Singing Nettle Herbcrafts

Herbal Arts in the Garden

The focus of this seasonal community journey is to deepen our relationship with the living world around us, and practice being co-creators with it! These workshops will offer you a beginner’s foundation in folk herbalism, heart-centered gardening, and will offer a space for you to deepen your relationship with the living plants.

I will offer afternoon workshops on a couple wednesdays a month throughout the growing season depending on when certain plants are ready for harvest. This is an opportunity to learn about herbal gardening, and to learn to make and safely use these vital, nutritive remedies, such as teas, tinctures, vinegars, oils, and syrups for your home healthcare and wellbeing.

Examples of how we might stock our Kitchen Apothecary from the garden this season:

For Your Kitchen Pantry –

  • ·        Dried Basil

  • ·         Dried Sage

  • ·         Dried Thyme

  • ·         Dried Rosemary

  • ·         Dried Cayenne – red pepper flakes, or powder

  • ·         Dried Lemongrass

  • ·         Four Thieves* anti-microbial surface cleaner

  • ·         Cayenne Honey-Vinegar Marinade

  • ·         Herbal Pesto

  • ·         Nettle Truffles

 

For Your Tea Shelves -

Dried Tea Herbs-

  • ·         Nettle

  • ·         Oats

  • ·         Lemon balm

  • ·         Tulsi basil

  • ·         Chamomile

  • ·         Monarda

  • ·         Echinacea

  • ·         Marshmallow

  • ·         Anise hyssop

  • ·         Fennel seed

  • ·         Motherwort

  • ·         St. John’s wort

  • ·         Peppermint

  • ·         Spearmint

  • ·         Elecampane

  • ·         Poppies

  • ·         Spilanthes

  • ·         Thyme

  • ·         Sage

  • ·         Hibiscus (Roselle)

  • ·         Lemongrass

  • ·         Elderflower

  • ·         Roses

For Your Home Health Remedies -

Coast through Cold and Flu Season -  

  • ·         Monarda oxymel

  • ·         Echinacea Glycerite and Tincture

  • ·         Fire Cider

  • ·         Aromatic Vinegar

  • ·         Elderberry Syrup

Calm those Nerves -

  • ·        Milky Oats Tincture

  • ·         Poppy Tincture

  • ·         Tulsi Basil Tincture/Glycerite

  • ·         Lemon Balm Glycerite

  • ·         Rose Glycerite

  • ·         Chamomile Rose Calendula Oil

  • ·         St. john’s Wort Oil

Get that Meal Down -

  • Chamomile Peppermint Digestive Tonic

  • · Anise Digestivo

How it works:

I will be in the garden every wednesday from 3-5pm, and volunteers are welcome. Some wednesdays will be a ‘Workshop Wednesday’. In this case, I will be guiding you through the preparation of a special remedy, and there will be a registration fee: $20. Workshop Wednesdays occur approximately 2x /month. Sometimes I will do a pop-up if a plant is ready!

What to do:

1) Sign up for my weekly bulletin, ‘Hello Giant’, where I announce when workshops occur and which herb and preparation we will focus on,

2) Decide if you want to join us,

3) and register. (The link to register will be in the bulletin)

In the bulletin, I will list the supplies you need to bring with you. For example,

  • 1 pint jar with a plastic lid

  • 1 plastic lid

  • 2 cups of raw, apple cider vinegar

Root Healing: A Step Towards Personal, Ecological and Cultural Healing

I believe that personal and cultural healing happens from the roots up. Many of our lineage streams come from different continents, but we find ourselves here now. All of our Ancestors, no matter where our motherlands are on the planet, had intimate relationship with the wild and cultivated ecologies of their place. They knew how to feed and heal themselves from their habitat. Their stories and songs emerged from culture in place, in the forests, in the gardens, in the waters, in the stars, through encounters with the other-than-human worlds in their physical and dreamtime landscapes. We have all the same wiring, yet we have forgotten much.
   But it is all here, waiting for our attention and intention, to engage.  
   Nature is powerful and wise in its ability to regenerate itself, and when we focus our creative power here, then co-healing happens quickly, in unpredictable ways. Our woodland and river valley landscape is abundant and generous, if we create the conditions within and around us for such flourishing.
It’s doable.

It's joyful.

It’s healing, on a root level.

We are the emergent edge of an ancient storyline. We are here now.

There once were 52 tribes here in this Ohio Valley. It remained fertile and abundant because of how they stewarded it. They love this land, they hold it as sacred. They were displaced by westward expansion of colonial settlers. Some of them your or my ancestors. There is much reparations and healing work to be done. One way we all can begin to do this is to learn about our place, learn to respect it and to love it, and consider what we can do now to help it regenerate and remain abundant for the next generations. This task is upon us now.

It’s about falling in love;
re-awakening states of wonder;
taking risks to create.
working hard and purposefully
and celebrating small and all successes
Being humble
Being accountable
 Being willing
        to be changed by an intimate encounter with another.

This is about becoming acquainted and tending relationship.

This is about empowering our personal, community, and ecosystem health for the long-term.  

This is about remembering our belonging.
and rising to meet our times.

My name is Nikole Rosaria. I began my first herbal garden in 2005. I mostly failed, but that is when I met my first herbal ally: Stinging Nettle, who took over the space. In 2007, I was a part of my first “Herb Group” with my friends. A peer-led practice group, where we took turns being the ‘Motherwort’ and leading the study lesson and hands-on projects. In 2009, I started my first herbal business, ‘Singing Nettle Herbcrafts’ and began making and selling my first herbal product: Singing Nettle Herb Truffles’, which featured Nettle that I wild-crafted with song. While raising a child, I devoted myself to being deeply ‘of place’. Learning to be of these soils, streams, stones, and learning to track the living world around me through the seasons of our life together. In some phases I have actively produced, taught classes and sold various herbcrafts for the community, and in some seasons I have just sat in the garden and forests, and let myself by held while I grieved, dissolved, and re-imagined myself anew. Whether the garden has been part of my active economy, or whether the plants and critters are the subjects of my poems and stories, we have been co-creating together for 19 years. This gentle and generous landscape, and the co-creative relationship we share, has stitched my soul back together, helped me grow new roots when I only knew them as severed, and has gifted me and my family with belonging. I am deeply, eternally grateful, and aspire to be in service to its thriving into the future.