The Metro Council hearing on the Proposal for Backyard Poultry Bill is TODAY.

Backyard poultry is a big part of self-reliant food production and urban sustainability. This very important to residents and their families!!

Please send a short email note to the Metro Council representative in your district AND to all Council at Large members before 4:00 PM on Tuesday, January 3 (Council meeting and second hearing about backyard hen ordinance begins at 6:00 PM).

Write in SUBJECT line: Vote YES for backyard hen ordinance, please!

Include your full name and street address at the end of your note otherwise, your email will not be counted.

To determine which District you are in and who your Councilmember is, click here:

http://www.nashville.gov/council/districts/districts.asp

Metro Councilmembers at Large, 2012

Megan Barry  megan.barry@nashville.gov

Tim Garrett tim.garrett@nashville.gov

Jerry Maynard jerry.maynard@nashville.gov

Ronnie Steine ronnie.steine@nashville.gov

Charlie Tygard charlie.tygard@nashville.gov

Please forward this request to others, with encouragement to write supportive emails.

by Pam Jones, from Transition Nashville

What could be more green than a pet that makes you breakfast in your back yard?

If you live in Davidson County and support backyard chickens, please send a short email note to your Metro Council representative AND to all Council at Large members – between December 26 and 30th

Be sure to put in the SUBJECT line “Vote YES for backyard hen ordinance, please!”·

Include your full name and street address at the end of your note – otherwise, your email will not be counted.

To determine which Council District you are in and who your Councilmember is, click here: http://www.nashville.gov/council/districts/districts.asp

To get email updates about this process, please email ucanhens@gmail.com

ALSO — There is a

PUBLIC FORUM
ABOUT DOMESTICATED HENS

Monday, December
12, 6:30-7:30 pm

Vanderbilt
University, Wilson 115

Council members, representatives of Metro Health Dept. and Codes Administrators., and grassroots backyard hen advocates will discuss the bill allowing residents to raise hens in their backyards. Ask others to attend! See more information on the Urban Chicken Advocates of Nashville (UCAN) Facebook page or contact ucanhens@gmail.com. See Nashville backyard chicken ordinance NO.BL2011-47.

Panlelists

• Councilwoman KAREN BENNETT – facilitating
• TOM SHARP, Policy Driector, Metro Nashville Health
  Dept
• BILL PENN, Assistant Director, Metro Codes
  Department
• MARY PAT BOATFIELD, UCAN (Urban Chicken Advocates of
  Nashville)
• Nashville Food Policy Council Representative

A Coneflower planted in a Nashville Rain Garden, Nashville, TN

Low maintanence/No maintenance, sustainable, easy to install, beautiful solution to water pollution.

Rain gardens are gaining in popularity as a sustainable way to beautifully landscape property while helping to reduce water pollution. Raingardens are so useful in this way that many municipalities are adopting them community, town and citywide – some even providing plans and plants to people and organizations interested in having a rain garden.

So what exactly is a rain garden and how does it help curb water pollution?

Rain gardens use native plants to manage storm water runoff. Loose, absorbant soil in a shallow bowl shape collects rainwater running off your roof, driveway, and other hard surfaces. Perennial plants help absorb the water while sand and soil at the base of the garden filter out pollutants.

Rain gardens are shallow, depressed gardens designed to collect rain water and allow it time to filter into the ground. This results in cleaner water, less water entering our storm systems and more water refilling the underground water table that keeps small streams flowing during the dry summer months. Rain Gardens are lovely, lively, colorful, low maintenance habitats for insects and animals. Their native plants provide food to song birds and butterflies.

Rain gardens:

• help reduce pollution in lakes, rivers and streams
• help recharge groundwater
• create native habitat for wildlife and butterflies
• beautify your landscape in a natural, sustainable way
• once installed are low/no maintenance

Studies show that half of all stormwater pollution comes from residential property. Pesticides, fertilizers and other products we use to care for our property are generally bad for the environment. When it rains, these pollutants go directly into our water supply. Rain gardens are a natural filter that help to clean out such pollutants.

Native flowers in a Nashville Rain Garden, Nashville, TN

Why are “native” plants necessary for rain gardens?

Native plants are indigenous to a specific region, so they are ideally adapted to local soil and climate.

Native plant are best for the following reasons:

• Best adapted to local conditions, so no need to use chemical fertilizers.
• Water conservation – once plants are established in the right place, there is no need for supplemental watering.
• If native plants are placed correctly in the landscape they require less care than non-native species.
• Provide food and shelter for wildlife.

