I have collected the leaves of some of the mullein in my garden for the last two years, because every year, guaranteed, I will get bronchitis. And nothing will touch it and it will go on for over a month, unless I start treating it aggressively. Once I began using mullein, I noticed a drastic reduction in the length of time it took for my bronchitis to go away.
Well, the inevitable has happened and I am currently facing a brewing case of bronchitis. So, mullein to the rescue! I have a jar of leaves that I dried this spring (very easy to dry - just pick them, lay them on a cookie sheet for a few weeks until they are crispy instead of leathery, then pack them into a sealed jar for storage). For lung ailments, you drink a tea made of these leaves, and the flowers if you have them. The flowers are actually more potent, but hard to store. Also beware, the seeds of the mullein are toxic. I'm not sure what they do, but it is best to avoid them.
For the tea, I crush the dried leaves into a coffee filter. You have to be very careful not get any of the leaves outside the filter as mullein leaves have tiny hairs that can irritate the mucus membranes.
I tie off the filter with a plastic twist tie that I re-use for this purpose and steep the bag in boiling water for at least 5 minutes to ensure a good potency. Other sites suggest at least 10 minutes, but, eh.
The tea ends up looking like chicken broth, and you know what? It is delicious! It tastes like wildflowers and honey. If you get a chance to use the flowers, it is even better. But, you are only supposed to drink a cup every few hours. I make my tea more potent than what some sites have suggested, using a couple tablespoons per cup vs teaspoons per cup.I also sweeten it with local honey if I have it, because honey has its own herbal properties that enhance the work of the mullein. If I don't have honey, I use dark brown sugar, because I like it and it melds well with the mullein flavors.
I drink a cup or so immediately and save the rest for later in the day. To this batch I have even added a little dried Creeping Charlie. Yep, Creeping Charlie, the bane of my garden, just happens to be quite an amazing little herbal remedy itself! Among its laundry list of remedy potential is decongestant. Just what I need! I started collecting it this spring after reading what it can do. It also is fairly tasty and blends well with the mullein flavors.
And you know the best part of all this? These medicines are FREE! Most of us throw these medicines away every year as we weed our gardens and don't even realize it. I am spending part of my winter researching other potential remedies that I can collect next year with my son and a friend that is also into herbal remedies. Let me know of any that you know of, especially ones that you have used yourself!
5 comments:
Hi Sylvana! Happy New Year to you. I hope you all had a nice Christmas.
I'm enjoying my time off from work! One good thing about working for the School District is holiday time off.
Anyay, ever since you posted about mullein I've wanted to grow it but never got my act together to plant it. It grows wild along the roadsides in the rural areas here. It is a very stately plant indeed! I didn't know about it's medicinal properties. I was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis a few years ago and when conditions are right for it I get seriously ill. I think I'll be looking for mullein springing up this year!
PrimRozie, I have had bronchitis problems ever since I was a child. I usually use guaifenesin but I have found that the mullein is actually more effective, tastier, and it's FREE!! Once you can get a plant moved to your garden, it should self-seed. Just look out for the little plants in the spring. They are pretty unique, so should be easy to find.
If you are having trouble finding the plants, you can order seeds too: http://www.sandmountainherbs.com/mullein.html.
Good luck! I know how annoying bronchitis is!
Most of the herbal remedies and dietary supplements do not need an approval of FDA to sell their products. But for some remedies, it is exception. Just like a drug, herbs and supplements can affect the body’s chemistry, and therefore they may have potential to produce side effects that may harm the body.
- Octavia UK Girl
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I was familiar with these plants from when I was small and they grew wild at the edges of our pastures so when one sprang up on the edge of my garden, I let it go. I mean, it was right at the edge of my flower garden - how convenient, right? For some time, I thought that it was called a "lamb's ear," but I was confusing my plants. I'm very excited by my research to see how the plant has medicinal properties. As a lifelong sufferer of asthma, these new findings are pretty cool. And, when I read your blog about successful treatment of bronchitis, I got even more pleased. I use tea tree oil, oregano oil, eucalyptus oil, now I will be able to create my own Mullein tea (and oil). Cool.
Doro, I can not tell you how excited I am about mullein. Bronchitis is no fun, and this mullein tea gets rid of it faster than anything I have ever tried. Plus it is more enjoyable to take than any of the other remedy. I have friends who very readily accept mason jars of the tea from me because it works for them too and it tastes so good.
Hope this remedy works for you too!
I also just found out that it is a great slug deterrent. And it works! Slugs were eating my pepper seedlings up. I covered the ground around the peppers with mullein leaves and the slugs will not crawl across it. Bonus is that it also prevents splash-back when it rains so not soil diseases on the plant and it acts as a mulch.
And, it is such a beautiful plant for the garden. It does reseed readily, but the plants are both easy to weed and transplant. I let a huge patch of it grow in my garden (I have a white and silver garden that it fits in beautifully) so that I always have plenty of the leaves on hand.
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