I think a lot of people feel very detached from or daunted by the idea of farming and growing plants because the vision of farming in their head probably includes big, industrialized monoculture farms. But growing plants can happen anywhere, as long as you take the time and care to do it. It can be as simple as having a few pots of herbs on your windowsill that add a little freshness and spice to homemade dishes, or it can be fancier if you have a garden plot to grow more of a variety of plants in. The urbanization of society should not limit us from producing food for ourselves or our community, and I think this Farming While Black <\/em>chapter does a wonderful job at expressing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to stay out of the rain, Beth assigned us some tasks in the RBGH and the heated greenhouse for the morning. We first helped with rolling up and tying the side of the RBGH. Once that was completed, we were able to move into the heated greenhouse to learn about transplanting. Beth went over all the different types of seeding trays available on the farm before instructing us on how to fill each with fertilized potting soil. Once the trays were filled and watered, we started transplanting some baby lavender plants into the trays. This was such a wonderful and relaxing way to spend the morning, especially with the sound of rain on the roof of the greenhouse overhead. I really enjoyed the peace and calm of working with the soil and the baby plants, using a chopstick to carefully break apart the soil and separate all the little roots and plants apart. I also really appreciated learning more about Beth’s work process on the farm, seeing the trays in use, hearing her tips and wisdom, helping with the tags for plant starts. I really enjoyed this rainy morning of work! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Herb-Infused Oils & Digestive Wellness <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While all of the Home Herbalism classes so far have been so intriguing and informative for me, Class 4 on Digestive Health especially caught my attention when thinking about the gut health of most people in America today. Maria called America “a nation of disordered digestion,” bringing up studies that shared how common issues such as acid reflux, ulcers, and more are within our society right now. This reminded me of our Animal, Vegetable, Junk <\/em>reading, and how industrial agriculture has essentially set all of us up to have these issues with digesting certain foods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Maria also shared the fact that the majority of people who seek out digestive help when it comes to these issues are white people, commonly women and younger folk, who are more educated and already more in-tune with the processes of their bodies. So essentially, the more privileged people of society. This brought up the question for me of how are we supposed to make herbal medicine more accessible for less privileged folk? How can we work to uplift the histories of herbal medicine in communities of color? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Herbalist’s Way<\/em> – Nancy and Michael Phillips <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapter 1 “The Medicine of the People” <\/p>\n\n\n\n And we end at the beginning. This chapter was more of a general overview of medicinal healing, with some comparisons between herbal healing and western medicine and the idea that lifestyle and what we put into our bodies can have a huge impact on our health, and these should be the foundation that we start at when we find ourselves ill. “It is estimated that 70 to 80 percent of the people who go to doctors have nothing wrong with them that wouldn’t be cleared up by a vacation, a pay raise, or relief from everyday emotional stress” (3). Starting the healing process with the reminder that we are humans living in a stressful and somewhat depressing society is a good way to encourage the body to naturally heal itself. Support from natural remedies can help in this process as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I like this opening visual concept that Nancy provides in this chapter: “One of the concepts taught in an introductory course on the use of medicinal herbs is that herbs are not all used or categorized the same way. I learned to visualize this concept much like a clothesline: The tonic, or nourishing, herbs are all hung at one end, the specific medicinal herbs are in the middle, and the low-dose herbs are at the opposite end of the line. The sequence – oats, raspberry, nettles, chamomile, echinacea, black cohosh, goldenseal, lobelia, poke, digitalis – reflects an increasing specificity in plant medicines” (1). The herbs most commonly used in herbal medicines are the ones closest to us on the clothesline, the nourishing, everyday herbs that support our body in its healing process. As healing progresses, we may need to call upon other herbs further down the line, but these tonic herbs are our foundation. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Weekly Tasks: Greenhouse tasks Readings: Chapter 11 “Urban Farming” – Farming While Black I think a lot of people feel very detached from or daunted by the idea of farming and growing plants because the vision of farming in their head probably includes big, industrialized monoculture farms. But growing plants can happen anywhere, as long … Continue reading Week 9<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":{"latitude":47.0696106,"longitude":-122.9870605,"description":"Olympia, Washington, 98502, US"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/taste-portfolio-2022-dewitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Monday, 2\/28<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Home Herbalism Series – Class 4 <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>Readings<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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