Free Medicine in Your Yard: 4 Medicinal Weeds Popping Up Right Now

Spring is here, and that means some of the most powerful medicinal plants on the planet are popping up in your yard, your garden edges, and along your favorite walking paths. And most people are either pulling them out or walking right past them.

In this episode, you'll meet four spring weeds that can have amazing benefits to your health: dandelion root and leaf, nettles, cleavers, and chickweed. You'll learn what they do, why they matter this time of year, and how to actually prepare them so you get the real medicine out.

Free, potent, accessible plant medicine. Growing right outside your door.

What's in this episode:

• Why spring weeds show up exactly when our bodies need them most
• Dandelion leaf and root: two different medicines from one plant
• Nettles for depletion, allergies, and deep nourishment
• Cleavers for lymphatic support and why fresh preparation matters
• Chickweed as a cooling, anti-inflammatory ally inside and out
• Ethical harvesting tips and how to prepare each plant effectively

For full show notes, resources, and links: theherbalistspath.com/blog/theherbalistspath-com/blog/free-medicinal-weeds-in-your-yard

Learn to make potent tasty medicine with us inside Medicine Makin' Mommas here.

Come to the Nourishing Nettles Conference with Susun Weed in May.

Wondering how you can use your herbal skills to help people when times are tough?

Grab Medicine For The People - An Herbalist's Guide To Showing Up For Your Community In Times of Need

