“The Medicinal Herb Grower” book–volume 1, by Richo Cech
$19.95
In the year 2000, Richo wrote the book “Making Plant Medicine” that told the story of his little family living in the coast mountains of Oregon. That book helped people learn how to access the healing power of herbs that could readily be grown in the home garden. “The Medicinal Herb Grower” continues this story, as it follows the family’s move to Southern Oregon where they engaged the growing of larger and more diverse gardens and fields of medicinal herbs. It is about how to make a place for these healing herbs to grow and draws from Richo’s over 25 years of experience. The book starts with “Principles of Natural Gardening Techniques,” covering: observation in nature, planting with the seasons, creating plant habitat, the benefits of diversity, and rules of (green) thumb. The book then covers “Practices of Natural Gardening Techniques,” practical “how-to’s”, covering: preparing the ground, making diverse composts and potting soils, planting seeds and cuttings, caring for plants, and harvest and processing of medicinal herbs and seeds. The book is full of amusing anecdotes and is delightfully illustrated by Sena Cech. We hope it reads a bit like a “James Herriot” of herbalism and that it is as nourishing to you as cornbread. This book has a great deal of information in it for the startup medicinal herb grower and also for the advanced farmer of medicinal herbs. It will help engender success in growing common weeds and rare and unusual plants. It will help you if you are growing tulsi in a pot in New Jersey and if you are trying to grow 100 acres of Skullcap on a farm in Costa Rica. The book will inspire confidence in those that have a timorous relationship to seed planting, and will improve the technique of those whose sweat hits the earth and sprouts flowers.
176 pages, soft cover
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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Robin –
I love this book – I reread it every year to draw inspiration, fine-tune a compost recipe, discover forgotten pearls of wisdom. Will there ever be a volume 2?? I hope so! Unfortunately this book was stolen with my backpack last year, and after several months without, I MUST replace it now that it’s spring. This is a very readable, digestible, entertaining source of knowledge and inspiration if you love gardening with medicinals.
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