Grow Your Own Medicine Cabinet

Calendula is a cold-hardy annual that will continue to produce beautiful blooms right up until a killing frost ends the season. The flowers readily reseed themselves, which will provide you with an early crop the following spring. Start seeds indoors two to four weeks before your last frost and direct sow more seeds into the garden when you transplant the seedlings. You can move your calendula out into the garden around the same time as your tomato plants.

The flowers are beautiful, popular with pollinators, and they’re edible, so you can never really grow enough calendula. The petals are soft, sticky, and emollient, and lend themselves well to infused herbal oils. After infusing the calendula oil, you can craft it into a salve or lotion. It’s excellent for soothing dry, itchy skin. The oil is anti-inflammatory and antibacterial and can be applied to cuts, scratches, and abrasions. It’s also useful as a balm for diaper rash or chapped lips. Calendula is often combined with the common yard “weed” plantain for many of these applications.

Calendula flowers should be harvested often to encourage continuous blooming. You should also leave a patch of the flowers to go to seed for next year. If you’re harvesting the petals for use in food or tea, it’s best to try separating them from the base of the flower before drying. The green base of the flower has a bitter flavor, but if you’ll be infusing the flowers in oil for topical use, you can leave them whole. Lay the harvested blossoms out on screens and let them dry thoroughly before putting them into jars for storage. This could take up to two weeks. In the summer, when it’s humid, you should use a fan to help the calendula dry quickly.

Calendula is such a garden favorite that it was named NGB’s 2025 Year of Calendula. Check out that guide for more growing tips and variety picks.

Comfrey is an herb that all gardeners can benefit from growing, whether you plan to make use of its medicinal qualities or not. Outside of the apothecary, comfrey is still an incredibly useful plant. It’s a dynamic accumulator, with an incredible taproot that grows deep into the subsoil, gathering minerals and nutrients that are then stored in the leaves. You can gather the leaves and use them as mulch. As they break down, they will release these nutrients into the soil, feeding your plants. You can take this a little further and turn comfrey leaves into a powerful plant fertilizer by simply chopping the leaves, blending them with water in a bucket, and allowing the concoction to ferment for a few days. The resulting brew is so powerful it’s often recommended to dilute it before applying it to the garden. Be sure to stir the bucket once or twice a day to encourage the decomposition process.

This is a perennial herb, and you might want to be selective about which cultivar you introduce to our gardens. Most comfrey will spread by seeds and can be very aggressive, quickly taking over an area. To avoid this issue, instead grow a cultivar known as Bocking 13, which is sometimes just called Russian comfrey. This is a sterile hybrid that can’t produce viable seed, so it’s only propagated by root division. Bocking 13 comfrey is much easier to control than its sexually reproductive relatives. Plant starts are often available through local garden clubs, herb societies, and occasionally at commercial greenhouses.

Comfrey has a long history of use for healing wounds, sprains, and other injuries. The herb can be dried, infused in oil, then used topically on the affected part of the body. You can also make a simple poultice of fresh comfrey, wrap it around an injury, then secure it in place with an ace bandage. To make a poultice, chop up the comfrey, then blend it with just enough water to make a thick paste. Spread the mixture onto a thin cloth, then apply it to the affected area. One of comfrey’s folk names is knitbone, as it was historically used to heal serious injuries like broken bones.

This is a classic herb for strengthening and supporting the immune system. Echinacea can be tinctured or crafted into nourishing teas. Many gardeners who enjoy echinacea tea will often combine it with stinging nettles, Urtica dioica. These two herbs work well together to help nourish and strengthen the body through cold and flu season. Most commonly, these types of recipes call for echinacea root, but the arial portions of the plant also make a potent and useful herbal tea. The stems, leaves, and flowers of echinacea can all be brewed into a healing beverage. Echinacea is anti-inflammatory and can help ease the discomfort you might feel when you’re sick. It can also help treat a fever and shorten the duration of your symptoms. You can also use echinacea topically for skin issues like acne, eczema, and insect bites. For these ailments, you should consider a topical wash with a strong water infusion. You can easily make the infusion by steeping the herbs in water overnight.

If you’re working with leaves, stems, and flowers, simply steeping the herbs in water will produce a quality extraction for your medicinal needs. When working with roots, it’s best to boil the plant material in water for ten to fifteen minutes before steeping. This boiling process, also known as decoction, will help break down the cellular walls of the plant material and provide better extraction of the beneficial compounds.

