Seven Ways to Profit Growing Medicinal Herbs

Medicinal herbs are steadily gaining in popularity. As people adopt a more natural and healthy lifestyle, medicinal herbs are used more and more, and the demand for them is growing. Here are seven of the more popular medicinal herbs that could be a profitable addition to a herb growing business.

1. Calendula

Catnip Plants

Calendula's popularity dates back to King Henry VII of England who loved colored food. Calendula was used to season his meals. It also has many other benefits. In particular it is good for digestive health as well as for skin preparations. It can be made into a foot soak or bath herb. To get the most medicinal potency out of it, grow a variety with a high resin content, such as "Resina" found at Johnny's Seeds, a popular online source for medicinal herbs. Calendula is one of the easiest medicinal herbs to grow.

2. Lavender

Lavender has so many uses it's been called the "Swiss army knife" of herbs. In addition to the powerful fragrance (the essential oil in lavender is one of the top-ten most used in the fragrance industry), it has many medicinal values as well. These include women and children's health, skin care, nervous system conditions, and pain relief.

3. Marsh mallow

This versatile herb is useful for coughs or bronchitis. It can also help the digestive tract and various skin conditions. Turn it into a marsh mallow tea and you have something tasty and healthy for cold and flu season.

4. Catnip

You've probably heard of this one. It's primarily used as a stimulant on cats, but it can also be a soothing sedative for humans. It can also bring about pain and stress relief as well as helping with cold and flu symptoms. Something you might want to consider is making "cat-er-pillows." It's just like it sounds: a pillow filled with catnip. These popular items are very easy to put together. It's simply a mini-pillow made from fabric scraps. You throw in dried catnip, sew it shut, and you're done. These can be sold at street fairs, stores, church fundraisers, and more, and are proven sellers.

5. Lemon Verbena

Lemon verbena makes a delicious tea. It is used for digestive benefits as well as a calming and sleep aid. To get the most benefit, harvest the leaves right before you use them. In fact, lemon verbena is best propagated from softwood stem cuttings rather than from the seeds. Also, be sure to provide protection during the cold weather, as it is a tender plant.

6. St John's wort

You've probably heard of this one and might even know someone who swears by it. In addition to its popular usage as a mood-altering herb, it can serve as skin treatment, provide immune support, and provide prevention during cold and flu season. Be sure to wait until it's fully matured before harvest so you can get the maximum benefits of this popular herb.

7. Chamomile

Mmm, chamomile can make for a soothing tea. Like many other medicinal herbs, it has great digestive benefits. It can also be a calming and sleep aid. You'll want to grow the German variety as this will produce harvestable flowers in just over two months. The best time to grow them is early in the season as it tends to bolt in the hot summer.

These are just some of the profitable medicinal herbs available. Grow and sell these favorites and you'll be on your way to growing profits in the herb business.

Seven Ways to Profit Growing Medicinal Herbs

Make a Simple Medicinal Indoor Herb Garden

Make an indoor medicinal herb garden to have your own year-round supply of herbs, for medicines, food flavourings and lovely aromas. Incidentally, the aroma in herbs derives from oils in the cell of the plants. So, a herb garden is not that difficult to make, and gives great satisfaction to adults and children alike.

Begin by selecting a suitable container, as large as possible within your home. You can use different materials including plastics, but the most recommended are clay, wood or ceramic pots. You can use many containers placed around the house, preferably in areas near windows, all of them with a different kind of herb.

Catnip Plants

Around autumn/fall time is the best time to divide grown herbs such as mint, sage, chives, and parsley, placing some of them outdoors and one or two as part of your indoor herb garden, bringing plants indoors prior to the frost period. Please, remember that young perennials like bay, sage, rosemary, can be destroyed by a harsh, cold frost, so they are best grown in pots and brought inside in winter.

When growing herbs in dry climates, supplemental watering is necessary, but not in temperate parts of the world, because excess of water could harm the plants or promote worms. A good quality, compost, from your own garden or bought can be used. Herbs aren't fussy about their soil and very often grow like weeds in their native habitat. Plant seeds just under the surface of a warm soil and water well. Germination will happen in a few days. Several perennial herbs grow for more than one season, including parsley, thyme, marjoram, sage, mint, and chives. Annual herbs include coriander, oregano, basil and dill. So try when possible, to begin annual herbs from the seed and perennial herbs from fairly young plants, however, parsley is advised to be grown on from a good quality seed. If you are hoping to grow your herbs totally from seed, purchase it from online seed companies or at your local garden supply stores. This ensures the quality of the seed, thus improving your chances to grow all of them successfully.

Some gardeners advise to plant the herbs outdoors and let them 'grow on' for a while, then moving them indoors before a frost, re-potting them to other containers. Once your herbs start to grow, pick them, even if you are not going to use them on a daily basis for cooking, as gathering them regularly encourages them to flourish, and you can dry them to store for later use, all-year-round. Dried herbs can last for up to a year, keeping the most of their full flavour.

Some herbs require sun, moving them onto a window ledge where sunlight will fall on them is sufficient, some herbs may require darkened glass pots, to help protect them against deterioration.

So, outdoors or indoors, herbs thrive in temperate areas, flavouring foods with their leaves and seeds and their aroma filling the kitchen, or wherever you set up your indoor herb garden, with aromatic essences, eliminating household cooking or smoking/pet odours. But best of all, you have the satisfaction of having your own home-grown supply of medicinal herbs, that can be taken alongside your conventional medicines. Also, think about taking herbs for preventative medicine, rather than waiting for your body to get sick. Lots of cultures around the world think of herbs as foods and take them with every meal, to prevent sickness.

Make a Simple Medicinal Indoor Herb Garden

medicinal plants and trees

medicinal plants and trees Tube. Duration : 12.87 Mins.

This is some of the medicinal plants and trees that I use. There are many more that can be safe and effective. Like with anything wild, make sure that you identify what it is and how to use it. Only harvest in safe places. And please respect all of nature, not everything has been put here for us. You never want to harvest all of any plant or herb in an area. Dont take the biggest and best. You may also want to show your respect to the plant life as they are liveing too. I also like to ask permission of the plant and ask it to help me heal.

Tags: medicinal plants, blood root, mullein, raspberry, root, roots, jewel weed, wild catnip, wild plants, medicinal trees