Whitehouse Herbs Part 1

Thyme:
Culinary
Thyme is a low maintenance herb and is perfect for a border plant or a container herb pot. It not only goes well with fish and chicken, but is essential for stocks, stuffing and stews or soups.
Companion Plants
Thyme is a pest repellent and tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage and potatoes especially enjoy it’s company. It has no known enemies, so feel free to tuck some in anywhere you have room.
Medicinal
Thyme is primarily antiseptic, carminative, and diuretic, and secondarily antispasmodic, expectorant and parasitacide. It warms the lungs and helps expel mucous., and aids in digestion. It can be used alone or infused with a blend of other antispasmodic herbs in a good extra virgin olive oil for a massage oil to relieve muscle aches.

Oregano
Culinary
That essential herb for Italian cooking. It goes well in spaghetti sauce, pizza and other classic Italian dishes as well as being the star of the menu when infused into butter for fish dishes. It enjoys a well drained soil and, like mint, grows best when watered regularly.
Companion Plants.
Oregano is a general pest repellent, but is especially useful for flea beatles. Cabbage likes to be planted with oregano. Be careful where you plant it. It spreads like mint. To keep it from spreading but still get its benefits, plant in a well draining pot and sink the pot into the ground.
Medicinal
Oregano can be used as a tea to reduce flatulence, bloating, headaches, cough, bronchial problems and swollen glands. The fresh or dried leaves can be pounded into a paste with a little hot water and used topically to reduce the pain of rheumatism, aching muscles and sores. Tie a handful of oregano leaves in a cheese cloth bag and float it in a bath tub of hot water to ease tired, aching muscles and joints.

Sage:
Sage is a great addition to any garden. Allowed to grow bush like it makes a great focal point and it grey-green leaves provide a great contrast.
Culinary
Sage is a wonderful addition to poultry and pork dishes and stuffing as well as adding great flavor to some vegetable dishes.
Companion
Sage deters root maggot flies and cabbage worms. Plant it near tomatoes, carrots, cabbage and strawberries. Don’t plant near cucumbers. They don’t make good neighbors. Sage flowers attract many beneficial insects to the garden
Medicinal
Ahhh Sage, the great panacea! An old saying goes “if a man has sage in his garden why should he die”. Well it’s not the fountain of youth, or life everlasting, but it has a great range of healing properties. It’s primarily antispasmodic, cardio tonic and aromatic, but has been used through the centuries to reduce fevers, combat hot flashes during menopause, and as a gargle for sore throat and tonsilitis, just to mention a few.

Whitehouse Vegetable Garden

By now you’ve all heard that the White House will have a vegetable garden for the first time since the great depression when Eleanore Roosevelt’s Victory Garden inspired the nation, prompting community gardens where there wasn’t room for individual gardens, and encouraging individuals who had the space to grow their own food.

The cynical side of me says this is all hype and a ploy to gain the confidence of the working class of our nation, but the optimistic side of me says whatever their reason, a lot of people are being inspired to help themselves. The First Lady not only got out there and shoveled dirt helping a group of school children fill the raised beds, but she took the time to explain to them why growing a garden was a good thing.

Over the past 20 years or so environmentalist have been trying to educate the public and encourage this type of self sufficiency, and many people have shifted their thinking and endeavored to grow their own food. I think this “education” coming from the head of the nation will only inspire more people to “go green”.

The White House garden won’t just be growing veggies, but will also be growing a variety of herbs. My next posts will be covering those herbs and why they are a great addition to any home garden.

Not Exactly Herbal, But Pertnent

Is the Wind Driving You Crazy?
For the 25 to 30 percent of humans who are weather sensitive, yes, the wind can literally drive you crazy. There is a very good scientific explanation for this. As a scientist I’d make a good puppy dog, so I’ll let you read the scientific explanation for yourself.Ionization As A Factor In Our Environment
A very detailed scientific explanation of how ionization occurs, is thrown out of balance, and how this imbalance effects our health.

To put all this in layman’s terms, positive and negative ions are necessary for the health of all biological creatures. The natural and healthy level of ions is 1,000 to 2,000 total ions per cubic centimeter, with a 5-4 ratio of pos-ions to neg-ions. When the body is bombarded with an overdose of positive ions nervousness, irritability, anxiety, depression and many other symptoms occur.

Not only can an overdose of positive ions cause these symptoms, but the reduction of total ions in the air can also be a great health hazard. Dust, pollen, and other air pollutants destroy the small ions biological bodies rely on, depleting the ions in the air and setting up an unhealthy atmosphere especially for those who are weather sensitive. This may very well be why the hot dry Santa Ana winds along the west coast of the United states, the Chinook winds in the rocky mountains, and seasonal winds in many other parts of the world have caused much misery and in some particularly sensitive people have even led to suicide.

If you’re weather sensitive you may notice aches and pains, anxiety, depression, migrains or other symptoms begin to appear before an actual weather front hits your location. The change in weather changes the ratio of positive to negative ions in the air. Our modern technology doesn’t help in all this. Our buildings are sealed and hot or cold air is pumped through ductwork to keep the building at an even temperature, but the forcing of air, whether it’s hot or cold causes friction and friction destroys ions, leaving us with an ion depleted environment.

While an overdose of positive ions can make us sick, there have been no ill effects to negative ions noted in the thousands of scientific experiments conducted.

If you’re weather sensitive and the wind’s driving you crazy, an air ionizer might be a good investment. It could very well save you money on Doctor visits and OTC medicines to treat all the various symptoms brought on by the ion depleted environment created by the wind and dust, and our own man-made technology.

Another option is a salt candle holder. The salt is warmed by the candle and releases negative ions into the air.

Content Source: Is the Wind Driving You Crazy? - Bukisa.com