How do you find the right native plants? click here to find native plants for your area / region

And then, click here to Find resources to help you plan, plant and enjoy your own rain garden

Some metropolitan water districts are actively encouraging (providing plans and plants for free) people to plant rain gardens on their property. You should check with your local water district to see if they have such a project.

Newly planted rain garden in Nashville, TN

When using as a detox tea, I make a gallon of dandelion leaf tea, refrigerate, and sip on it throughout the day, sweetening it a bit with liquid stevia.

Precautions:

Dandelion tea may irritate the stomach lining in some individuals. It increases the amount of bile produced. People that have gallstones or gallbladder ailments should not drink dandelion tea. Occasionally, individuals who are allergic to plants in the daisy family may experience skin irritation when handling leaves or extract.

Individuals who are diabetic should carefully monitor their blood sugar  levels when drinking dandelion tea. The tea also counteracts the effects of antacids and drugs that reduce acid production in the stomach.

-Kathleen Roberts, LoveToKnow Herbs

For  more information on this wondeful herb please visit: Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) ~ LuminEarth’s Guide to Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants

Anyhow, Thought you might like to know how I use up all of the dandelion greens in my yard.  I really like this method, because you use everything!

Here’s what I do:

• Get a large kettle, one that holds at least one gallon of water
• Gather enough dandelion greens to fill the kettle at least half full (click here to earn about how to identify and gather dandelion greens)
• Clean and rinse the dandelion leaves, returning them to the kettle
• Fill kettle with one gallon of water
• Bring to a rapid boil
• Boil for 10 minutes

At this point, you have dandelion tea!  (Technically, this is a “decoction” because you have boiled the leaves in the water.  A “tea” is made by bringing the water to a boil, turning off the heat source, and steeping the leaves.)

• Remove the dandelion leaves from the “tea”
• Save the tea, this can be consumed hot or cold.  (I like to place mine in a gallon jug and drink it as iced tea.)
• Sweeten to taste with honey, stevia, or your sweetener of choice.

Here’s how I prepare my dandelion greens:

• Get a large skillet
• Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• Add one chopped onion (plus any other yummy veggies you want!)
• Sautee onion until tender
• Add dandelion greens
• Sautee until greens are well heated
• Add freshly ground sea salt and pepper
• Add a couple dashes of Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
• Serve on top of brown rice

A few other ways to use the boiled greens:

• prepare as you would canned spinach
• add to a stir-fry after the other veggies have been cooked
• layer into lasagnae
• season the boiled greens with Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper, then top with a bit of shredded cheddar or parmesan cheese (another one of my favorites!!)

YUMMY!!

Click Here to Learn More About the Dandelion Plant

Click Here to Visit Our FREE Online Guide to Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants

Click Here to Visit Our FREE Online Herbal Materia Medica

References:

• Dandelion Loose Leaf Tea. (n.d.) LoveToKnow Herbs. Extracted October 10, 2011 from http://herbs.lovetoknow.com/Dandelion_Loose_Leaf_Tea

The Books We Use:

• A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guide)
• Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers: When and Where to Find Them by William Hutson
• Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places by “Wildman” Steve Brill
• Jude’s Herbal Home Remedies: Natural Health, Beauty & Home Care Secrets by Jude C. Williams, M.H.
• Ortho’s All About Herbs by Maggie Oster
• Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary Gladstar
• Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists by Richard Lucas
• Sunset Herbs: An Illustrated Guide by The Editors of Sunset Magazine
• The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer
• The Herbal Drugstore by Linda B. White, M.D.
• The Natural Physicians’s Healing Therapies: Proven Remedies Medical Doctors Don’t Know by Mark Stengler, ND
• The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine by Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D.
• The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra, L.Ac., O.M.D.
• Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky and Tennessee

This event is sponsored by Cindy Moonrose of Eatable Weed Walks and Plant Classes.  Cindy is very knowledgable and a talented instructor.  I have personally attended several of her classes, and have always come home with a wealth of new knowledge! (And sometimes even samples!)

For  additional information, location information, or to register, please visit http://www.meetup.com/weedeaters/events/35623332/

The cost is only $10.00!

Here is the schedule:

1:00 to 1:30 Edible weeds in your lawn and flower bed. We will be looking at the plants as they grow, learning their names, and uses.

