We have enjoyed growing a wide range of medicinal plants at the peace garden in our tea beds, herb spirals, sensory garden and forest garden areas. We have dried and processed herbs for teas, such as calendular, yarrow, lavender, mint, rosemary, sage, lemon verbena, chamomile, nettle and St. John’s wort to name a few.
Over the last few years we’ve also been learning about making simple home-remedies like vinegar and oil infusions, balms and cough-syrups, thanks to workshops provided by medical herbalists, Melissa Ronaldson and Rasheeqa Ahmad. We became a growing site for Herbalists Without Borders who make remedies to take out to refugee camps in Northern France.
Now we are linking up with Phytology in Bethnal Green, who have kindly donated some herbal preparations to our volunteers, from their Mobile Apothecary. This project creates herbal-remedies to distribute to people facing barriers to health, food and shelter to support under-served communities with good-quality, home-grown and community-made preparations. Since April 2019 they have been bringing people together to collectively learn about medicinal plants and how to create simple first-aid medicines, like decongestant chest rub, anti-microbial vinegars and their Botanical Respiratory Anti-Viral Elixir (BRAVE) cough syrup.
The project is founded upon the principles that healthcare, encompassing physical and psychological health, is a fundamental right that should be accessible to all and that people have the right to basic knowledge and skills in herbal medicine-making. Their work helps connect people with the local urban environment and habitats to reinforce the value of the wild plants around us as well as the links between our human health and planetary environmental health.
Collectively growing and making herbal medicine strengthens bonds between people and local ecosystems and helps serve some of the most vulnerable people within the community. Forest Farm Peace Garden hopes to share some of our herb plant harvests with the Mobile Apothecary to contribute to the great work that they are doing.
Harvesting calendular at Forest Farm Peace Garden