Herb Love

Here's a post that has been a while in the making - for something so simple! 

We started various herb studies around this time last year. 

Our indoor garden went downhill fast after some dear friends over-watered; and we had a pest issue with the mulch used - our treatments were too-little-too-late :( 

But the marshmallow lives on! Can't beat that!

We started Herb Fairies when they opened up this past spring. We're not exactly "fairy" people in our home, but it is a neat concept and storyline to teach the various properties and uses for a wide variety of herbs. 

Each month, a new story is released. Legoboy reads the book via the computer and takes a look at some of the other information. He's more on top of things than I am ;) 

Eventually (generally long after that month has passed), I will sit down and print out selected pages for our binder. 

We then listen to the audio-book together while we each color our own coloring page. Again - we're not exactly coloring page people here, but it is nice to color in the flowers and leaves of the plant at hand while listening to a story about it. 

It is really much better to do the stories in the month they are received, because that is the when the plant is already in bloom and going to be in bloom out in nature already. We attempted to grow things inside, but we had a series of unfortunate events - now that winter is soon upon us again (we have a south-facing window and grow tomatoes inside during the winter - they don't grow as much in the summer for us), I think we'll start again with fresh seeds.

I try to print on the lowest ink setting possible - and use up low ink cartridges - so our pages turn out light. It just means we can fill in the details we like (and get the information through our hands again!).


The great thing about our binder is that, even if we did the work in the actual month provided, there is SO much there - that you can easily pick and choose a few things this year; and cycle back around to it next year. We also have a beautiful binder full of recipes, crafts, additional activities, uses, journal pages and background information (like scientific classification information). One would have to cut back on other studies in order to do everything provided in one month. It has really been worth every penny spent.

I myself am really learning a lot and enjoying every minute of it!