1:50 to 2:10 All about Garlic: Growing, Storing, and Uses. Visiting Cindy’s garlic planting, hands On planting garlic, bring small garden digging trowel and gardening gloves.

2:40 to 3:10 Fall and Winter Food Gardening – Garden tour and Lecture

3:10 to 3:40 Tea Time with Ground Ivy – introduction to this easy to grow weed and making your own tea during class

4:10 to 4:30 Sweet Potatos: easy to grow cooking greens and tubers: How to grow and use, sample cooked greens

Between classes:

There will be designated areas for topical discussions among attendees:

A) Gardening, foraging and food prep
B) Healing with dietary plants and herbal plants
C) Experience with intuition, stress management and Personal growth
D) Conversations about whatever

For the plant classes, you might want bug spray, a camera, and a notebook.

This is part of a larger event, so attend as much or as little as you wish.  If you wish fuller participation, bring clothing and books to swap, a snack or beverage to share. Please be patient if the schedule runs a little behind, you know how things go sometimes. You might enjoy having a blanket to camp out on,  especially if you plan to bring children.

There is one more class offered at noon you are welcome to attend if you wish:

Noon until 12:30 Intuition and Understanding how to Access More of Your Potential. Insights gained from the book,  “Awakening Intuition Using your Mind Body Network for Insight and Healing” by Mona Lisa Shulz.  Cindy MoonRose talks about the book and what  it means to her and future possible classes on balancing your life coming from Cindy’s experience with the book and her life experience.

• Arrival time for the entire event is 11:30
• Rain or Shine
• Come for all afternoon or for any part
• For one class or the whole day and everything in between $10 per person age 16 or up.
• Supervised children welcome.
• All classes presented by Cindy MoonRose. Attendees conduct the topical discussion groups.

Cindy needs helpers to help day go smoothly. Any volunteers for part of or whole day?

• Also, she can use help before Saturday cleaning, organizing, sign making. She is willing to barter energy work, private consultations, and other mind/body/spirit/plant/cooking info.
• She would email what she needs done during the event.

For  additional information, location information, or to register, please visit http://www.meetup.com/weedeaters/events/35623332/

Seriously… if you can control your food bill, you will gain more control over your finances.

I am learning this first hand. I’ve recently started eco-organic gardening using  The Food4Wealth Program, as well as cooking with wild edible plants. It is amazing what is already growing in our own backyards!! Many of these wild plants, that so many call “weeds” taste AWESOME! By supplementing the wild foods already in place on my property with a self-propagating garden, my food bill is dwindling. Fresh vegetables and greens taste SO much better than the ones from the market–even better than the organic vegetables from places like Whole Foods. Most vegetables in markets are bred for looks and shelf life, not taste. Vegetables also contain more nutrients when they are freshly picked.

LEARN ABOUT THE WILD EDIBLE & MEDICINAL PLANTS I USE

Building an eco-organic garden will take between half a day to one full day, if the time is dedicated to just that. The cost will be between $100-$300 (depending on how you shop) and you will be well on your way to saving around $5000 per year! After your half day of work (or full day) you only need to spend another few hours during the year checking over your vegetable garden and picking food from it. Then each year after that, your garden seeds itself and starts growing more food all over again with little effort from you.

If you’re a seasoned gardener or you know one who has a vegetable garden I bet they’d tell you it takes a lot more work than that. Well I can confidently tell you, they have it all wrong. The program I use is The Food4Wealth Program by Jonathan White. Jonathan is a Horticulturalist and Environmental Scientist who has dedicated his life to working out how to produce food in the easiest possible way. This guy lives on a small farm and has a garden that produces all the food he, his wife and two kids need each year. Better still, he has proven his method has he has been doing this for years.

Let me tell you another thing about why you really, really need to get your act together and start growing your own food. Pesticides, imported food, genetically modified food, and bacteria.

Did you know they grow tomatoes in China, export them to Italy and then re-export them around the world as Italian tomatoes?

Do you remember the outbreak of E.Coli a few years back? That was a breakout of bacteria in baby spinach.

Are you aware that many foods sold are not clearly labelled as genetically modified? You’d never know.

Some scientists say you have nothing to worry about and others say the process of life is so delicate and intricate that a small change in one part of the process can have dramatic changes in other areas and we might never know.

Did you know that most fresh food travels long distance – mainly by road – before it gets to your supermarket? If OIL skyrockets again – which the so called experts predict – what effect on prices do you think that will have on your food bill? It may not be $5000 you save but could be anywhere up to $6000, $7000 or even more.

