What is yarrow good for?

COWLOVINGIRL
COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

Hey everybody! I just harvested some yarrow from our yard where it grows like a weed! I plan on drying ti and I've made tea with it before and liked the flavor, but does anyone know it's properties and what its good for? Thanks in advance!

P.S. I'm really interested in home medicine these days, I'm about to start the MAKING HERBAL MEDICINE honors lab course!

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Comments

  • Dani
    Dani Posts: 27 ✭✭✭

    The root is one of the ingredients I use in the flea powder I make. I believe it soothes the skin.

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    Doctor Jones says that it's good for menstrual cramps.

  • Cornelius
    Cornelius Posts: 872 ✭✭✭✭

    The blood clotting is from Vitamin K as it is the protein our bodies use to make our blood clot (and there is some in Yarrow). According to Doc Jones avoid Yarrow if pregnant as it can cause miscarriage. I hope this helps.

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    This is all so cool! I had no idea!

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @COWLOVINGIRL It’s amazing 😊

  • MelissaLynne
    MelissaLynne Posts: 205 ✭✭✭

    i have been harvesting and drying yarrow flowers from our field. Now I need to decide the best ways to store and make use of them. Anyone have a favorite recipe? I guess I should start the herbal medicine course too. :)

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    @MelissaLynne Yes, by all means, do the Home Medicine 101 course as well as the Making Herbal Medicines course, Herbal Energetics and Wildcrafting & Foraging. These 4 courses are a great place to start and you will get all kinds of good ideas for using your harvest.

    You could make an infused oil and use it in a salve on its own or as part of a combination. You can tincture it. It is always good to have some on hand dried to make infusions and decoctions. This is a link for a yarrow bitters: https://www.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/double-yarrow-bitters/

    You can harvest the leaves and dry them along with the flowers.

  • fivelawrences
    fivelawrences Posts: 33 ✭✭✭

    I dry yarrow and grind it into a powder to stop bleeding. It's great for when you accidentally cut a dogs nails too short and they bleed. It stops it immediately!

  • lyn.arguello
    lyn.arguello Posts: 7 ✭✭✭

    I had no idea! Putting it on the to grow list 😊!

  • smik123
    smik123 Posts: 60 ✭✭✭

    I had heard it would be good for arthritis. I decided to make a tea. I eat a lot of strange stuff for the health factor. The tea was so horrible I have yet to try it again.

  • valizona
    valizona Posts: 48 ✭✭✭

    Yarrow is indeed one of those amazingly useful herbs and the best thing is that it is so incredibly easy to grow! Its found growing wild over most of the US and Europe and isn't picky about the soil. it handles full sun to some shade. Cultivated varieties found in nurseries offer a selection of color flowers-- red, yellow, and white. Here in Tx I've only ever seen the white flowers in the field. A must-have for the garden/landscape. Butterflies love them, too!

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    COOL! fivelawrences! I am interested to know how you grind it to powder? I have a bunch already dryed!

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    I feel ya! I just had some yarrow tea last night and I decided to maybe use it for something else other than tea!!!!!

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Yarrow is best used as a medicinal tea. Not one for regular tea drinking. It is a bitter! And I don't need anything to help me sweat. I do a lot of that anyway. :)

  • siobhanashmole
    siobhanashmole Posts: 35 ✭✭✭

    Yarrow flowers make a wonderful tea and are excellent for calming allergies and hayfever

  • siobhanashmole
    siobhanashmole Posts: 35 ✭✭✭

    I do this to for my herbal first aid kit! I just throw it in the (cleaned) coffee grinder. (or if you have an arrangement for a blender which grinds nuts /herbs)

  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    I can't say that I have ever actually tried drinking Yarrow tea, but when I'm out camping I will make some Yarrow tea and dampen a wash cloth to wash my face and arms. Very pleasant feeling and it is supposed to be somewhat bug repellent.

  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    Need to try the dried Yarrow powder for my husband who is on blood thinners, and will often start bleeding for no reason at all.

  • carrie449
    carrie449 Posts: 3 ✭✭✭

    I have trouble getting it to grow. Gonna try and winter sow it this year and put it in my front yard instead.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    Welcome to TGN @marjstratton and @carrie449!

    I have never tried to seed yarrow but it may be one of those seeds that benefits from the cold in the winter. Stratification.

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    WAY TO GO Nancy A.Maurelli! I totally agree with you!

  • KimWilson
    KimWilson Posts: 197 ✭✭✭

    I have heard that yarrow root can also be used for dental pain similar to the uses of clove.

  • Jaylene
    Jaylene Posts: 53 ✭✭✭

    I like to use yarrow as a pretty garden plant, dried and ground in a blend for a carpet/flea powder, have on hand (dried) as a wound wash/soak as needed, and made into a tincture and blended with other herbs for a cold and flu blend.

  • norabelehcim
    norabelehcim Posts: 58 ✭✭✭

    As mentioned, yarrow is good.for.wound care, tinctures, teas, baths; it is quite pretty in dried arrangements, as well as fresh (and long.ago was used to.repel.bugs when the departed lay in state for.periods of mourning). Yarrow is also used (most often, after it has dried) as a healing aromatic in saunas

  • jowitt.europe
    jowitt.europe Posts: 1,465 admin

    Thank you for this discussion. I love yarrow. I use it as a spice when cooking meat. I dry and powder young blossoms with top leaves and put into my herbal salt;

    I use dried blossoms for my digestion tea alongside with dill seeds, caraway seeds, tarragon... I mix it into a tea for women suffering from heavy and prolonged periods;

    In early spring I collect young leaves and put them into salad or on bread and butter... I always use yarrow leaves for herbal butter.

    Actually it is one of my favourite herbs. I collect a lot to have a good supply at hand.