Growing echinacea from seeds requires a bit of patience. The seeds will need to be stratified, or exposed to a period of cold temperatures, to break their dormancy before they can germinate. It’s much easier to propagate echinacea via root division, so reach out to your gardening friends to see if they have any to share. Clumping plants like echinacea can easily be broken into smaller clumps and replanted. Many greenhouses and plant suppliers sell echinacea under the name purple coneflower, so buying plants is also a great option, just confirm that you’re buying the proper species. Echinacea prefers a full sun area and regular watering in its first year, but once established, it requires very little care and will provide you with beautiful flowers and healing medicine for many seasons.

Like many members of the mint family, horehound is very easy to grow and will slowly spread to fill in whatever space you allow it. Although certainly not as aggressive as peppermint, once you’ve established a patch of horehound, it won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Also, like mint, horehound is useful for digestive complaints. A simple tea brewed from the leaves will help with stomach aches and indigestion. This herb is probably best known as an expectorant, meaning it is often used to treat coughs. You might already be familiar with the old-fashioned horehound candies. Not only is horehound’s mild herbaceous flavor enjoyable, but these candies work well to ease a hacking, dry cough.

You can also brew a nice horehound tea to help with cold and flu symptoms, including fever, cough, and congestion. You can brew a strong tea, then blend it with honey to create a very effective medicinal syrup. Combine equal parts honey and horehound tea in a saucepan and let it simmer until it reaches the desired consistency. The syrup can be taken by the spoonful or stirred into a cup of tea. A cup of echinacea tea with horehound syrup sounds like the perfect remedy for anyone feeling under the weather.

Plant your horehound in a sunny area. It’s a more compact herb, so it’ll do well as a border in front of a taller plant, maybe even that echinacea. You can harvest the leaves after you see some new growth early in the season. This will encourage branching and bushier plants. Just trim the stems and lay them out onto screens to dry. Toward the end of autumn, you can gather a larger harvest to dry and supply your needs throughout the winter. Once the harvested leaves have fully dried, strip them from the stems and store them in glass jars.

Another perennial herb, yarrow is an herbalist’s best friend. Traditionally, this plant has been used in the treatment of cuts, scratches, and other wounds. Yarrow is antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory and can be employed topically as a salve, poultice, or wash. It works well for soothing irritated skin conditions, bug bites, rashes, and the like. Yarrow is also styptic, meaning that it can be used to help stop bleeding. For this reason, powdered yarrow leaf is an excellent, all-natural addition to a first aid kit. In an emergency, like a serious injury, it can be used to help slow bleeding while also keeping a wound clean on the way to get proper medical attention. Yarrow tea is also beneficial for soothing sore throats and coughs, and many people find drinking the tea brings relief from stomach cramping.

You can use yarrow’s leaves and flowers in your teas and topical treatments. Cut and collect stems throughout the summer while yarrow is in bloom, and lay them out onto screens to dry. Once dried, the leaves can easily be stripped from the sticks. Wild yarrow is widely abundant in many areas, but some growers like to add this useful herb to their gardens. There are many cultivars available, each with colorful blooms ranging from pink to yellow, orange, and red. It’s often said that the wild yarrow is the most potent medicinally, but any of the varieties can be useful, especially in an emergency.

Which herb is useful for cuts and scrapes?

Both Calendula and Yarrow have been used traditionally on cuts, scratches, and minor wounds. Yarrow is also styptic, meaning that it can be used to help stop bleeding.  Calendula oil is anti-inflammatory and antibacterial and can be applied to cuts, scratches, and abrasions. 

Which herbs help with colds and flu?

Echinacea and horehound are both commonly used for cold and flu symptoms. Echinacea tea or tincture can help ease discomfort and shorten symptom duration, while horehound is best known as a natural expectorant for coughs.

Which herb is good for sore muscles or dry skin?

Calendula-infused oil, made into a salve or lotion, can be used to soothe dry, irritated skin and ease tired, sore muscles.

Which medicinal herbs are easiest to grow at home?

Calendula, comfrey, echinacea, horehound, and yarrow are all easy to grow. Comfrey, echinacea, horehound, and yarrow are hardy perennials, while calendula is a self-seeding annual.

Is it safe to use homegrown herbs medicinally?

Many gardeners use herbs for common ailments, but always consult a healthcare provider before using medicinal herbs, especially if pregnant, nursing, on medication, or managing a health condition.