[whitecrow]

The best way for a newbie to approach herbalism is with a book that focuses on your local area. You might look for titles like Roadside Plants Of Pinkerbligh County, or Edible And Medicinal Plants Of Southeastern North Dakota. Don't try to learn every plant in your area unless you're just a data junkie. Instead, focus on a few plants at a time that grow in your region.

Look at the pictures, but also get outdoors and find living specimens. Note how the plant likes to grow. What's its habitat? Does it like to keep its toes wet, or does it like dry hilltops? Does it like the shade? Don't pull up a plant when you find it for the first time, but come back through the seasons and visit it. See when and how it blossoms and fruits. Do birds eat it? Bugs? Does it grow alone? Try to learn its voice and hear its song. In this way you will see the plant as an intelligence to be mentored by, and not just a resource to be used.

You won't find wild rosemary along creek banks, and you won't find cattails in the desert. It's better to have a good working knowledge of a couple dozen nutritious, medicinal and poisonous plants in your area, than to have an encyclopedic memorization of hundreds of herbs you've never seen and will probably never use.

If you take plants, take the time to plant plants. If you garden, take seeds and cuttings every chance you get.

Wildcrafting herbs is for me at least, deeply satisfying. I find many useful plants in my area. On my hikes I find white sage for smudging, chaparral for tea, wild rosemary and lavender and many other useful plants. At the creek across the street I can gather wild celery, cattails, tiny wild onions, cress, plantain, nettles, Russian thistle and even coconuts...that's right, there's a stray coconut palm down there. Lord knows how it got there, but it's a huge tree, and the ground beneath it is littered with coconuts. Some of these herbs we eat...some I use in soaps and balms, and some are used in medicines.

Herbs should be gathered away from roadways, and (usually) in the morning. Always thank the plant for its gift. In the case of white sage, I generally leave behind a gift of tobacco, or a hair from my head. Know which part of the plant you are going to use - flowers, leaves and twigs, bark, or roots. Never waste herbs, never kill plants needlessly, and never take more than you need.

Herbs can be stored for some time dried, but will lose their virtue as the seasons pass. Tinctures are easy to make and store indefinitely. Water infusions or teas must be used fairly promptly. Sometimes herbs are infused in liguid or hard oils, in which case they have a fairly stable shelf life depending on the oil used.