Back Yard Pharmacy: Weeds That Heal is Rachel Weaver’s field guide to the plants growing around your home — the dandelion, chickweed and dozens of other “weeds” most people pull out and throw away. Full-color photographs show you how to identify each one, when to harvest it and how to turn it into a tea, tincture or salve. Here is what the book covers and how it fits with the rest of the series.
The idea behind the book
Rachel opens by asking how great-great grandma’s family managed, living far out in the country with no hospital, no doctor and a dentist who might be the circuit-riding preacher. Her answer: they had a working knowledge of the land and the plants around them, some learned from their parents and some from the native peoples where they lived. The purpose of the first part of the book, in her words, is to make you familiar with the plants around you that can be used in place of doctor visits, emergency room trips, visits to the dentist — and even as food if you need it.
What is inside
- Full-color photographs of more than 50 common herbs and weeds — from dandelion and chickweed to the plants most people pull out and throw away.
- How each plant grows, how to identify it with confidence, and when and how to harvest it.
- How to prepare what you gather: teas, tinctures and salves.
- 256 pages, paperback, first published 2013.
The color photographs are the reason this volume exists as a separate book. Identification is the part of using wild plants that people are rightly nervous about, and a clear picture beside a clear description is what makes the difference between a plant you have read about and one you would actually recognize at the edge of your lawn.
How it fits with the other books
Rachel described Back Yard Pharmacy as “a guide for you to get medicine, for free, in your backyard, from common weeds.” Be Your Own Doctor teaches the overall approach and the kitchen-cupboard remedies; Back Yard Pharmacy extends it outdoors, to the plants you can gather yourself. Be Your Child’s Pediatrician and Be Your Own Doctor II round out the series for children’s health and for more complex adult concerns.
Who it is for
- Gardeners and homesteaders who would rather use what grows on their land than pull it.
- Readers of Be Your Own Doctor who want to go a step further toward self-sufficiency.
- Anyone who has wondered whether the weed in the fence row is “good for something” — it often is.
Good to know
The title is printed as two words, Back Yard Pharmacy; many bookstores list it as Backyard Pharmacy. It is the same book (ISBN 978-0-9712669-1-9). It is a printed paperback only; it is not published as a PDF, e-book or free download. Share A Care Publications in Gap, Pennsylvania is the original publisher. Order Back Yard Pharmacy, or get it in the four-book set with free U.S. shipping. About Rachel Weaver, M.H.