Winter herbal medicine chest

I've been thinking about making up some remedies to have on hand as winter moves closer, and lurgies start to move through the community.

The garden seems to be having a good little burst of energy at the moment; it must be the mild weather and plenty of rain. I've been trawling through my books and course work to see what I can prepare ahead of time. I suffer a mild asthma during seasonal changes (such as right now, autumn). I rarely need to use an inhaler and it passes eventually, but I want to experiment a little and see if I can find some herbal remedies to stop the cough I tend to get as the first sign, which then can make me a little tight in the chest and breathless.

I went to the organic shop on Friday and found some lovely big garlic bulbs. I saved the outer large cloves for planting in the garden this weekend (this will be the first planting), and the inner cloves I used for my garlic honey along with my leftover cloves from last year's harvest that are really too fiddley for cooking with.
On Saturday, the kids and I set to work making a few of these up and discussed where the herbs are found in our garden (they're getting pretty good at knowing the herbs and their uses too).

A basketful of chickweed, plantain, comfrey, and sweet violet leaves.

Sage honey...good for coughs, fevers, colds and flu.

Garlic honey for soothing sore throats and good for the immune system. Has the same uses as sage honey (coughs, fevers, colds and flu)... Good for asthma symptoms. A teaspoon mixed with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar into a glass or water or juice would be a good choice too.

Sage, thyme, lemon rind, lemon juice, honey drunk as a hot lemonade (the sage honey would be useful for adding straight in here). Great for colds, sore throats, and fevers. I love this one, and it's one of the first comforting, soothing things I do.

Violet leaf infusion soothes lungs: good for coughs and asthma (gathered fresh violet leaves for drying to make infusions).

Plantain/comfrey/chickweed salve: wound healer, skin conditions, eczema. My mum asked for something that could help with itchy patches of skin she gets, so I thought I'd have a go at making a salve. It came out perfectly! I started by making a maceration the herbs (infusing in olive oil by setting them to slow cook in the crockpot for a few hours). I then bottled up the remaining oil (strained out the herbs) to use in future salves (it will last 6-12mths). to the melted wax/maceration mixture I added some calendula tincture I made late last year and some lavender essential oil.

The jar of galic cloves are awaiting some runny honey.

Herbal teas: Yesterday I had a fevering, tired boy with no idea what was going on (aside from a one off vomit early in the morning and a headache). I started him off with a drink of hot ginger syrup with some vitamin C powder for the nausea. Then out came my Naturally Healthy Babies and Children by Aviva Romm book. I made him up a tea using fresh herbs and weeds from the garden to help with allowing the fever do its job, restoring health, relaxing and soothing the stomach. He chose one with lemon balm, and I added to it some violet and yarrow leaves.



Other standard first aid kit items I keep on hand are: 20% Active Manuka honey, Colloidal Silver, lemons, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and vitamin C powder.