It's loaded with ideas and resources to help you help others!💚 Click here to ge

Transcript

Welcome To The Herbalist Path

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Welcome to the Herbalist Path. If you love learning about the power of plant medicine and how to use it in your life, this show is for you. I'm Mel Mutterspot, clinical herbalist, herbal educator, and your host. In each episode, you're going to hear me sharing herbal insights and knowledge from my 25 plus years of working with and learning from the plants. Plus, I'm going to share interviews with some of the most amazing herbalists, educators, farmers, and healers out there, all bringing their herbal wisdom here for you. Really, this show is all about continuing this movement to put an herbalist in every home and a healer in every community. Again. Thank you so much for listening and welcome to the Herbalist Path. Enjoy the show. Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode here on the Herbalist Path. I am really, really excited. I think a large part because it's spring, and so many of my favorite medicinal plant friends are popping up all over the place. I've been going for walks and I actually just did my first medicinal plant walk with folks in my community of this year. I'll be doing them monthly. And it's so exciting to have people that want to hang out with me and listen to me nerd out on plants because I can tell you one thing. My family, my 12-year-old, my partner, they're kind of over me nerding out on plants anytime we go for a hike. I think they like still love me for it or see some kind of a charm in it. But yeah, they think I'm an absolute nerd. And these people actually want me to stop and nerd out on plants, which is such an absolute delight. And there's just so much popping up right now. I'm seeing the beautiful dandelion flowers all over. Like, what a joyous plant to see with its bright, sunshiny flowers. Like, why do people want to kill this stuff? I don't know. And I really wanted to kind of bring it all together. One of the things that is so amazing about these spring plants and why they're here for us is so many of them are really specific for this time of year. It's almost like nature had a game plan for us and knew exactly what we needed when we needed it. So if you think about it, you can think about like the winter time, right? We're eating heavy foods. Oftentimes we're going to parties, we may have more sugar or other indulgences than we really need. And we know those aren't ideal for us. But then we come out into springtime and we're often feeling really heavy, kind of sluggish and bloated and just kind of like ick, right? But then we've got the spring that's also like, hey, I want to feel alive. I mean, this starts showing some skin. Maybe I should do something about how my skin looks right now. And everybody's suddenly motivated to take care of their health. And a lot of the herbs I wanted to talk about you with you here today have a lot to do with helping in those ways, whether they're lymphatic herbs, getting all of that stuck ick, maybe the sickness that you might have had over the winter season, like getting that stuff out, moving fluids through the body, whether that's bile and the digestive enzymes or urine or sweat or all of those kinds of things. There are so many herbs here to help us get that fresh spring alive pep in your steps. So let's start to dive into some of the plants that I have been seeing. I would love to hear from you if you've been seeing them as well. Just pop a little note to me and let me know what is coming up for you. So, since I already mentioned dandelion or dentelione, this is a perfect time to talk about Taraxicum official, which is the Latin name for a dandelion. And this one is just incredible for so many reasons. I think a lot of people know a lot about its medicinal uses these days. Thankfully, more and more people are praising the dandelion instead of just spraying the dandelion. And I love that news. So the cool thing is you can use the whole plant as medicine. I tend to use mostly the leaf or the root for medicine, and they've got some different medicinal properties, whether you're using the leaf or the root. So for the leaf, it's going to be a really nice diuretic. So a diuretic means that we're going to help to release fluids from the body and waste from the body through urination, right? It's going to make you pee. One of the nicknames for a dandelion is pissing lit, which is like wet the bed. Um, so it's kind of funny to think of. Hopefully, you're not gonna wet the bed when you use your dandelion, but it's still nice to know if you need to give the kidneys some more support and filtration. Uh, that can be a really, really nice herb to turn to. And the nice thing to think about is sometimes people are on other diuretics, whether they be herbs or pharmaceuticals, and what happens is they're releasing too much potassium from the body. But dandelion leaf is loaded with potassium, so it actually helps you replenish those stores. You're not losing out on anything when you're using dandelion leaf as a diuretic. It's also a fantastic bitter herb. So it's going to stimulate the upper and the lower digestive secretions, get the bile flowing through the body, supporting the liver in its detoxification process, as well as helping the body to be able to break down fats and proteins even more efficiently. So, really great herb to have on hand. Right now is prime time to gather those leaves while they're nice and fresh and tender in the springtime. If you're really lucky, you've got a farmer around that actually grows dandelion for the leaves, and you can get them at some markets. I know we can here in Portland, Oregon area. I'm I'm just outside of Portland, so it's not uncommon to see somebody that might really embrace the dandelion and grow it for you, for food and for medicine. And speaking of dandelion and food and medicine, we