I was really excited to find Jonathan’s book and video package, Food4Wealth. It took me through everything I needed to know to get my own eco-organic vegetable garden up and running successfully with the only a small amount of effort.

Just having Jonathan’s book got me in the mindset that I can handle the volatility this world is throwing at all of us. I’m lowering my food bill while eating healthier foods, helping to heal Mother Earth, and becoming more in tune with what is really going on world-wide. I’m glad I didn’t put it off another day!! The program showed me step-by-step exactly what to do and how to do it through an eBook and videos. I started getting my first vegetables in less than a month!

LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN WHITE AND THE FOOD4WEALTH PROGRAM

READ ABOUT HOW I BUILT MY ECO-ORGANIC GARDEN

GET GREAT DEALS ON HEIRLOOM SEEDS AT MASTERGARDENING.COM

Just like Jonathan explained in the Food4Wealth eBook, the plants are very close together but but thriving and producing like crazy.  A small ecosystem is developing within the plot, very similar to what you’d find in a rainforest.

I’ve also noticed that there aren’t many insects in the garden, and not much leaf damage from insects feeding on them.  The Food4Wealth eBook explained that the diversity of the plants so closely planted together would either confuse or repel most of the pests.  Supposedly some pests look at the shape of the leaves, and with all of the different plants intermingled, would not be able the spot the shape they are looking for.  Other pests rely on scent, and again because the different plants are so close together the scents intermingle causing confusion.  Also, some pests are attracted to certain plant scents and repelled by others.  With all of the plants so close together it is highly likely that a plant with a repelling scent will be very near the plant the pest is looking for, driving the pest away.

I got a late start on the garden, started the planting on June 20.  So far, though, the plants seem to be producing well.  The garden is supposed to produce year round, so hopefully the late start won’t cause much of a problem.

I’m really excited about this project.  It really isn’t much work at all, and I have gotten quick results.  I started harvesting a few veggies each day a little less than a month after planting.  There isn’t an enormous amount of produce yet, but it looks like much, much more will be coming soon.  I can’t wait to see how the automatic reseeding goes, too!!  

I am a little bit behind schedule… I still need to build my compost  bins, and I have yet to write an article about how to plant the plants.  I’ll get to those soon!

I’ll keep you posted!!

Here are the articles I’ve completed so far showing how to put the plot together:

• My Eco-Organic Garden: Choosing the Location
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Building the Frame
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Some Facts on the Food4 Wealth Program

The program I followed to create the eco-organic garden is the Food4Wealth program by Johnathan White.

What is the Food4Wealth Program?

Food4Wealth is a professionally produced ebook and video package including project plans, checklists and maintenance guides to take you through the whole process of growing your own vegetables in a very small amount of space for just a few hours effort.

Food4Wealth will show you how to setup your own organic food garden completely. It is extremely easy to read and easy to understand. It is my choice recommendation to anyone who wants to setup an organic food garden at home.

• Included is an 80 page professionally produced ebook explaining all the concepts in easy to understand language.
• 60 minutes of Video accompany the ebook is included with Jonathan explaining in further detail all the tips, tricks and techniques you need to know to grow organic food successfully. I found Jonathan quite easy to listen to.
• Each on a single page, you get a Project Plan, telling you step by step exactly what you need to do to setup.
• A Checklist to guide you to looking after your garden.
• A Maintenance Plan and Materials List to ensure your garden is successful.
• Jonathan provides email support with all replies sent within 24 hours.
• You get access to a Horticulturalist and Environmental scientist to help you with ay concerns or issues you have–Yes you get access to a professional gardener.

I’ll be posting more soon on my actual experiences and what works best in my area (Nashville, TN).

You can learn from my personal experiences!! (I’ve already made a few tiny mistakes… but the veggies are thriving anyway!!!)

More coming soon!!

LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN WHITE AND THE FOOD4WEALTH GARDENING SYSTEM

GET GREAT DEALS ON HEIRLOOM SEEDS AT MASTERGARDENING.COM

As you can see, there are many different types of plants all mingled together. It looks like a jungle! The large leaves are the zucchini and squash plants. I am going to slowly trim and use these leaves (leaving 1/3 of the plant intact), allowing more sunlight to reach the smaller plants so that they can take hold and thrive.

Thank you for following my eco-organic garden project!  Today was an exciting day for the project!  When I went out to check on it this morning, it DIDN’T NEED TO BE WATERED!  The “Eco” part of the project is starting to take effect! 

