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.

The word Herbaculture means herbal and permaculture, or the practice of growing herbs. I do wish to acknowledge the use of the word HerbaCulture that apears on websearches from the USA,  I found it after having the idea of the name. It also encorporates herb growing and I feel therefore that the term herbaculture cannot be copyrighted as I hope, 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 have just got a job as a community gardener in my hometown and this gives me the chance to practice what I preach. I hope to incorporate the idea of CSM (Community Supported Medicine). I see this as free healthcare for people who help to tend the plants that they harvest, the next step is to generated prescription money from GP referals to help the project sustain itself.

In most cases i see this as being group work to address physical excercise needs as well as making it a social experience. Another dimension is the healthier eating that results in growing projects. 

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."

A guy called Mike told me permaculture was ' guerrilla gardening'.

JOIN THE GUERILLA GARDENING CLUB

It started on may day, in sunny London. Trafalgar Square to be precise. It was a protest thats held every year and with the help of Alice i made up little packs of sunflower and hemp seeds (bird food) and distributed them with a composting leaflet. It said  "GO APE".

There are urban myths about people planting dope in the gardens of police stations and also people doing community service and planting tulips and daffs to spell out profanities. I think Guerilla Gardening can mean a whole lot more from garden makeovers to  seed sprinkling but in each case a positive outcome is desirable. This means improving areas rather than careless introduction of the wrong species, and if humerous so much the better.

The community garden has ordered lots of tulip bulbs so i ll be planting them this autumn under road signs and in suitable locations,, please join me,