Nutritious and Medicinal Chickweed

Herb of the Month :
Chickweed or Stellaria Media

Chickweed is a cool-season annual and is likely to be one of the first things you’ll see growing in your garden. It is often grown as a vegetable crop or ground cover, and fed to domestic birds, rabbits and guinea pigs for a nutritional dietary supplement.

Chickweed is a mild tasting food herb and can be eaten in a salad with other more flavorful greens, or juiced, and can be used as part of a spring cleanse. Only the young tender stems and leaves should be picked since the greens are at their best during this stage. It can also be chopped up and added to chicken or egg salads, and steamed and added to omelettes.

Medicinally chickweed can be used to treat both internal and external inflammations. Used internally it is used to cool heat and inflammation of the gastric mucosa, urinary tract, small and large intestines, and vagina. For example, it can be used with other herbs to help IBS, leaky gut, and interstitial cystitis.

Externally a poultice of the fresh plant or ointment of chickweed can be used topically to soothe and heal skin irritation/inflammation (such as eczema, dry itchy skin, stings, boils, abscesses, cuts, burns, nettle rash, hemorrhoids). The juice can be used as a douche or suppository (mixed with cocoa butter) for erosion of the cervix and anal fissures. An infusion of the fresh or dried plant can be added to a bath to reduce inflammation and encourage tissue repair.

Dosages:

As a tincture, 60 – 100 drops 4 times a day

As a fresh herb juiced, take 1 Tbsp 4 times a day

Chickweed has a history of being used for emotional healing as well. Chickweed is a water herb and can be helpful in a spiritual bath for people who are thin, dry, brittle and have difficulty flowing with life.

Little flower, in this hour, show your power.

– Unknown author