Yellow leaves, undeveloped fruit, long “leggy” stems between the leaf nodes – these are some of the key signs of a plant under stress. But if you’ve never met this species before, you might not know something’s off! Other signs are not so visible, and require you to know the plant stand for a season or a full year before you can see them. The point here is this: both observation and patience are needful to accurately assess the stress load of a plant, stand, or ecosystem.

Taking the time to get to know these indicators, and to steward the land you gather from, will make you a better herbalist. Whether you’re a wildcrafter, grower, clinician, product maker, or any other type of herbalist, patient observation and adaptive response are key skills, and they transfer smoothly from one domain to the others.

Our Herbal Community Care Toolkit is chock full of low-cost, abundantly accessible herbs for addressing common health issues. Students in this program learn our most effective-yet-inexpensive strategies for improving health and well-being. This course is available by donation, but if you can’t afford it, email us and we’ll send you a coupon code so you can get it for free!

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