Foraging Around Your Garden
4 Edible Or Medicinal Around My Home
Forefathers spent years sharing knowledge about what roots, bark, fruits could be used to sustain life depending on the region in which you live.
Today I share a few plants I know or learned new tricks from other locals as times goes on, I'm not a Botanist, always eager to listen and learn from those who are knowledgeable.
With school starting, swimming season takes it's toll with swimmers ear, anyone familiar with earache knows how annoying it is. My friendly neighbour sent me a message, do I have a Snake Plant, to which I replied I have Snake Lily and sent a photo, she replied with a photo for what she was looking for and taught me something I did not know. Zulu people rely on many local plants to medicate with.
What Khazi was referring to we call "Mother In Law's Tongue", she laughed telling me the name in Zulu is Snake Plant, one and the same I removed a couple from the garden for her to grow and use, what was the reason; her lovely little girl is an avid swimmer and to cut a leaf drip some drops directly into ear the pain is relieved something her mother taught her.
Rhizomes and leaves of Sansevieria hyacinthoides are used medicinally. It is a popular medicine for the treatment of ear infection, earache and toothache. It is also used traditionally to treat multiple ailments such as haemorrhoids, ulcers, intestinal worms, stomach disorders and diarrhoea.
Apparently if your plant has a yellow border to its leaves, it's a mother-in-law's tongue. If it has green leaves with lighter colored horizontal bands, then it's a snake plant. Mine is the latter.
Currently flowering once again I will share Alpinia zerumbet Shell Ginger, "pink porcelain lily", "variegated ginger, "butterfly ginger", and "light galangal". An attractive jungle type leafy shrub plant to added into sub-tropical garden, offering additional uses once you are aware of what is outdoors.
First spike type plant evident under long leaves.
Glossy beads prior to opening up for all to see....
People use alpinia for fevers, muscle spasms, intestinal gas, and swelling (inflammation), but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses. Source
Wild garlic (Tulbaghia species) Planted where it has shaded afternoon sun by large trees or would not survive blistering heat. My particular one only ever has mauve flowers on long stems, sub-tropical flowers year round.
Clump-forming bulbous plant with garlic scented, grey, strap-like leaves and mauve flowers on long stems for most of the year. T. violacea ‘Silver Lace’ is a beautiful new addition, with white-edged, blue-grey leaves that become pink in cold winters. It bears delicate mauve flowers in summer. Source
Spekboom (Portulacaria Afra) Porkbush, is a succulent plant found in South Africa good for purifying the air, removing carbon dioxide acting like a carbon sponge improving the air we breath.
Sucking a leaf to quench thirst, treat exhaustion, dehydration and heatstroke. Using crushed leaves to provide relief for blisters. Chewing leaves can treat a sore throat and mouth infections. Juiced leaves are used as an antiseptic and to soothe skin ailments such as pimples, rashes, insect stings and sunburn.
Spekboom an exceptional fresh addition to salads and a small sprig will add a delicious flavour to a stew. 5 Amazing Facts About Spekboom if elephants love it perhaps we should too! Still waiting to see flowering perhaps conditions in our region may take some time, patience with nature is required.
More to follow in the coming weeks, time to document some home plants that are put to good use, even weeds believe it or not, life is never boring!
More Reading for those who enjoy knowing more:-
How long have people been using medicinal plants?
Secret Africa
The Gardener
Traditional Healers In Durban
All photography is my own, any queries or requests please drop a comment below, have a wonderful day!
Thought for Today: "Eating what you plant is better than begging for leftovers." - African Proverb
Thanks for visiting @ewkaw appreciated!
I love me some wild garlic. Dont know anything else that would grow here from the above!
Garlic perfume on some plant flowers I have yet to look into, this one is tasty treat, real deal!
Good morning dear friend @joanstewart
It is incredible how the names of plants can vary depending on the regions, what you call mother-in-law's tongue, here we call it St. George's bara.
How great all this information you share about these plants and their healing powers, it is always good to learn something new
Thank you very much for showing us these beautiful images and valuable information.
enjoy the weekend
Had it not been my neighbours SOS call next door I would never have known either. There are so many plants, our locals rely on to use around the home.
Some of these may thrive in your climate as well.
Awesome information, Joan it amazes me the medicinal uses of so many common plants we have growing around our homes. I have a few books on how to make tinctures and different salves and find them very interesting.
Regionally here is such variety the Bantu have taught us about through their traditional use, quite often we are totally unaware as to how easy. Whilst chatting at the wall neighbour simply tilted her daughters head and squeezed the leaf I cut and little one was all smiles from relief. Then dug up a couple of plants with routes for her to grow, that's how many plants are shared, not bought as well.
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Honestly speaking, we have so many plants around but we unable to know about the.. recently, I found few weeds plans in my fields which can be used as medicinal purpose but we were unaware about them....this is where knowledge alwsys play an important role....we donown few, lemon grass, ginger, basil , kint being common that we often grow at home.
Lemon grass something I always have in the garden for person use and dogs love it! Many 'weeds' used here is some form of wild spinach, African wild potato another highly sought after.
I learned some things when I was younger, with my grandparents, but still feels like nothing, given the insane amount of different plants and different properties; still, very valuable info!
We walk past so many plant or trees completely blind and deaf to what they offer, always changes regionally which keeps it interesting as well.
Oh wow!
This is EXACTLY the biggest value a blog here has to offer in my mind. Not only are we connected and monetized to support each other, people like you are learning lessons and sharing it with the world!
I am always of the mind that I am too lazy to do something once and be done with the value. I like to take those lessons or bodies of work and have them duplicate that value some how. What better way to duplicate it than to share it with the world and duplicate the benefit in others?
Wonderful passing on of lessons learned from past generations for health benefits. The ability to do it ourselves also weakens our reliance on big pharma and we get into solving our own problems and issues with knowledge passed on from the wise.
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Wealth of knowledge gained, normally by talking to each other. Many here had to live off the land due to circumstance, passed on knowledge by word of mouth.
Lost information I am sure with many flocking to city life, little is written down formally until recently with traditional healing/feeding methods.
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BEER.This has been my favorite. Although the others are very beautiful.
Very attractive flower that forms droplets of nectar during this part of plant growth.
Yes it is. Very beautiful
My brother has young spekboom around their lawn area, they had to install a low fence to keep young buck out as the spekboom was being 'trimmed' by them. They live on a large estate in Hillcrest, and there are a number of small bucks there.
Interesting to hear about its medicinal properties.
I did not know about the uses for mother-in-law's tongue.
My most valuable plant is Bulbinella, magical for burns. It's also used for insect bites, but it makes the best burn dressing if used immediately after first cooling off the burn.
Someone once said that nature provides remedies for just about every ailment!
Nature takes care of us if we ask tribal elders, sangomas and traditional healers many have recipes all kept by word of mouth. Elderly Indians who lived through tough times know of plants that heal as did the Voortrekkers who lived off the land.
Roots, barks, juice many have healing properties now being rediscovered, it's a matter of listening to each other and learning all over again. Such is life!
I would love to learn the art and science of herbal medicine! I’m going to have to take that hobby up in the next life, I guess! Thanks for sharing this amazing wisdom, @joanstewart.
Sharing information about plants in region has been beneficial here for many years. Money being tight more is being requested, or shared to assist each other.
Wish I had kept the many pieces of information collected over the years, one forgets or it goes missing.
Yes, how would one collect and organize such information for handy retrieval, I wonder?
A database in one place about what people have learned would be beneficial. Perhaps one day AI or similar will be put to good use in this matter of tracking, tracing and fact checking before archiving.