Flower Essences ~ Make Your Own Tinctures (Part I) - Page 3

Carry your saucepan to your place where you are picking, and fill the saucepan 3/4 full with your plant (twigs, leaves, flowers, etc). Place the lid on. When you have your pan at your heat source, remove the lid, cover it with the water, and bring to a boil. After it has reached boiling point, simmer for half an hour.

Use a twig to push the twigs, leaves and flowers under the water while simmering. After 1/2 hour, remove from heat, cover with the lid, and stand outside to cool. When cool, remove the twigs and filter into a clean container.

Put 1 1/2 fl oz of the flower water into the 3 fl oz bottles, filling the rest of the way with brandy. This will make your mother tincture. Again, to make your remedy tinctures, put 2 drops of mother tincture into a 1 fl oz dropper bottle, and top with brandy. The put 2 drops of that mixture back into the mother tincture bottle to keep her fed. (It's kind of like your sour dough starter.)

These are the basics. In the following series of articles, we will cover different flower remedies and their purposes.

Are you ready to start making your own remedies? Stay tuned for next week's article on the amazing Rescue Remedy! Can't wait until next week? Okay, here are a couple of remedies from "Tip O' The Mornin' To You" to hold you over (but remember, spring isn't quite here yet, and you still have to grow them *smile*):

Heather ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...
Impatiens ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...
Agrimony ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...
Elm ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...
Holly ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...
Hornbeam ~ http://www.suite101.com/discussion.cfm/h...

Also, look for remedy postings at Carol Wallace's Virtually Gardening Sharing Home and Garden eZine where the gardeners will teach us how to grow some of these amazing plants! I'll post the URLs here when they are ready.

Special thanks to Debbie for the incredible garden photos for this article. You can visit her beautiful gardens at Rainyside.com, as well as her Amateur Garden Photography site here at Suite101 where you can learn to take those beautiful garden photos yourself!

REMEMBER: It is important to consult with your physician before taking ANY home remedy!