At some point in your herbal journey, you’re going to wonder how the heck do you organise all this herbal info you’re collecting!
Whether you’ve got recipes, herbal research, harvest records or info on specific health issues… all this info can feel a little – or lot – unwieldy! Especially if you’ve got it stored in scraps here and there – old-fashioned literal scraps of paper, or digital clutter with phone notes, saved Instagram posts or blog links…
Let’s ditch the confusion and make a plan to create calm and simplicity, so you can find what you need – first time every time!
First up, you need to decide how you want to store your notes: digital or hard copy?
- If digital: will it be Word documents and folders or some kind of app, like a trello board?
- If hard-copy: will you use a specific notebook, pages in a concertina folder or ring binder or perhaps you’ll make A5 notecards… or something else?
You might find that you take a mixed approach, as you’ll probably end up collecting info from a variety of hard-copy and digital sources.
When it comes to keeping track of herbal info, there’s a few categories I personally like to use.
- recipes
- herb-specific knowledge (herbalists call this a herbal monograph)
- garden records
- organ systems or specific health concerns.
- your family health records
What’s does this look like in practice?
- Recipe book
You’ll probably come across a LOT of recipes, so how do you decide how to organise all this herbal info?
You might use your recipe book for:
- bulk storage of all the recipes you come across
- to save only your favs so it’s quick to find them when you want to make them. All the rest you jmight store in the relevant monographs (see next point).
- Your recipe book might be organised by preparation type (ie teas, tinctures, oils), herb, health issue or organ system
2. Herb-specific knowledge (herbal monograph)
One of our core goals in herbalism is to know our plants well. Part of this is having one place to store all relevant info for each herb and we call this a herbal monograph.
All together, our collection of in-depth plant profiles is called a Materia Media.
What I love about this, is that your Materia Medica will be unique and personal to you. It’s a beautiful expression of your home herbal journey, the place you live and your medicine.
It can often help to alphabetise the monographs (if using folders on a computer, this might happen automatically). You’ll need to decide whether to organise your herbal info by common name or botanical name
Monographs always contain basic info about each herb:
- botanical name
- plant family
- energetics
- taste
- list of herbal actions
- plant parts used (ie leaves, roots)
- common preparations (ie tea, tincture)
- how to use it – clinical indications, scientific research, traditional use
- safety and contraindications
- suggested dosage
- harvesting and growing information
After that, it’s up you to you what else you add. You might also like to include:
- picture or botanical illustration
- recipes and formulas
- more research you’ve done
- notes from your own use of the plant, including what’s worked, not worked etc.
- notes from any plant spirit communication, meditation or drum journeys
- garden and growing notes
- list of sources you’ve accessed to compile this monograph
Your monograph can be as pretty or utilitarian as you like!
The idea is that your herbal monograph is a living document. As you come across new info, or record notes on your experiences, you can add this info to your monograph. It becomes a beautiful, personal record of your knowledge and relationship with each herb.
It’s also a quick reference guide for you when you want to quickly check something.
3. Garden records
If you grow or forage your own medicine, you might like to keep track of this info in one handy place. This could be just be on one page, in a garden book, or perhaps just stored on each herbal monograph.
This info might help you know when to sow seeds and tips for each seed, when to plant, ideal harvest time – what to look for in the plant’s growth as well as records for when this was in previous years. You might record info on drying and processing, pests and diseases, conditions the plant seems to like etc.
You also don’t need to collect any of this.
Remember, your records are simply here to support you and if this knowledge helps you plan, or know your plants, then record it.
4. Organ system or specific health concerns
I’ve included these together, but you might also keep track of them separately, depending how and why you’re using herbs in your home.
Herbalism isn’t just about knowing diagnoses or herbs, but it’s about understanding the body and learning how to support it. A common way to learn about both the body, health issues and groups of herbs are through organ systems, such as the digestive system, respiratory tract etc.
At home, you might also start by grouping together your research on a specific health concern. Ie. if your family’s prone to coughs, you might use that as motivation to learn all you can about coughs. So you’ll create a folder/ file / section of your notebook for coughs, or perhaps you’ll store your research by the organ system: the respiratory tract.
Obviously, there’s lots of cross-over as we’re interconnected holistic beings, but these categories give us a starting place to organise our herbal info
Use what makes sense to you in your home and feel free to adapt it as you travel the plant path.
5. Family health record
You might also like to keep a little record of your family’s health, health issues and reflections on what’s worked, not worked or things you’ve tried. This can be as simple as one page, or perhaps you create a treasured legacy by recording special recipes for each family member in your recipe book.
I hope this article has given you lots of ideas and inspiration for how to organise your herbal info and simplify your home herbalism. Having an easy system to ‘tame the beast’ of endless info and notes makes it easy to slot new things you’re learning into place!
Enjoy finding what works for you!