To the right is a photo of down inside the plants.  It’s starting to look like a jungle, just the way Jonathan described.  I planted a lot of zucchini and squash in this garden, because my family just LOVES zucchini and squash.  I got a little worried, though, as the plants started to grow because they seemed to be taking over my 8 ft x 8 ft plot.   So I decided to trim the zucchini plants a bit by removing several of the leaves.  Using the the standards set by wildcrafting herbalists, you can safely remove 1/3 of a plant and it will still thrive.  I also did a bit of research and found that zucchini leaves are edible.  I tasted a raw zucchini leave today.  The taste is mild.  The leaves are bit tough, but I think cooked or shredded they will do just fine!  (We will be doing some experiments with cooking with zucchini leaves in the next few days. Recipes and articles soon to follow!!)

Back to the photo:  If you look closely you can see that underneath the big leaves a multitude of different, small plants are beginning to grow.  My thought is that by slowly removing and eating the zucchini leaves, leaving 1/3 of the plant, I will be able to provide more sunlight to the smaller plants so they can grow, take hold, and thrive.  We’ll see what happens!!

I’ve not yet completed the articles on the process of putting the eco-organic garden plot together. I’ll have those up soon. The fact that the garden is thriving like this is just so exciting I had to share right away!!

Here are the articles I’ve completed so far showing how to put the plot together:

• My Eco-Organic Garden: Choosing the Location
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Building the Frame
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Some Facts on the Food4 Wealth Program

The program I followed to create the eco-organic garden is the Food4Wealth program by Johnathan White.

What is the Food4Wealth Program? 

Food4Wealth is a professionally produced ebook and video package including project plans, checklists and maintenance guides to take you through the whole process of growing your own vegetables in a very small amount of space for just a few hours effort.

Food4Wealth will show you how to setup your own organic food garden completely. It is extremely easy to read and easy to understand. It is my choice recommendation to anyone who wants to setup an organic food garden at home.

• Included is an 80 page professionally produced ebook explaining all the concepts in easy to understand language.
• 60 minutes of Video accompany the ebook is included with Jonathan explaining in further detail all the tips, tricks and techniques you need to know to grow organic food successfully. I found Jonathan quite easy to listen to.
• Each on a single page, you get a Project Plan, telling you step by step exactly what you need to do to setup.
• A Checklist to guide you to looking after your garden.
• A Maintenance Plan and Materials List to ensure your garden is successful.
• Jonathan provides email support with all replies sent within 24 hours.
• You get access to a Horticulturalist and Environmental scientist to help you with ay concerns or issues you have–Yes you get access to a professional gardener.

I’ll be posting more soon on my actual experiences and what works best in my area (Nashville, TN).

You can learn from my personal experiences!! (I’ve already made a few tiny mistakes… but the veggies are thriving anyway!!!)

More coming soon!!

LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN WHITE AND THE FOOD4WEALTH GARDENING SYSTEM

GET GREAT DEALS ON HEIRLOOM SEEDS AT MASTERGARDENING.COM

This photo was taken on 7/18/11, a little less than a month from when the garden was planted! (Original planting was done on 6/20/11.)

Thanks for following the progress of my eco-organic garden!

This photo of the eco-organic garden project was taken yesterday.  As you can see, the plants are thriving! 

I’ve already harvested some zucchini, yellow squash, scallions, and cayenne peppers.  There are a bunch of cherry tomatoes that look like they’ll be ripe in a week or so.  The pea and bean plants are also growing very fast, climbing up mesh on the side of the garden.

There are so many blooms on the zucchini, squash and eggplants… I can’t wait to see how many vegetables are produced!

I’ve not yet completed the articles on the process of putting the eco-organic garden plot together.  I’ll have those up soon.  The fact that the garden is thriving like this is just so exciting I had to share right away!!

Here are the articles I’ve completed so far showing how to put the plot together:

• My Eco-Organic Garden: Choosing the Location
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Building the Frame
• My Eco-Organic Garden: Some Facts on the Food4 Wealth Program

The program I followed to create the eco-organic garden is the Food4Wealth program by Johnathan White. 

What is the Food4Wealth Program?

Food4Wealth is a professionally produced ebook and video package including project plans, checklists and maintenance guides to take you through the whole process of growing your own vegetables in a very small amount of space for just a few hours effort.

