BBC Programme 'How to grow your own drugs?'

This is a new series on the BBC helping to show how our gardens and hedgerows can provide the ingredients to produce our own medicines and cosmetics. And it is available to watch online!

www.bbc.co.uk...

This is something very close to my own heart, I am currently looking for a small holding to let so that I can develop an apothecary garden business. This programme is excellent, accessible and the presenter isn't at all blousey. Something for every level of interest.

PS. If anyone has any land to let anywhere in the UK, especially if it includes a small woodland...please, please contact me. (No harm in asking, as you never know , they are few and far between so I am nothing if not flexible, I would even consider the continent at a push)


(Note to MODs...I wasn't sure where to put this, please move as appropriate. Thank you.)

Cool. Unfortunately that programme is viewable only for UK, though there's some mention of a radio show which I may check out latter. I'm working on a garden using only heirloom seeds - I haven't yet planned an herb/medicinal garden but should put some thought into it. Valerian and some mildly narcotic white poppies do grow wild here wild. Also Indian tobacco - scratch the leaf up and put it on the forehead to relieve headaches.

Originally posted by ChrisCrikey
Cool. Unfortunately that programme is viewable only for UK, though there's some mention of a radio show which I may check out latter. I'm working on a garden using only heirloom seeds - I haven't yet planned an herb/medicinal garden but should put some thought into it. Valerian and some mildly narcotic white poppies do grow wild here wild. Also Indian tobacco - scratch the leaf up and put it on the forehead to relieve headaches.

I am sorry, I didn't realise that it could only be viewed from the UK, that is such a shame.

A lot of the flowers, plants and roots that have medicinal properties will grow wild out and about, many are classified as weeds. Valerian is an excellent plant, and can be used as an anti-depressant (it is slightly less volatile than St Johns Wort/Hypercium), the poppies you have sound like Opium/papaver somniferum, the heads can be boiled in milk for use as either a narcotic, to induce sleep or for pain relief. Privet hedging is also good for pain relief used similarly. But as the guy in the film suggests (if you had been able to watch it), it is always worth doing an allergy test before using any of these plants to make sure you don't get an adverse reaction.

I hadn't heard of the Indian tobacco, not sure if it is native here. We have nicotiana cultivers, does it belong to that family? If you take the leaves of these plants, and place then in a big plastic fizzy drinks bottle, bottom cut off and hung upside down, they will break down to produce a liquid pesticide. It can even be used on food crops as long as you don't use it immediately prior to harvesting. You can do the same with nettles to produce a feed.

I swear by my copy of Culpeper's, it not only holds a comprehensive list of medicinals, but it also includes directions on how to prepare the plants and when to harvest them. You have to interpret some of the illnesses and conditions that he lists as knowledge of physiology and disease classification has progressed somewhat since the 17th century. You will find though that many of the plants he lists are ones that we are used to seeing in garden centres, as well as out and about in the countryside.

That is rather strange as I am in Namibia and I saw the series, it has been on our satellite service twice already! At least I think so, a young dark haired guy presenting, making "concoctions in his kitchen?


To Chris: Are you in the states? I was in the US a while back and bought myself a book called "Back to Eden" by Jethro Kloss, this book is incredible, packed with info of all sorts on every plant, tree/shrub/grass/weed etc, which part to use, which to avoid, how to prepare etc etc etc! North American plants! It was written many years ago so the language is quite "old" but the remedies etc are fascinating!

Great show I watched the whole series first time around.
I now have a herb garden and have made many of the tonics he did on the show.




You can find more on yt.

reply to post by boymonkey74


You may also enjoy the book 'Grow your own Pharmacy' by Linda Gray.

I sadly had to make a stability/financial/security job decision that means I no longer have a garden of my own. I have my name down, on a very long list, for an allotment, and I have a graveyard that I am responsible for...lots of St John's Wort growing there, so I have a means of coping with the depression of not having my own plot