The Home Apothecary – Crystallized Ginger

Part of running a homestead is making some of your own herbal remedies for good health.  We all know that relying on wholesome nutritional products that you grow yourself is always better than products loaded with additives and words we cannot pronounce.

This will be an ongoing topic as my husband and I grow a lot of herbs and we purchase herbs from a good friend of ours Meg Shelton who owns Shelton Herb Farm .   One of the reasons I like to buy our herbs from Meg is that first of all she will answer any question we have but also all of her plants grow locally so if it doesn’t grow locally Meg doesn’t sell it not only that she will even give you advice on plants you have not purchased from her.  Her passion for her herbs is unsurpassed so in these coming lovely fall days if you live locally to where I live in North Carolina make sure you take a trip out to the farm.

One of the remedies I am new to making but it will become a regular part of my routine is crystallized ginger.  It is easy to make….my friend Katherine gave me a recipe but of course I lost it but I followed this one and it worked great:  Crystallized Ginger Recipe, I also used the leftover Ginger Syrup and placed it in jars for homemade yummy ginger ale.

Crystallized ginger can be used for nausea but it has several uses first of all it will last for approximately two years and it can be carried with you to reduce inflammation,  it can reduce asthma and bronchial symptoms as well.

I purchased ginger very inexpensively on our trip to Asheville honestly I think I spent $1.29 quite a small investment to fill up a small apothecary jar and have an effective herbal natural medicine on the shelf you can barely get a bag of cough drops any more for that.

Not only that but I have two-quart jars of simple Ginger Ale Syrup to be used over the next week or so to make homemade ginger ale.  All you have to do is add some ginger syrup and club soda.  Here is a great blog on making your own ginger ale the only difference is they left the skin on (to make crystallized ginger you have to peel it and slice it thinly as you will see in the recipe)   and did not use ginger to make the crystallized ginger however the blog is really colorful and neat definitely go check it out!

Homemade Gingerale

Do you have plans for a home apothecary?  What herbs do you think would be beneficial?  My next herb I will be sharing about is “Bee Balm” and the benefits of drinking “Bee Balm Tea”.

Thanks for stopping by our Lil’ Suburban Homestead

PS – Gratitude No. 4  – I am so thankful for my parents who have given me love, encouragement, and support over my lifetime.  They have always been there for me and my family.  I have been truly blessed to have them in my life.  I also have been blessed to now have had a Wonderful Step Mom who has always been such a support to me as well and a wonderful Step Dad who we recently lossed this past year and this still fills me with grief.