Food4Wealth will show you how to setup your own organic food garden completely. It is extremely easy to read and easy to understand. It is my choice recommendation to anyone who wants to setup an organic food garden at home.

• Included is an 80 page professionally produced ebook explaining all the concepts in easy to understand language.
• 60 minutes of Video accompany the ebook is included with Jonathan explaining in further detail all the tips, tricks and techniques you need to know to grow organic food successfully. I found Jonathan quite easy to listen to.
• Each on a single page, you get a Project Plan, telling you step by step exactly what you need to do to setup.
• A Checklist to guide you to looking after your garden.
• A Maintenance Plan and Materials List to ensure your garden is successful.
• Jonathan provides email support with all replies sent within 24 hours.
• You get access to a Horticulturalist and Environmental scientist to help you with ay concerns or issues you have–Yes you get access to a professional gardener.

I’ll be posting more soon on my actual experiences and what works best in my area (Nashville, TN).

You can learn from my personal experiences!! (I’ve already made a few tiny mistakes… but the veggies are thriving anyway!!!)

More coming soon!!

LEARN MORE ABOUT JONATHAN WHITE AND THE FOOD4WEALTH GARDENING SYSTEM

GET GREAT DEALS ON HEIRLOOM SEEDS AT MASTERGARDENING.COM

Appearance: Thistles are easy to spot because the leaves and stems are prickly and hurt when you touch them. There are no poisonous look-alikes to thistles. None of the true thistles are known to be toxic, but the flavor varies from plant to plant.

Visit Our FREE Online Guide to Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants

You can distinguish bull thistle from other thistles by rubbing the leaves. Bull thistle leaves. The top of the leaves are prickly and hairy, and the underneath is cottony. Bull thistle leaf tips have stiff pointy spines and the flower heads are purple and spine-tipped.

Edible: The midrib of the leaf is edible after the rest has been carefully stripped off. Don’t try to remove the individual thorns, just peel off the entire leafy portion and the spines will come off also. The midribs are similar in texture to celery and taste a somewhat sweet. These can be eaten raw or cooked.

The stalks of the Bull Thistle are edible from late spring through early summer by removing the leaves, then peeling off the outer layer of the stem. Inside is a vegetable that can be eaten either raw or cooked. To avoid getting pricked it is best to use a long knife and start at the bottom, cutting off the thistle’s stem leaves while the plant is still standing. Then cut the base of the plant and sever the top. After this, peel off the dark green outer layer to get to the edible core.

The taproot of the bull thistle is also edible. These are firm, crisp and light in color. They can be eaten raw or as a cooked vegetable.

Medicinal: Bull thistle roots have can be used as a poultice and sore jaws can be treated with a poultice made from a decoction of the plant. An herbal steam can be made from an infusion of the entire plant and used to treat rheumatic joints. A decoction of the entire plant can be used internally and externally to treat bleeding piles.

Click Here to Visit Our FREE Online Guide to Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants

Click Here to Visit Our FREE Online Herbal Materia Medica

Sources:

Brill, S. (1994). Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places. New York: Harper Collins.

Colorado State Parks Best Management Practices Weed Profile. (n.d.) Bull thistle

Cirsium vulgare (Savi) Tenore. Extracted October 10, 2010 from http://parks.state.co.us/SiteCollectionImages/parks/Programs/ParksResourceStewardship/Bull%20Thistle.pdf

Montana Plant Life. (n.d.) Bull Thistle – Cirsium vulgare. Extracted October 10, 2010 from http://montana.plant-life.org/species/cirsium_vulga.htm

Thayer, S. (2006). The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. Ogema, WI: Forager’s Harvest.

The Books We Use:

• A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guide)
• Great Smoky Mountains Wildflowers: When and Where to Find Them by William Hutson
• Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places by “Wildman” Steve Brill
• Jude’s Herbal Home Remedies: Natural Health, Beauty & Home Care Secrets by Jude C. Williams, M.H.
• Ortho’s All About Herbs by Maggie Oster
• Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary Gladstar
• Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists by Richard Lucas
• Sunset Herbs: An Illustrated Guide by The Editors of Sunset Magazine
• The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer
• The Herbal Drugstore by Linda B. White, M.D.
• The Natural Physicians’s Healing Therapies: Proven Remedies Medical Doctors Don’t Know by Mark Stengler, ND
• The Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine by Daniel B. Mowrey, Ph.D.
• The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra, L.Ac., O.M.D.
• Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky and Tennessee