How I use herbs - Mother of Herbs?

I was given this herb at our monthly local produce share. It had the label "tulsi?". I didn't know what tulsi was at the time, but when I googled it I found that this herb was definitely not tulsi (AKA holy basil). I was pretty keen to identify it, as I'd already sampled some of the leaf! I started flicking through my herb books until I found a picture that looked similar in Isabel Shippard's brilliant and comprehensive "How can I use herbs in my daily life?". It looks very much like Mother of Herbs (Coleus amboinicus - also Plectranthus amboinicus), however the text says that this herb can be easily confused with Dog Bane (Plectranthus caninus), but I think the leaves on my specimen are too serrated to be either of these. Another herb book mentions Coleus forskohliii and further googling reveals that there are many similar looking plants in the Coleus/ Plectranthus genus, they are all related to mint and oregano (Lamiaceae family).

How to grow Mother of Herbs
All of the Coleus genus are succulent, they don't need much water. They grow low to the ground and can be propagated from runners. I will see how this one survives in our climate, so far we have had wet weather, so I hope it will be ok through a hot dry summer. I am hoping also that this specimen will flower eventually and then I will be able to positively identify which coleus I have.

How to use Mother of Herbs

The Coleus genus has various medicinal properties:

C. forskohlii contains "forskolin", which has been found to reduce blood pressure, relax smooth muscle, stimulate hormone and digestive secretions, and reduce pressure in the eye.
C. amboinicus is used to reduce inflammation and for bronchitis and asthma

Both the leaves and root are used. The roots can be pickled. As I'm not exactly sure which species I have, I will be using it as an ornamental with a nice smell until I can positively identify what I have.

This is not the most educational edition of my herbs series, but I thought the story of trying to identify this particular herb was also of interest, and I will share the rest of the story when I learn more about it.

Do you recognise this herb? Do you use it?

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here . You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!). I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months. I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post! New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog. I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people. I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts. I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo. Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about...

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive! Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap. And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps. I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment. One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap. As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances). When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather. I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap. ...

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