cold. I thought that that was pretty nice. They used to take the roots, and they may still, I shouldn’t say “used to.” It was far more common back then maybe, but, and we could still do it today. Take the roots, chop ’em up and heat them in oil. So essentially making an oil extraction and then using the oil topically on the chest for like bronchitis and other respiratory complaints. Putting garlic mustard oil on the chest was one of the most common things that I was able to find about this plant. And I thought that that was interesting.

Now you’re gonna find your garlic mustard growing in heavily wooded areas along forest and that sort of thing. It, it does well in shady areas, and the reason that it’s able to take over so well is that this plant will will bloom and start at seed production before there’s even leaves on the trees. So then once this wooded area becomes shady, which is gonna stop a lot of other plants from wanting to be there, it’s already well through its life cycle. So it makes it very easy for it to take over, and then it actually puts chemicals into the soil to discourage other [00:32:00] plants from growing around it. So it’s very aggressive.

Now we could look at this from a positive point of view, we could say, what a smart plant. This plant has really learned how to adapt and thrive in any environment. And that’s pretty cool. But when we look at it from an invasive point of view, we’re like, oh, this guy’s a little too smart maybe. And he, he’s getting in the way.

So we gotta outsmart him by being there to pick him and gather him up. If you can get him before he flowers, that’s great. Pull out those roots, utilize those roots. That plant from the top to the bottom is offering us lots of good stuff. And the best thing that we can do to support our native plants is by eating more garlic mustard.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, that’s great. I, uh, as a garlic fan myself will very much be looking forward to seeing how I could use something like that if I, if I find any around here.

Bevin Cohen: You’re gonna find your garlic mustard most common in the eastern, central United States you’re gonna find it, but they have been starting to see it popping up on the, uh, on the West Coast, Oregon, I think. It’s become a little bit more, um, available, we’ll say, out that way. I think that they found it so far in 33 different [00:33:00] states, so it is starting to spread even further than where it’s at. And again, the only thing that we can do about it is to utilize them. I know here at the nature center where I’m at, they have prescribed burns that they’ll do, where they’ll burn the plant and they have these large burns to try to contain plants like that. Or they’ll have big garlic mustard poles where everybody comes together and meets in a place and everybody pulls it out and that sort of thing, and then they take it and burn it, which is almost makes me a little sad to see. I know that there’s a lot of people that could probably be using that food, but everybody’s working really hard to contain the plan and I, I think that that’s, that’s great that we wanna do that. But it’s also a, a useful food source. So if we can see it as both, I think that that’s probably the most beneficial way that we can handle the situation.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, thank you so much for highlighting those three herbs. That all sounded great. Was there any other things that you wanted to share before we started wrapping things up?

[00:33:50] More Wild Medicinal Plants and Herbs

Bevin Cohen: The reason it was so difficult for me to pick these three plants is because there are so many amazing plants everywhere that we go right outside our back door. At our parks and our fields and [00:34:00] our forests, our gardens, everywhere that we go are awesome plants. So just get out into the world and explore all of the cool things that Mother Nature has to offer, and every day you will find a wonderful plant to learn about.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, are there any resources if people want to learn more about herbs?

Bevin Cohen: One of the best places right now that I think that people can learn about herbs and seeds and weeds and that sort of thing would be on my new podcast. That’s www.SeedsAndWeedsPodcast.com. Not only do you get to hear a lot of my opinions about plants, but we bring in a lot of other farmers and herbalists and all sorts of groovy plant people, and we get to sit down and chat about plants and the multitude of benefits that they offer to make our lives even better.

Jessica Mitchell: Wonderful, and we’ll include a link to the “Seeds and Weeds” podcast so people can give a listen to it. It’s a great podcast and I’m so excited that you started it.

Bevin Cohen: I’m excited about that, but I’m even more excited, Jessica, that you are gonna be on an upcoming episode of the podcast. So folks that love you should certainly be tuning in.

Jessica Mitchell: That’s right. [00:35:00] Hear me talking about MOTHER EARTH NEWS and all of the mistakes I’ve made in my plant journey.

Bevin Cohen: That’s how we learn, right?

Jessica Mitchell: Absolutely. Well, where can people connect with you, follow what you’re doing? We talked about “Seeds and Weeds.” Where can people follow Small House Farm?

Bevin Cohen: The easiest way to stay in contact with all of us is through our website, which is www.SmallHouseFarm.com.

Jessica Mitchell: And of course Bevin has done a lot with us at MOTHER EARTH NEWS, so we’ll be plugging some podcast episodes in the show notes he’s been on before. As well as if you want to go to one of our fairs, Bevin’s gonna be, he was at the one in Kansas. Are you gonna be at the Wisconsin Fair?

Bevin Cohen: And I’ll be in Pennsylvania.

Jessica Mitchell: And Pennsylvania. There we go. So any of the other fairs we’re hosting this year, Bevin’s gonna be there.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This was an awesome conversation. I always love learning about herbs with you. This was great.

Bevin Cohen: Thanks, Jessica. I had a great time.

Jessica Mitchell: We thank you, the listener, for joining our podcast and encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues, and family. [00:36:00] To listen to more podcasts and to learn more, visit our website, www.MotherEarthNews.com/Podcast. And remember, no matter how brown your thumb is, you can always cultivate kindness.

[00:36:15] Podcast Credits

Jessica Mitchell: You’ve just listened to our herbal spotlight podcast episode. You can reach us at Letters@MotherEarthNews.com with any comments or suggestions.

Our podcast production team includes Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, and Kenny Coogan.

Music for this episode is “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw.

This MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends Podcast is a production of Ogden Publications. Learn more about us at www.MotherEarthNews.com.

[00:36:52] MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair Online Ad

Jessica Mitchell: We here at MOTHER EARTH NEWS enjoy hosting in-person fairs, and you can see a list of upcoming locations at [00:37:00] www.MotherEarthNewsFair.com. We are also excited to present you with the opportunity to get that self-reliant can-do content for the whole family right from your own home. All you have to do is go to Online.MotherEarthNewsFair.com and sign up for your favorite programs. Use the code FAIRGUEST for $5 off at checkout.

Until next time, don’t forget to love your Mother.

Meet Bevin Cohen

Bevin Cohen is an author, herbalist, gardener, seed saver, educator, and owner of Small House Farm in Michigan. Cohen offers workshops and lectures across the country on the benefits of living closer to the land through seeds, herbs, and locally grown food, and he has published numerous works on these topics, including the bestselling Saving Our Seeds, The Artisan Herbalist, and The Complete Guide to Seed and Nut Oils. He serves on the board of the International Herb Association and the advisory council for the Community Seed Network.

Additional Resources

Connect with Small House Farm and the “Seeds and Weeds” podcast!

Learn more from Bevin in more podcast episodes:

• Make Your Own Seed and Nut Oils
• Introduction to Seed Saving
• The Artisan Herbalist

Our Podcast Team:

Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, and Kenny Coogan
Music: “Travel Light” by Jason Shaw

Listen to more podcasts at MOTHER EARTH NEWS Podcast.

Check out the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Bookstore for more resources that may interest you.

Go to the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair page for an opportunity to see some of our podcast guests live.

The MOTHER EARTH NEWS and Friends podcasts are a production of Ogden Publications.

Ogden Publications strives to inspire “can-do communities,” which may have different locations, backgrounds, beliefs, and ideals. The viewpoints and lifestyles expressed within Ogden Publications articles are not necessarily shared by the editorial staff or policies but represent the authors’ unique experiences.