Plantain, The First-Aid Weed

Plantain growing by my raised beds

It’s true - I actually cultivate some weeds.  Plantain is a weed that grows almost anywhere.  It’s commonly seen in lawns and sidewalk cracks; many gardeners hate it.  Plantain arrived in North America with the early colonists, and it was brought here intentionally.  For early American settlers, plantain was a valuable medicinal herb.  The Native Americans, wise in herbal ways, soon learned to use this newcomer, too.  Plantain is both a hemostatic and a vulnerary herb: it stops bleeding and it helps tissue regenerate while easing the pain associated with injury. Plantain can be prepared as a tincture, infused oil, salve or poultice.  I remember my grandfather making spit poultices with plantain leaves to soothe my itchy mosquito bites when I was a child and I still use this method for on-the-spot relief of bites, scrapes and stings.

Infusing plantain oil & finished salve

Our favorite preparation is plantain salve, made by gently warming a mason jar of chopped plantain leaves and olive oil in a mini crock pot full of warm water for several hours, straining the leaves out, thickening the infused oil with beeswax, and adding Vitamin E as a preservative.  Essential oils and flower essences can also be added.  My partner and our son have neosporin allergy (as does 5% of the population) so plantain salve has been a wonderful alternative for them.  This is our family’s go-to first aid salve, and it’s helped us heal lots of everyday scrapes and some significant injuries.

An injured toe heals with plantain salve

A couple of years ago, I burned my palm on a frying pan, raising large water blisters on several of my fingers.  After cooling my injured hand with ice, aloe vera and a bit of  lavender essential oil, I applied plantain salve several times daily to treat the burn.  The blisters receded and my palm healed in about a week’s time with no scarring.  Most recently, our 23-year-old son, training for the TaeKwon-Do World Championships, tore a thick callous off the bottom of his big toe.  He applied plantain salve several times daily to ease the pain and help it heal.  The plantain helped stop the initial bleeding, and by the next day he reported that the pain was significantly reduced and the wound had stopped seeping.  By day 3 it showed the first regrowth of tissue.  In a little over a week it was completely healed over. He has no scarring.  Plantain salve was all he used to treat this injury.

When we take time to know the plants that live nearby, they can both simplify and enrich our lives.  I am so grateful for our relationship with the plantain in our yard.  Welcome some plantain into your life, and see how it helps you grow.

Saving Seeds for Food Independence

Lettuce blossoms and seeds

Lettuce is a common fresh food and very easy to grow.  It makes sense to allow a few lettuce plants to go to seed in the garden and claim your independence from purchased seed.  Saving lettuce seeds is an exercise in being present. Every few days, more golden blossoms ripen into fluffy parachutes, and a new batch of seeds is ready to fly. That’s when you have to be there!  Small-scale backyard production keeps you in touch with these big events.

Lettuce flowering stalk

Lettuce plants are beautifully contradictory beings.  They equip their seeds with parachutes to help them fly away on the wind, AND they ooze a sticky sap, latex, that temporarily glues the newly released seeds to anything that blunders through the lettuce patch, bruising leaves and stems.  These opposing traits ensure that the seeds can be carried by both wind and animals – very clever! I’ve been watching this year's seed production since late May, when it became too hot in my Kansas City garden for lettuces.  They love cool weather but grow tall and develop a very bitter flavor if the temperatures hit 90.  That single tall stem produces many tiny yellow flowers resembling mini dandelions, and the family resemblance is no coincidence since both plants are in the Asteracea family.

Lettuce seeds in bowl

Seed-saving guides describe lettuce seed harvesting as a complicated and messy process requiring bagging and various grades of mesh screen. In the sustainable backyard garden, it’s done easily and with no special equipment.  To harvest lettuce seeds, break off the fluffy-headed seed pods and keep them intact.  Back indoors, rinse the sticky latex off your fingers, then hold the seeds by the fluffy end and gently pull and twist the pod at the opposite end to release the covering from the individual seeds.  Brush the seeds into a bowl, let them sit on the counter for a day, then package in paper envelopes labeled with seed type and date. I harvested 5 grams of seed from a single lettuce plant, the equivalent of 5 seed packets in the store, for a savings of $10! Keep them in a cool, dry, dark place and your lettuce seeds will populate your garden during spring and fall for the next 3 years.  

 

When we set aside a few of our vegetable plants for seed production we’re one step closer to self-reliance through food independence. Imagine every yard with a small backyard garden and neighbors sharing produce, then trading seeds.  It seems beautifully contradictory but it makes perfect sense: true food independence achieved through neighborhood inter-dependence. I believe we can make this dream a reality, and the time is now.