Take a deep dive into herbal self-reliant autonomy! The road to becoming a competent herbalist is long but the payoff is huge in terms of independent health and wellness for you, your family and potentially, your business. Take the time to dive in deeply to reap the many life changing benefits!

Vital Course Educational Objectives

Our apprenticeship program is a skills-based harvesting adventure, hence, the principal goal is for the students to develop the ability and skills to identify plants through organoleptic identification, foster strong earth stewardship and create effective herbal remedies for home or business.

By completion of the program, students will have the confidence to:

• Identify medicinal plants native and non-native to the North Idaho using botanical Latin and common terms with standard and organoleptic botanical identification methods.
• Distinguish the medicinal uses of plant species both native and non-native in the wild and garden ~ materia medica
• Participate in legal and sustainable plant harvesting and processing.
• Gain an understanding of phytochemistry and constituent groups, actions, and needs of constituents or groups to give the medicine maker a clear view on pairing them with the correct mentrua. Previous chemistry is not required.
• Using critical thinking, design and create a wide variety of highly-effective herbal remedies by recognizing the formulas plants create when living in community with each other and knowing when to harvest for optimum strength.
• Discern appropriate applications and dosing for the remedies and contraindications.
• Understand the basics of anatomy and physiology and how plants act on/in the body.
• Delve into creating and maintaining an herb garden for high medicinal yields. Students may take home plants from the CMHS medicinal herb garden to add to or create their own medicinal garden.
• Gain an understanding of “getting the medicine to the people in ways they’ll enjoy taking, so that healing can occur.”

Each sessions’ weeks bring unique lessons. Students will be engaged in an array of holistic botanical experiences that will take them deeper into the practice of herbalism. Students must make the commitment to be available and present each week.

• Field trips
• Wild and garden plant harvests
• Preparation and medicine making
• Hydrosol distillation
• Flower remedies
• Botanical skin care
• Herbal crafting projects
• Food as medicine
• Herbal support for body systems
• Holistic healing practices

Students will complete projects that will take approximately 8 hours per month, which may include study, research, creating monographs to add to their herbarium, quizzes, creating remedies and writing short papers.

Students who complete all assignments and miss no more than 2 days throughout the program will receive a certificate of achievement at the end of the course. Fulfillment of the requirements for the apprenticeship program may be applied to continuing education credits.