Herbal Home Apothecary: Making Salves and Tinctures Yourself

There is this moment in high summer when the bed gives more than the kitchen can use. That is exactly when the medicinal herbs earn a second look. A handful of glowing orange flowers becomes a salve that soothes rough hands all winter long. A few leaves from the roadside become a syrup for a scratchy throat. A herbal home apothecary is no esoteric project, it is practical stockkeeping. You need no laboratory for it, just a little patience and a feel for cleanliness.

What really belongs in a herbal home apothecary

A good home apothecary is small. Better five herbs you truly use than twenty jars gathering dust. The following plants grow easily across the German-speaking region, and many you will even find growing wild at the roadside.

The lovely side effect: all these plants are also bee forage, kitchen herbs or both. Your apothecary grows alongside without you having to give up extra space.

Calendula: your most important medicinal herb

If you grow just one single medicinal plant, make it calendula. Calendula officinalis germinates quickly, blooms from June right into the frost and self-seeds every year. The petals contain substances traditionally used for skin care. To harvest, pick the fully opened flower heads on a dry morning once the dew has lifted. The more often you pick, the more flowers the plant pushes out.

Dried, the flowers keep well for a year. What matters is that they are truly bone dry before they go into the jar, otherwise they mould. One part of your harvest goes into the oil infusion for the salve, another into the tea blend.

Ribwort plantain, the plaster from the roadside

Recognising and using it

Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) is one of the most reliable wild herbs there is. The narrow leaves have five clear lengthwise ribs, and when you tear a leaf carefully, tough threads stay hanging. That is the sure sign of identification.

For a fresh mosquito bite, rub a few leaves between your fingers until the sap comes out and lay the pulp on. It cools and eases the itch. Prepared as a syrup, ribwort plantain is an old household remedy for a tickly cough.

Harvest the leaves in clean spots, so not right beside the road or the field track where spraying happens. A meadow edge in your own garden is ideal. Gather only as much as you will process in the next few days, because the leaves work best when fresh.

Harvesting and drying: half the battle

Airy and dark

The best time to gather is the late morning on a dry day. Harvest leaves before flowering, flowers on the day they open, roots in autumn. Tie small bunches, not too thick, otherwise the core stays damp and moulds.

Hang the bundles upside down in an airy, shady place. Direct sun bleaches the colour and drives off the essential oils. After one to two weeks the herbs are bone dry.

For dried herbs one simple rule of thumb applies: they must be so dry that they crackle when rubbed and crumble to powder. If something still feels leathery or cool, wait longer. Damp remnants are the most common reason why even self-dried herbs spoil in the jar.

Making calendula salve yourself

The salve is the centrepiece and simpler than many think. First you make an oil infusion, then you stir it with beeswax into the salve. Allow two to three weeks for the oil infusion, and half an hour for the salve itself.

1. Set up the oil infusion

   Fill a clean screw-top jar loosely with dried calendula flowers and pour a good plant oil over them, such as olive or sunflower oil, until everything is covered. Close it and put it in a warm, bright spot.

2. Let it steep

   Let it steep for two to three weeks and shake once daily. The oil turns golden. Important: the flowers must always stay covered by the oil, otherwise it moulds where it meets the air.

3. Strain

   Strain the oil through a fine cloth and squeeze the flowers out well. Measure the amount of oil, you need it for the mixing ratio.

4. Melt the wax

   For every 100 ml of oil infusion, reckon on about 10 to 12 g of beeswax. Warm the oil and wax together slowly in a water bath until the wax has melted.

5. Set test and filling

   Put a drop on a cold plate. If it is too soft, stir in more wax; if too hard, more oil. Then fill it hot into clean tins and let it cool uncovered before you close the lid.

Stored cool and dark, the salve keeps for about a year. If it ever smells rancid, it is spent and belongs in the bin. For shelf life, cleanliness is everything: rinse jars and tins beforehand with hot water and let them dry.

Setting up a tincture: preserving herbs in alcohol

A tincture is an extract in high-proof alcohol. The alcohol dissolves substances that will not dissolve in water and keeps the extract usable for a long time. For herbs from your own garden it is a lovely way to preserve the summer.

Here is how you go about it: fill a clean jar halfway with fresh, chopped herbs, then pour clear drinking alcohol from the pharmacy or high-proof grain spirit over them until everything is covered. Let it steep for two to four weeks in a dark place and shake regularly. Then strain, fill into a dark dropper bottle and label it. Stored in the dark, a tincture keeps one to two years.

Where the limits lie

Homemade salves and teas are wonderful for everyday life: rough skin, a mosquito bite, a scratchy throat. But they are no substitute for medical treatment. That is the most important sentence in this whole article.

Beyond that, identify every wild plant beyond doubt before you use it. Among the daisy family, to which calendula belongs, there are people with cross-allergies who should be careful. Try a new salve first on a small patch of skin and wait a day. Anyone who takes medication regularly is best clearing up interactions briefly with a doctor or pharmacist.