can also use the root. Not necessarily something you want to pop in a salad, that's for sure, but really a powerful, beneficial herb, particularly when you gather the roots in the fall. They are much more loaded with inulin. They're going to be more sweet, whereas if you were to gather the roots in the spring, they're going to be a bit more bitter. We know that that inulin is a prebiotic. It's going to feed the good gut bugs in the body and make your digestive system function significantly better. It's also a bitter, so it's going to get those digestive secretions flowing. It's going to help the body break down fats and also proteins, as well as helping to eliminate waste, all the sluggishness, all the ick that you've been building up over the winter. Dandelion can help you just get rid of it, which is so darn nice. This is also the root is a significantly more specific for various conditions with the liver. We're actually talking a lot about the liver in month four in the community herbalist program right now. Dandelion is a key for so many different chronic conditions and disease states for the liver. It is going to be really nice for somebody if you deal with gallstones or you're prone to them. You might want to consider using dandelion root on a more regular basis, whether you do a roasted root coffee or you decoct the root. That can be really, really nice and supportive for you as well. And it's also loaded with choline, which is one of the key factors that helps the liver with the overall detoxification process of the body. So just loads and loads and loads of support for you and your body with dandelion, especially as we are looking to get rid of all that stuck, sluggish heaviness. So maybe you've got digestive issues where you're consistently feeling bloated. Maybe you are dealing with a lot of excessive water retention. Maybe there's some puffiness in the extremities or the face, you might want to consider dandelion, especially since it's popping up, going, Hey, look at me. I'm bright, sunshiny, yellow, beautiful. I'm here for you. I am your food, I am your medicine. Please do not kill me. As so many people love to do for some crazy reason. So on that note, if you're going to gather a dandelion, please, please, please make sure it hasn't been sprayed with any herbicides or pesticides or the neighborhood dog spray. Like if it's on the like major trail or sidewalk where all the dogs walk, maybe go look for dandelion somewhere else. Another thing to note about dandelion, so the leaves are great fresh. You can tincture them as well. You can make teas out of them, though they are gonna deteriorate in their medicinal quality and value with that air-dry process significantly faster than they would if you were to tincture them or freshly freeze-dry them or as something along those lines. Um, you can also make a decoction with the root. A lot of people like to do dandelion as like a coffee replacement, but those are going to be some of the better ways to get the good medicine out of dandelion. So another herb that's really exciting to talk about during this time of year. You've probably seen a lot of other herbalists talking about it is nettles. And I am talking about the stinging nettles. Many people love to hate this plant, but this is one of our most nourishing plants on the planet, loaded with iron and calcium, magnesium and silica, all which are essential for our bodies to function really well. It's also loaded with vitamins A and C and K and the B complex vitamins as well. So, absolutely a nutritional powerhouse. You can use nettles in replacement for things like spinach or other greens that you might consider particularly cooked greens. So I am going to be sharing some fun insight as to how to harvest nettles and eat them fresh right off the plant, right in the wild. Um, that's actually coming up in May. I'm doing a nourishing nettles conference hosted by Susan Weed and some other amazing herbalists. So that's going to be a really good time. I will drop a link to that if you want to join us for that conference and learn about nettles from I think 17, 18 different herbalists sharing their experiences, their relationships, me talking about how you can eat it straight off the plants. Lots of really, really cool stuff to learn about nettles. And just this is one of those herbs that is really great for darn near everybody. I think the only time I would not recommend nettles to somebody is if somebody's very, very dry and brittle and frail and weak. So they're usually quite elderly at this point. But other than that, I absolutely recommend this herb to people that are feeling um depleted. Maybe they're exhausted. Women during and after pregnancy, when you've just your body has been working so freaking hard, nettles can come in and just restore and nourish, replenish the body in incredibly beautiful ways. So consider that. This is also an absolute go-to in the world of allergies, symptom relief, and prevention. Um, I actually just did a podcast. I hosted other podcasts, eclectic herbal wisdom with eclectic herb, and it was such a cool episode. It was all about metals, but we got to go on this like metals world tour with Chris, the owner of Eclectic, and she talked about the different kinds of metals in like New Zealand and Japan. It was really, really cool. And the highlight back to the allergies piece is that there was a little visit from the late and great Dr. Ed Allstadt, who is a naturopathic physician who founded Eclectic Herb back in 1982. He is also the doctor that is responsible for discovering that nettles happen to be phenomenal for allergies. And he did it on accident. So he shares the story in this video. And we brought the video in because he is he's no longer with us. But it was it was a really special moment in the podcast. I thought it was really, really cool. And I definitely dove deeper on nettles over there, as did Chris. And, you know, I love