I've been planning this for awhile, but this year I've finally made my own DIY herb field guide.

It includes the herbs and plants that grow here on Oak Hill as well as others that grow in the "neighborhood". Each entry has a photo of the plant in one or more stages, the location in which it grows, the plant's description and uses, and any cautions. Some plants have enough information to fill more than one page.

The descriptions are written in "plain English" so that I don't have to remember that a "peduncle" is a flower stalk, or that "glabrous" means smooth or hairless.

Because I've "written" it myself, it is completely customized to this area and our needs. The pages could be laminated for easy use in the field and pasture, or kept in page protectors and stored in a binder. I'm leaning towards page protectors so I can add notes to the pages as needed.


I think this will be a multi-year project that I'll add to as I learn more about herbs and am able to identify more plants in our area. Medicinal and culinary herbs that I add to the garden will also be added to the binder. It would also be a good place to keep instructions for making infusions, tinctures and so on.

I'd love to hear any suggestions you might have for this project. Please leave a comment.




Other posts in this series:
Plantain
Woolly Mullein
Wild Onions
Echinacea
Yarrow
How to Harvest Yarrow
Pokeweed
Lambsquarters
Curly Dock
Vetch
DIY Herb Field Guide