The Worst Herbal Mistakes I Know: Read and Learn

Although it’s still summer here where I live, I am now gathering my herbal medicines for the winter. I hang them up around my little cabin and set some on the metal drying rack I bought at a local thrift shop. When cold and flu season arrives, I will be ready.

Yesterday, a friend of a friend came over to talk herbs with me. She is at the beginning of her journey, whereas I’ve been actively learning about herbal medicines for more than two decades.

Our conversation got me thinking about some of the worst herbal mistakes I have made or know about. Naturally, I wanted to then share these with you so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes that I did! I should note that some of these below are my errors, and some of these are the errors I have seen and heard herbalism green horns make. Read on and learn. 

Rely Solely on an App

Now, this one is super trendy these days. Just stick that smartphone of yours in the direction of any plant and it will tell you what it is. Personally, I see no benefit in this whatsoever. To me, the absolute foundation of herbalism is plant identification. 

Is learning plant identification fun? Well, yes and no. Like a lot of valuable skills on the homestead, it is actually a lot of work. It did not come naturally to me to learn the technical names for the shapes of leaves and how they attach to the stem. However, learning these has helped me understand how to look at plants and what distinguishes one plant (excellent medicine and good for you) from another plant (poison that could kill you). Apps can fail. There might not be cellular service during the Apocalypse. You will be in the forest and not actually know anything.

If I am making a medicine for myself from plants I have gathered locally, I am willing to bet my life on my plant identification skills. Get your books on plant identification and learn the old-fashioned way. It’s good for your brain! If you want a recommendation on field guides, check out my article on weeds here. 

Use Only One Reference Book

Now, as much as I love my plant identification guide, I’m going to recommend that you also get books from herbalists who are actually practicing. I have found that the plant identification books have sometimes given advice that I have lived to regret. One example is regarding the plant mullein, which my identification book says makes a good tea when you use the leaves. However, my book on weeds, The Homegrown Herbalist Guide to Medicinal Weeds, by the wise and wonderful Dr. Patrick Jones, warns readers that some people are sensitive to the hairs on the mullein leaf, and filtering the tea is recommended. 

I violently reacted twice to this tea before I figured out what was going on. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Jones, it would have been difficult to ever figure out. That is why I always recommend that you have more than one guidebook to consult about every plant that you want to use. You are more likely to get the whole picture this way.

Dangerous Collection

I have a local acquaintance who knows I practice some herbalism. She was excited to tell me how she had gathered a certain flower, the red clover, for a city friend of hers. I asked her where she was gathering it. She told me that the ditches just outside our village were full of the flower. I was shocked to hear this, but asked her as calmly as possible did she not know that those ditches were sprayed every year by the county? That is not to mention the road chemicals that make their way in there. 

It is not likely that herbs can be healing when they are loaded with toxic chemicals! Most herbalism guides that I have read start out with severe warnings about the dangers of gathering herbs in areas that may be sprayed. My acquaintance may not have had an herbalism book….but she may have had a plant identification app on her phone. I guess the app forgot to mention the spraying in the ditches….Dangerous!

Improper Harvesting

This is my own mea culpa. I have always had a nice bounty of St. John’s Wort on my land here. I have been able to gather what I need to make tinctures and leave a great deal of it standing. A few years ago, I was chatting with some other herbalist friends and they were bemoaning that they were very short of St. John’s Wort and wanted to make a tincture for the winter. 

Being a good friend, I mentioned that I still had quite a bit left. I gathered up a good amount for them. In the process, I also happened to gather most of the plants that I usually left that reseeded my land. Virtually NO St. John’s Wort came up the next year. I felt terrible. I hadn’t thought it through, and as a result, I had harmed the plants, almost completely destroying the population. Not harvesting thoughtfully in nature can do the same thing. One guidebook that I use, Christine Buckley’s Plant Magic, recommends harvesting no more than 10% of a visible population of a plant when in the wild. I consider that to be a good guideline.

As I have a good friend who has a lot of St. John’s Wort on her land, I have been able to slowly remediate the plant population here by reseeding and letting it grow wild again. Lesson learned. 

Thyme for Sage Advice

Herbalism is a skill with its own learning curve, and mistakes can happen. For a great way to get started correctly, check out this course.

Do you practice any herbalism yourself, whether in the city or the country? Do you have any personal herbalism mistakes or cautions you can share with us? Please tell us in the comments section.

About Rowan

Rowan O’Malley is a fourth-generation Irish American who loves all things green: plants (especially shamrocks), trees, herbs, and weeds! She challenges herself daily to live her best life and to be as fit, healthy, and prepared as possible.

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