to share all I can about nettles with you, but I also want to make this a fairly quick podcast. So I will link to that episode of Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. Definitely tune in because we also broke broke out some um or books from Nicholas Culpepper, like read directly from a book that was literally printed in the 1700s. How freaking cool! We also brought out the King's American Dispensatory, which was an essential book for the eclectic physicians and many herbalists today. So really, really cool history happening over there at Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. And you should you should definitely tune in. Okay. Um, so why else would you want nettles? They're very supportive also as a diuretic. So they act as something that is going to help release waste and toxins through the process of urination, very supportive of our kidneys and the whole renal system. So this is something that I often suggest people that come to me that have gout, I might suggest them to use nettles in their daily lives. Just drinking the tea is really, really nice. Um, of course, we do get to maintain most of those nutrients and vitamins and minerals and a lot of the other histamines from the stinging hairs in the bottom of the nettle leaf when we freshly freeze dry it, which eclectic herb does that. I'll link to that as well for you because they are cream of the crop. They are the ones who paid for the studies to discover that they are so beneficial for nettles and yeah, powerful, powerful stuff. Um, but back to that sting and the histamines in there. That's part of what's happen helping you there. And then there's also formic acid, and this is all happening at the bottom of the nettle leap where you'll find these little hairs kind of dripping off. And that's where the mean sting comes through. But again, that sting is medicine in and of itself. And there are many people that have found great success getting rid of chronic pain from old injuries by thwacking themselves with some nettles. Sure, they definitely deal with the pain and irritation and inflammation from that sting, but eventually they're no longer dealing with the chronic pain from those injuries from 20 plus years ago. And if you ask me, that is definitely a big, big, big win. So lots to say on nettles. Definitely tune in to the eclectic herbal wisdom podcast. And for sure, join me for the Nourishing Nettles conference with Susan Weed and many other herbalist friends. Of course, I'll link to them in the show notes for you. Another really fun herb to talk about and to play with. And I saw some just on my herb walk the other day. They were about an inch high and still ready to play with. They are cleavers, and these are so much fun because you they like stick to you. And I've always had such a good time showing these to kids and other people. Like you can gather them and then just throw them at somebody, and they're all like, oh no. But then this play just sticks to them and it's pretty cool. So they're like almost like little velcro hooks that are sticking on to your clothes, to your rain jacket, you name it. And Miss Herb, actually, one of the ladies on our walk said she had a ton on her property and that she despises queavers until she learned about how incredibly fabulous they are for lymphatic system support, because we know our lymph does not have its own pump, right? Like our heart has its pump and everybody else has their jobs, and the lymphatic system's like, hey, can somebody move me along? How do they move my body, massage me, give me some herbs that get me flowing? And cleavers are definitely one of those herbs that help get the lymph system flowing really, really well. It is best used fresh. I don't recommend that you just eat it straight because those like velcro hooks might get caught in the trachea and you have more of a problem than you have as a benefit. But one of the things I like to do, I tincture cleavers when they're nice and fresh. If I don't have time, I'll harvest them, I'll freeze them, and tincture them when I do have the time. Speaking of, I have some frozen cleavers. I need to do that too from last year's harvest. So a little behind the times. Um, another thing you could do, you could do a cold infusion of the green leaves and like pour some cold water over it and let it sit in your refrigerator overnight. That could be really nice. You can also juice it and then add maybe like 10% alcohol to your juice extraction. Put those into an ice cube tray, and then you can have those ice cubes and pop them into a smoothie or whatever you need throughout the coming months to keep those cleavers fresh and good inside of your body. Because once they get old, you don't want to use them so much anymore. You're losing a lot of the medicinal power and plus, like they taste. I don't know. I think something odd in my old herbalist age. I really appreciate the taste of chlorophyll. It's so nice, it's so fresh, it's so delicious. So I would definitely uh consider them. So this is for you specifically if you are feeling really swollen, really puffy, really congested, really just winter heavy, right? Cleavers can really be a great friend for you. One of my community herbalist students actually praises cleavers. Like she was into herbalism years ago, fell out of it, gained a lot of weight in life through whatever. It had nothing to do with her leaving the world of herbalism, not that she ever left, falling out of the world of herbalism. Anyways, it was cleavers that got her back into it, and she actually lost over 200 pounds, and she gives cleavers a lot of credit for that. I think that's really, really beautiful. I've watched some of her transformation. She was well on her way once she joined me, but I have seen her continue to drop the weight and really start to shine and look really alive and light and fresh. And I'm so grateful that it was Cleavers that brought her back into the