The Creative Herbal Home

Susan Belsinger and Tina Marie Wilcox
ISBN 0-9766771-1-3
Herbspirit, 2007

I have known Tina Wilcox since she was a teenager in 1974 and watched her grow into a nationally known herbalist and the head gardener at The Ozark Folk Center in Arkansas. Tina is an accomplished writer, a musician, a performer and is in demand at garden seminars all over the country. She has shared some of her herbal wisdom in this book.

If you are disenchanted with Western Medicine, you can try herbal remedies that have been used for healing and body care since before recorded history. You will find that everyday herbs that you can grow in your garden or buy at a local health food store can be and have been used for centuries to restore our bodies to health. Most of the modern day pharmaceuticals started their lives as plants and were altered chemically to become today's antibiotics, analgesics and statins.

Frankly, I prefer to start at the source and use the plants before they have been used by the huge pharmaceutical companies and sold at huge profits.

Although you must be careful using herbs, you will find that side effect are fewer and milder than with prescribed drugs. We can also use herbs for skin care, for aroma therapy, for everyday first aid.

Tina and Susan give us 216 pages of uses of herbs in our homes.

They tell us what herbs to use for what, whether to make a infusion or a decoction and what the difference is. We will learn that our kitchens, as the heart of our households, are our laboratories for preparation of herbal remedies as well as herbal vinegars and syrups.

You will learn how to make essential oils and how to use them, cleaning aids and insect repellents. And even a herbal first aid kit for your home and for traveling.

Herbs are strong medicine and must be used with caution, especially if you are taking prescription medicine or are pregnant or nursing. Tina and Susan have included cautions and warnings throughout the book and set them off in italics so you cannot miss them.