“Growing Plant Medicine Vol 1,” by Richo Cech, illustrated by Sena Cech
$29.95
“Growing Plant Medicine, Vol. 1” is the much-expanded version of the original “The Medicinal Herb Grower.”
The book consists of:
“Theory and practice of natural garden techniques, newly augmented with bioregional medicinal plant recommendations, garden plans and materia medica. Arranged by plant families, alphabetically by kinship and common name. Families A through H. The rest of the alphabet will be left to Volume 2, which is in production. This is a personal book, filled with ruminations on gardening and herbalism coming from a lifetime of observing, growing and advocating for medicinal herbs. I hope the information is helpful and that you enjoy the style. ”
354 pages, Soft Cover
$29.95 USD
shipping is free on this website and within the USA
Realistically illustrated by Sena Cech, with line drawings of the actual plants, flowers, seeds, seedlings, mice and more.
“As for the way of herbalism, my experience is that discovering what the herbs are used for is mighty useful. How much better still when they teach me. . . what I am good for.” –Richo Cech
In stock
Question
Virginia Pender –
Hello there from Tennessee! I am a beginner gardener with high hopes of creating a small medicinal herb garden with the intention of making my own medicines etc. is this a book that would help me know what herb is used for what ailment? Your reviews are great!
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Richo Cech –
Hi Virginia,
Thanks for contacting. I think you would eventually want to have this book as well as volume 2. However, to answer your question specifically, what you would want would be “Making Plant Medicine.” That has very specific usage and dosage info. richo
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Kathy (verified owner) –
I love, love this book. It makes me want to go live on the homestead. Even so, it has left me with a question, the book talks about the importance of plants, I have read that the leaves from magnolia trees have herbicide properties. Is this true?
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Richo Cech –
Hi Kathy, Thanks for writing and thank you for reading the book. I haven’t heard that about magnolia, but i do know that herbicide residues cause magnolia leaves to deform. richo
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Erin Whittingham (verified owner) –
Hi Richo and team, thank you so, so much for learning each plant and then sharing it with us. I love the book. Growing just got a whole lot easier and less stressful since I don’t have to research the needs and wants of each little plant. I can rely on your book (no screens needed – yippee!), and then experiment from there. Thankful for your life’s work <3
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laura.mangels (verified owner) –
What a fantastic book. Thanks to the detailed instructions therein, I’m encouraged to try my hand with herbs I would normally have never considered. Costus and Tennessee purple coneflower, here I come! I have many gardening and herb books, and this level of detail has always been missing for me. I can’t wait for volume 2.
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Richo Cech –
Hi Laura, Thanks so much for taking a moment to add one more drop of honey to the good tea that makes up the world. As we speak, I’m well into the sages of Volume 2. Completion is somewhere there on the horizon, I can almost see it. Richo
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laura.mangels (verified owner) –
I appreciate the use of stories. I’m noticing how much more deeply the lessons seem to go! I am appreciating all the practical wisdom too, and feeling excited to enjoy the development of my young garden. Dreaming of so many medicines for my people and my wider community! And I am enjoying, relying on, and widely sharing my steady harvests of thriving SM-seed mullein and coastal yarrow in the meantime (two that managed to naturalize before things took a busy turn). Getting back to it now and really so grateful to have this book!
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lingling_exeros (verified owner) –
Your connection with the land and the plants, and the real experience coming from that, comes through these pages, in addition to the wealth of information. Very delightful illustrations. I am thankful to have encountered this book, a true gift.
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Richo Cech –
hi lingling, thank you, our pleasure. r
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Liz Clark –
Hi and thank you Richo and Sena! I have never learned so much from any book…ever! Though I haven’t yet read your others 😉 The illustrations are such a fun and beautiful touch. Anywhoo here’s a big, heartfelt t h a n k y o u.
On a personal note, I’ve been on this kind of quest to learn how to have a truly symbiotic relationship with the earth. I went to school for landscape architecture, worked as a designer and at different botanical gardens – and became frustrated because of the way plants are viewed and (mis)treated. I was in a kind of crisis bc I’m like I love plants and the earth and I don’t know what’s right? but it’s not what I’m doing. That’s where this book is so unique and helpful!
This book is the most beautifully useful gardening book because of your true love, respect, and extensive knowledge in how to nurture plants, the soil, and ecosystems in a thoughtful way. I really appreciated the fun stories and useful tips sprinkled throughout, and the practical examples of how you sew love into what you do.
ALSO – For over a year I have been stumped on what to do with this one small piece of garden where the gophers kill everything save some alyssum, but a box was just too harsh. Now I’m stoked on the tortuga!!! Woohoo looking forward to the next edition!
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Question
Dustin Bryant –
Hello, I am very excited about the this book and I am looking forward for the new updated copy. As soon as I see it is available, I’m grabbing one immediately
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Richo Cech –
hi dustin, yes, thank you! we’re still working on the index, trying to organize 2,000 plant names, life tends to intervene, but we’re making progress. richo
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claire griffin –
Will the book be available as a PDF/download? I will be traveling and will not be able to receive land mail. 🙏
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Richo Cech –
we will try to do this!
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Taylor Shaw –
Hello! I was wondering if you had an idea when this book will be available once again. Thank you!