herbalism world. Pretty neat. Okay, so another herb that I'm sure you may know about. It is definitely weedy. There are definitely people that do not like this herb, even though it is absolutely wonderful. And this is Stellaria Media, which is chickweed. This is another very nutritive plant loaded with vitamins and minerals. So you could add it to pestos and salads and smoothies and really benefit from that. It's also very cooling and helps to ease inflammation. So it helps to ease inflammation topically when we've got various rashes. Maybe it's poison oak, poison ivy, or some other rash coming from inside of the body. Chickweed can provide some cooling, kind of easing, moistening love in that department. Um, so maybe you have eczema or psoriasis. Definitely great with bug bites, scaly, dry skin. You could do like chickweed either as a fresh poultish, you could also infuse it in an oil. Very, very, very nice. It's also a soothing demulsant internally. So specifically, I would consider this for somebody who happens to be incredibly hot by nature. Maybe they're dealing with other heating in. Shoes in their body, maybe it's inflammation in the bladder. Very, very specific herb because it is also diuretic. So you could have the tea of it, you could get that cooling mucilaginous coating goodness going through the body, easing the inflammation in the bladder. This is also really great for somebody that might have urethritis or other burning sensations when they're going pee. Um chickweed may be a really, really helpful ally for you. So weeds, they're wonderful. They're wild, they're beautiful, they're fun, they are popping up everywhere for us right now. This is free, potent medicine. And all you have to do is go for walks in your neighborhood and become friends with these plants. Get to know them, taste them, feel them, look at them, learn to identify them confidently. 100% plant identification, right? This is so important. Also, I have said it already in this show, but I'll say it again. Please, please, please be sure that wherever you are gathering your weeds from has not been sprayed with press pesticides and herbicides, is not where all the neighborhood dogs are going to lift their legs and pee all over your herbs. Could you use it still? Yeah. Is it the best? Maybe not. Um, yeah, and then start to make some great medicine. Some of them you want to use fresh, like you don't want to tincture, you could tincture nettles, but you're going to miss out on a lot of the nutritional benefits. You got to understand how to extract different parts of a plant, different chemicals, different benefits. Best, what kind of menstrual to use? That's a lot of what we do inside of Medicine Making Mamas is teach you, like, yes, this is something that if you were to make a tincture of this herb, it is going to do what you want. Yes, you can use this herb fresh and create an oil with it that is going to do what you want. Instead of just, you know, hoping that all of the things you see on social media are going to help you make a great remedy. Oftentimes, unfortunately, they aren't. Some really are. But you have to really get good at understanding what it is that you're trying to draw out and what is the best menstrual, what is the best solvent for you to use in that particular case. Anyways, I'm really excited because we're about to open up another live round of that, which we do every spring and every fall, because the prime medicine-making times right now. All these plants are just starting to pop up, but we've got months ahead of us here in the northern hemisphere where so many more of these plants are going to pop up. And we need to gather them at the peak of their medicinal potency to make incredibly effective potent remedies for ourselves and our families to save hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars every single year and not have to waste your time going to the drugstore in the emergency moments, right? Nobody wants to do that. Anyways, yeah, I'm excited for it. I hope you join me inside of Medicine Making Mamas. If you are looking to create incredibly effective and tasty herbal remedies, that is definitely the place for you. We will be live for six weeks on Medicine Making Mondays asking questions. I'll be answering questions. We'll formulate together. We'll get really good at that art of formulation so you can make them tasty, effective, doing the things that you need them to do. Okay, that is it for now. I am so happy that you tuned into this episode. And I would love to hear from you what herbs, what weeds are popping up in your area, and how do you think that you're going to use them medicinally or as food for the coming seasons? Please shoot me a DM on Instagram, TikTok. You can also email me wherever you want to find me. I would love to hear from you. And if you have a moment to leave me a rating for the show, I would also be so incredibly grateful so that we can help herbalism continue to spread like wildflowers. Thanks again for tuning in and have yourself an amazing week. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Herbalist Path. If you're loving this journey into herbal medicine, please follow and review the show. It helps more people find their own path with the plants. And if you know someone who could use this kind of support, please share this episode with them. So that way we can keep making herbalism spread like wildflowers. Also, a gentle reminder: nothing shared on this podcast is intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. This is all for educational purposes. And yeah, a little entertainment too. But it is not a substitute for personalized care from a qualified health practitioner. Always do your own research, listen to your body, and when needed, partner with a trusted professional who honors both your intuition and your unique health journey. Until next time, take care, stay curious, and keep walking the herbalist path.