Herbaculture - what the word means.

Permacultural thinking encompasses the planted, social and economic environments. It is through learning about permaculture and my learning and experience of herbal medicine that I came up with the concept of herbaculture and the marriage of the two words.

The word herbaculture means herbal and permaculture, or the practice of sustainable herbal medicine and growing of herbs. I do wish to acknowledge the use of the word HerbaCulture that apears on websearches from the USA,  I found them after having the idea of the name. They also encorporate herb growing and herbal medicine. I hope that the term herbaculture cannot be copyrighted as one day it will be as common as "horticulture" in the public's awareness.

I am interested in how people medicate themselves and how much of this can be done with plants and food. I love the fact that most herbal medicines can be grown in community medicine gardens or wildcrafted (picked from nature).

I had a job as a community gardener in my hometown which gave me the chance to practice what I preach. I hope to incorporate the idea of CSM (Community Supported Medicine). I see this as subscription based healthcare (not pay when ill healthcare). I would be interested in NHS links and the next step is to generated prescription money from GP referals to help the project sustain itself. Though the CSM scheme hasn't happened, I have a £10,000 proposal for funding applications ready to go if you can help.

The Community Supported Medicine idea is based on growing herbs and showing people how to use them. In most cases I see this as being group work to address physical excercise needs as well as making it a social experience and grouping people with similar conditions to give them peer support. Another dimension is the healthier eating that results in growing food and culinary herbs as well as the benefits of horticultural therapy. 

I also feel that herbaculture as is about healing society and taking time to learn from plants.

A quote by me:

"Being part of nature is similar to the British view of being part of Europe. We don't have to join it, we are already a part of it."