Making Root Medicine

With the approaching Autumn, I begin to think about making “root medicine”.  The flurry of summer activity is beginning to wind down, the kids are back to school and I start thinking about the coming seasons. I’m pulling “in” a bit and so are the plants.  If you stop to think about a plant’s life it becomes evident that this is the perfect time of year to harvest roots.  After the rush of putting on stem and leaf in the Spring - think lettuce, spinach, & asparagus -and fruit and/or seeds in the summer, when we collect those gifts, a plant begins to pull its energy back into the Earth in preparation for the coming winter, concentrating nutrients and phytochemicals in the roots.  It is the perfect time to collect plant roots to make into medicinal concoctions.