194: Kate Miller on Bioregional Herbal Medicine.

Sourcing herbs and plants for health from the local ecosystem.


Kate Miller mainKate is a bioregional community herbalist, medicinal herb grower, & Permaculture Design Teacher.  She is both formally trained and self-taught in the field of Permaculture Design, with focus on Dry-land Herb Farming, Herbal Medicine, Mountain Ecology, & Ethical Wildcrafting Practices.  And she is a Certified Herbalist from the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism in Boulder. 
Kate became interested in herbal medicine through years of dealing with chronic illness, including Lyme Disease, food allergies, & autoimmune issues.   Together with her partners Dawne and Stephanie, she runs the bioregional & biodynamic focused herbal product company, Dynamic Roots High Altitude Herbals.


In This Podcast:

Greg interviews Kate, an herbalist with a focus on healing her community.  She tells how she found her calling in herbalism and becoming a partner in an herbal product company and she explains why ethical harvesting of herbs is so important.


Listen in and learn about:

  • Growing up in rural Idaho with eco-conscious parents
  • Her mom’s community garden
  • The community of gardeners she has grown up with and learned from
  • Feeling depressed when she left college and then studying herbalism
  • Finding Dynamic roots and starting there with an internship and becoming a partner
  • Her definition of permaculture
  • Herbal Medicine – a trending industry and the implications for wild medicinal plants
  • How she uses wildcrafting to collect from nature
  • How ethical harvesting is important
  • Herbal medicine and the basic of herbs for health
  • Why it is considered risky to purchase herbs on the open market
  • Community supported herbalism – CSH
  • The greenhouse and how that is expanding their production even at high altitudes
  • What to do as a consumer to support best practices for the earth
  • Best herbs to grow for the new herb gardener
  • How to start growing elderberries
  • Her definition of bio-dynamic
  • Harvesting with the full moon and why that makes a difference

As well as:

  • Her failure – Trying to do everything and losing momentum because of burn-out
  • Her success – Starting to grow herbs and teaching others how to grow herbs to take care of themselves
  • Her drive – The fact that the earth and all its creatures need healing, and getting to know the healing plants gives a personal sense of agency
  • Her advice – Start with one plant and get to know that plant

Kate’s Book recommendations:       

The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer: The Ultimate Guide to Producing High-Quality Herbs on a Market Scale by Jeff and Melanie Carpenter

Biodynamic Gardening

Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs

How to reach Kate:   

www.dynamicroots.com

Kate@dynamicroots.com

www.alpinebotanicals.com

 UrbanFarm.org/DynamicRoots


 

*Disclosure:
Some of the links in our podcast show notes and blog posts are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase, we will earn a nominal commission at no cost to you. We offer links to items recommended by our podcast guests and guest writers as a service to our audience and these items are not selected because of the commission we receive from your purchases. We know the decision is yours, and whether you decide to buy something is completely up to you. 

1 Comment

  1. Sourcing herbs and plants for health from the local ecosystem is one of the helpful article I ever seen. It explained what ingredient we should use. By the way please keep posting articles like his. Thanks

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