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Richo Cech –
Hello Taylor, everyone who hits “waitlist” on this is going to get notification when “Growing Plant Medicine,” the expanded edition of “TMHG” is available. We’re currently working on the indexes so it is a nearly completed work. Thank you very much for your interest, it is 366 very dense pages of herbal inspiration. Richo
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Question
conniehoffman55 –
ohmygoodness!!! I totally missed out on a book I would LOVE to read – what a bummer!! I wish it could be re-printed the way it reads in addition to the new version…I just would love to read the original! Please dig me up a copy for me of the original in your garden, Richo!! Thank you and many blessings to you and your family and your amazing plants. The Lord made sure that we can take care of our health and bodies naturally – I have so much to learn! You are a blessing to us all, Richo!
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Richo Cech –
hi connie, thanks for wanting to read the book, i have a couple of copies, they are not covered in dirt but may have bent corners. e-mail me your address to herbseed@budget.net and i’ll send you one. i’ve completed writing the updated version, it is being edited and formatted, it will be available quite soon. richo
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NikiDee –
I can’t wait for the new edition BUT if you have an old edition available I’d be happy to by that now.
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Richo Cech –
Hi Niki, I searched my whole office and found exactly ONE remaining and something tells me i should probably keep it. i’m still editing the new book as we speak! richo
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tonya792001 –
Looking forward to the new version! Any idea on a date yet?
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Richo Cech –
just now is saturday morning and we’re working on the 1,500 entry plant index–everything has to be right, it takes some time, we’re on the cusp of publishing, and THANK YOU so much for wanting it! r
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phd.permaculture.homestead.design –
Fun to read, full of personal stories and tall tales
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Mistique Angel Davis –
This is by far the best gardening book I have ever read! I generally interact with my garden books as reference books, looking up what I am curious about, but this one is actually fun to read! I read it from front to back. It’s full of information and I always recommend this book when someone asks me what garden book to get. And the had drawn illustrations are adorable!
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Richo Cech –
hi mistique, wow thank you that is lovely to hear, there are very few people who make the effort as you did to let us know. um, i do think you’ll enjoy the updated version that is coming out soon. r
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Jessica Farina –
When will the new version be out? I can’t wait to read it !!!
Thank you ?
Jessica
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Richo Cech –
hi jessica. you’ll see it soon, entitled “growing plant medicine.” Included will be a new formulary and 10 bioregional herb gardens of 37 species each = 370 + herbs to peruse. r
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Glenda –
Pls send us a reminder email! I will love to but the book!
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Richo Cech –
ok, we’ll try to connect the “TMHG” waitlist with “Growing Plant Medicine” when it comes out. We will have plenty of books, and there will be fanfare. r
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lazywildswan (verified owner) –
Richo gives better detail than the assigned reading for my Chinese medicine study, and everything is really well-written. Mayche edited the book with the precision of old-time New York Times book review editors, so it is a pleasure to read. But, even if you just want to learn more about herbs, but do not want to grow them, this book will be well-worth buying.
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stevemac2667 –
This book not only tells you how to grow herbs, it teaches you how you can adapt and use the basics the author gives to create the conditions you will need to grow just about any herb you come across. The principle of teaching how to fish rather than just giving you the fish.
You wont need to have hundreds of pages in a lot of volumes to grow any herb with only knowing the basics of where a plant grows on it’s own. You can then create the mini ecosystem ( conditions,,) to grow nearly any herb you will ever come across. Critical thinking directed by the basic facts.
I now have all three of his books and although each works alone, they really give you a lot of deeper understanding of each herb and its properties when all three are used together.
Whether you just want to propagate herbs for your own use or you want to sell the herb plants , this book is the best bang for your bucks I can find.
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Tim Roberts –
As someone who is primarily a TCM herbalist, but who actually does grow herbs, this book was both informative, and entertaining. It does cover the essence of herb growing quite well. A lot of vegetable gardeners are utterly awful when it comes to herbs (as they seem to think that everything likes the conditions that most garden vegetables enjoy). A book from someone who appreciates the difference in conditions that radically different plants need is a refreshing change.
Pretty certainly the best book I’ve read on growing herbs, and certainly the most readable one, doing you the favour of getting the essence of how to do it (mostly by imitating the plants natural habitat) rather than a guide of temperature, water, shade etc measurements that a plant will cope with.
If you want a ‘how to’ manual with a list of steps, this isn’t it. If you want to understand how you go about learning planting from the plants, then this will suit you fine.
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Richo Cech –
Hi Tim,
Thank you for this, it was really fun for me to read this, I wish I could give you something for writing that!
Richo
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conniehoffman55 –
Tim, you are so right on! I am a 70-yr old veggie gardener who has grown veggies and a few culinary herbs my whole life. I could never understand why I wasn’t successful at growing medicinal herbs which I have recently been so interested in growing. Then Richo sent me a copy of TMHG and I finally understand….veggies are the work-horse of the garden and medicinal herbs are angels who are blessing our bodies with natural herbals for our health and well-being! Richo taught me to pay attention to each herb as an individual and what it needs to be happy in the garden…..not to mention how much the pollinators LOVE these herbs!! Thank you so much Richo – it’s so cool to find REAL people in this dark world!
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Richo Cech –
hi connie, thanks for writing. yes, you have it right, the veggies, as cultigens, can be pretty tame in comparison to some of our herbs. i’m super excited about the new book because it has a lot more in-depth info on what each plant might need to be happy. yesterday i came face to face with a caterpillar hanging from an errant meadowsweet stalk, in the process of becoming a chrysalis. i was like, wow, it really does make a difference! r
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