The days are cooler and the nights are longer. It’s not all boots, scarves, incense, and pumpkin spice! Fill your herbal toolbelt with easy to make – and take – herbal remedies that ease cold and flu symptoms, kill viruses, and generally help our loved ones feel warm and cozy!
Conifer Bark and Needle Virus and Congestion Remedy
Ingredients
- A pint jar
- Clippers or scissors
- 4 hand size pieces of doug fir or pine (see pic)
- 1 organic mandarin orange or tangerine
- 2 inches of fresh ginger
- 1 tsp. cloves
- 100 proof vodka
- honey
- label
Instructions
- Strip the leaves/needles and bark from the fir or pine. Chop them up as fine as you can. We use the needles and bark, the sticks get composted.
- Thinly slice the mandarin orange, skin and all, and cut into quarters.
- Grate the ginger.
- Everything goes into the pint jar… don’t forget the cloves!
- Pour the vodka in about 2/3rds of the way up the jar, then top off with the honey.
- Label your jar and let it sit on the counter for 3 weeks to a month, then strain.
Notes
Use up to a teaspoon in warm water, in tea, or straight from the spoon several times a day as needed.
As COVID has created “flu season” all year long, and simple colds and influenzas A and B are still active, it’s always good timing to make these tried and true herbal remedies!
One of the mottos here at the Cedar Mountain Herb School is “Get the medicine to the people in ways that they’ll delight in taking, so that healing can occur.” Herbal remedies don’t have to taste bad to work! Why take Robitussin when you can incorporate the medicine from the woods and garden in your apothecary?
In the wild, we can utilize herbs such as fir and pine, salal, licorice fern, and elderberries in our remedies. Our kitchen gardens yield onions and garlic, rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage. At the farmers markets, we might find ginger, turmeric, oranges, lemons, and tangerines. All of these healthful herbs can be turned into remedies that can relieve coughs and congestion, kill viruses, help us to sleep better, quell nausea, and lessen sore throats and the aches and pains that can manifest when viruses occur.
Conifers have an affinity for the lungs, containing the medicine in their leaves and bark in the form of terpenes and resins that stimulate white blood cell levels (leukocytosis) and are antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, astringent, expectorant, and bronchial stimulating for easier breathing.
One of my favorite fall medicines to make and use starts with Douglas Fir needles and bark. Ponderosa, white, lodgepole, shore or any pine, spruce, western larch while the needles are still green, and any of the fir trees may be used with equal success, medicinally.
I’m happy to share some of my favorite recipes that taste so good and work so well! Try them with your loved ones and see the amazing results.
2 Responses
Hi there! I want to make this infused honey above! I have read in different forums to be careful when infusing honey that you do not introduce extra moisture that may allow honey to ferment. Is it okay to infuse lemon and and citrus in this honey? Will the honey ferment while sitting with the herbs in it? If I wanted to infuse honey with fresh thyme and rosemary, should I be concerned the honey will ferment, or should I use dried herbs? Thank you!! Love your information and recipes on your website!
Hello Jeanette!
Thanks for reaching out with your questions and kind words! It seems that everyone has their way to making herbal remedies, some sound, some not. I am a big fan of using fresh herbs in all of my remedies so as to not lose any of the medicinal value. Making herbal honeys with fresh herbs is fine, with the caveat of when utilizing fruit and berries such as elderberries, citrus, etc, we macerate (allow the plant material to sit in the honey) while in the fridge and then keep in the fridge after straining a month later. If some honeys do ferment, that is not a bad thing, but a boon to our immune, nerver and digestive health via introducing good gut bacteria. We do need to watch for mold. Mold and fermentation are 2 different things. I hope this answers your questions and…..have fun!