Backyard Pharmacy: Plants as Medicine - Plant, Grow, Harvest, and Heal

by Elizabeth Millard

This compact yet complete guide to herbal medicines shows you how to transform common plants into remedies that heal. While using herbs as medicines can often seem complicated or costly, the Backyard Pharmacy gift edition offers a way to learn that’s simple, effective, and low cost.

Plants you once believed were just seasonings for sauce in the kitchen or scents for your home are in fact medicines that can help heal and soothe, if you know what to do with them. This book shows you how easy it can be to make your own herbal remedies for life’s common ailments. Profiles of common healing plants offer advice on growing, harvesting, preparing, and using these herbs in healing tinctures, oils, and creams.

You'll find all-natural, low-cost herbal solutions for a range of common ailments, such as:  
Learn how to grow and craft a poultice to soothe mosquito bites.
Make an herbal tincture to fix sluggish digestion. 
Brew up some lemon balm iced tea to ease a stressful day.
Craft echinacea drops to support immune system health.
Use elderberry to ease cold and flu symptoms.
Blend a cayenne salve to relieve inflammation.
Steep chamomile tea to aid with insomnia. 
From the common cold to a nasty scrape, headache, or digestive issue, simple, all-natural home-grown ingredients can make you feel healthy and happy. With guidance from this useful yet beautiful book, you'll be able to match properties of each plant to your own medicinal needs. And with this new, more compact gift edition, you can share the soothing essence of herbal remedies with everyone you love.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Herbs, Health, Cooking, Medicine

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2015

Reviews

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cute little book. Quite handy with information about plants that grow in your garden and beyond. Easy to follow and visually pleasing.

**Arc Via NetGalley**

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice little book to give you overviews of helpful plants to grow in your garden and a few to find in the wild. It is apparently a "mini" version of a book the author published in 2015. This one is smaller in size (5x7) and covers mostly how to grow and store useful plants, with a little bit of general information about particular health conditions that studies seem to have shown promise in and very general suggestions for use like chew the leaves if you have indigestion, or make a tea of this one to help with spring allergies. No dosages or precise recipes are given. It reminded me a bit of those Readers Digest or Rodale books of plants where it tells you all different things the plant is good for and has lots of pretty pictures, but doesn't actually teach you specifics. That said, it's a great read and especially nice for garden dreaming if you are looking to expand the useful plants in your garden and want more information on how to do so with each plant. A beginning section tells you about how to make poultices, infusions and so on. Plants include generally common beneficial plants like basil, rosemary, blueberries, dandelions, nettles, chamomile and catmint, with a nice variety.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

[Patricia Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as an award from GoodReads. It's a lovely book, well organized, great photographs. I so appreciate the gorgeous photography and excellent formatting. Elizabeth Millard has taken "Backyard Pharmacy" to a new level...it's an enjoyable read. She uses easily obtainable herbs , common garden flowers and shrubs, and even our little weedy friends from the yard. She discusses growing , harvesting , preparation, and uses of these medicinal herbs but does NOT make outrageous claims for them as I have seen in other herbal books. She also uses footnoting so that you can reference further on the properties of the herb discussed, so important!! It was lovely for me to read some of the same remedies that my grandmother prepared when she came to this wild country in 1917. Since my husband is a registered pharmacist, I deeply appreciate this book as a complement to current medical practice. ...and a starting point for taking the best care of your body and yourself.

[McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cute little book for those who are interested in herbs and medicinal remedies. It provides a lot of great information and tips for such a short volume. It covers the basics of gardening, preparing tinctures and salves, and the uses of herbs, flowers, berries, and wild plants. For each plant it discusses how to take care of it from planting to harvest to use. However, if you're looking for an exact step by step process for each individual plant and remedy this is more of an overview than a recipe book. It gives ideas and inspirations, but it won't walk you through making cough remedy teas from thyme (it will give you the general gist.) However, just a general reminder for anyone looking to make home remedies, please make sure to do a lot of research before making and using the remedies.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little resource - I admittedly skimmed it because I do not actually need he directions for planting, growing, etc just yet. It would be a good one to own down the road, though. My four- and six-year olds skimmed it with me, and my four year old is already planning his flower garden for the spring - arnica, calendula, chamomile, and more. ;)

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's alright. Makes a great book for beginners. But I've been growing medicinal plants for years. I was hoping for something more....more healing plants, purposes and remedy recipes from other cultures.

[Tove R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful book! I’m a huge fan of herbs and natural remedies, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that is this precise, interesting, and gives me the information I need in such a neat package. It has pretty much all my favourite herbs, and I’ve gotten many great ideas from this book. Instead of writing this review I should be out in the garden harvesting. That’s exactly what I’ll be doing in a few minutes.

I like it that all the important things are in this book; how to grow, where to grow, when to harvest, how much water, sun and fertilizer is needed, and what to do with the herbs, and why they are useful. What more do you need? The pictures are great, and so is the writing. I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in growing and/or using herbs in food or as remedies. Loved it!

[Ancillar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually shocked myself when I picked this book . I didn't think I would enjoy it but it turns out this book is actually a great book and all .I loved how it was easy to follow,read and it had pictures. I went into this book someone with a slight passion for gardening and finished someone with knowledge worth starting a garden for. Highly recommend it to all aspiring gardeners like me.

[The Shakti Witch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Backyard Pharmacy is a concise and accessible book on easy to grow and forage common herb plants. This is not a step by step how to on how to concoct a remedy so readers will need to do further research on that.

*eArc provided by the publisher and NetGalley

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something to have close by in order to be prepared.

[Michelle D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid book for those who are looking to approach their day-to-day healthcare in a more holistic way. Good remedies for colds and flus. Includes mainly herbs with a smaller section on fruits and one on wild flowers. Each herb includes three use-facts (teas, decoctions, infusions, poultice, etc).

Read this daily and added facts/comments from it to my New American Herbal.

[Liz S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good starter book for growing medicinal plants, this one focuses on the gardening and growing aspects, adding some tips for the plant use. The author, who lives in the Midwest "where winters are approximately eighteen months long" has a lovely humor in her writing.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great information! Will be referring to this again when it comes time to plan our garden!

[Summer Denny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cute & informative book! I know I’ll be coming back & referencing this book a lot in the future!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few useful tidbits in this book - most is easily google-able.

[Lizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, handy book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs throughout. Easy to quickly locate the information you’re looking for. Great reference material for just about any kitchen and backyard herbalist. Instructions are included for preparing remedies and the book thoroughly goes through the most common helpful plants to grow along with the information on how to maintain them for future use. Highly recommend if you are at all interested in natural remedies! Beautiful, comprehensive book covers planting through harvesting and applying the remedies.

[Tina Milledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully presented book with photos to identify plants and coloured text boxes that are pleasing to the eye. Its content is enough to spark interest in planting, and a in making home remedies and serve as an introductory text for herbalism. I appreciate the digital copy from Netgalley and publisher in exchange for my honest review.

[Red · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading Backyard Pharmacy. I started a tea garden this spring and since it turned out well, I was looking for a book about medicinal herbs. She includes lots of plants that you can get started with, including plants for bark and and berry plants. She also makes a lot of good points on how to use and store herbs, and even something for mosquito bites which I’m anxious to try.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of great information. Enjoyed her writing style which at times was conversational. I feel inspired to even more so to grow veggies and herbs.

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this cute little gem!! I also enjoyed the catnip part, as i have three cats and this resonated with me. This is a must have paper-copy for every kitchen!

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to buy this book.

[Amanda Karsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great herbal book. It’s not full of crazy hocus crazy Goop. All The herbs are actually in my yard and list the known helpful properties of the plants.