The medicine-making wheel has started turning here at Foliage Botanics as the entrance of spring quickens. I’ve been steadily concocting and crafting for A Wild & Common Place, our seasonal apothecary-land share/herbal CSA. I’d love for you to sign up if you haven’t yet and receive the full abundance of this offering, which unfolds over the course of the year, providing medicine from and throughout each season. I took two years off of making and sharing medicine in this more ephemeral way, which is why you’ll likely have seen me pumping it up so much to garner more interest again! But I’m so excited to be bringing it back and I’ve been pouring much of my post-winter plant enthusiasm into brewing up the spring medicines and infusing every element with the energetics of spring I’m currently embodying. So I wanted to share some more thoughts with you today about why it’s such a great thing to join.
Ok so what is it?! Much like an agricultural CSA, an herbal CSA is a way to support your herbalists by paying in advance for medicine they will craft for you throughout the year. This helps support our endeavours—buying materials, bottles and jars in advance in bulk, seeding for the garden, anticipating the quantities of each remedy to make, focusing on the making and less the marketing, etc. Like vegetable farming, growing and making medicine requires a lot of overhead, and this provides a cushion and a guaranteed customer base to support the makers and growers so it’s not all coming out of our pockets. In doing this, you also receive a deep and grateful discount on the medicine you receive.
In our case, you receive 4 boxes throughout the year corresponding to each season, filled with herbal remedies from tinctures to teas to salves to oxymels and more. All the medicine is made fresh, in real time, crafted from both the season’s inspiration and abundance. Maybe there’s a massive flush of Roses this year! Or the St. John’s Wort is plentiful! Or there’s a big Wild Cherry mast! Or I feel particularly drawn to the wild Bee Balm blooming in the high summer meadow! Each box and remedy is unique, capturing a moment, a feeling, a season unlike any other, each medicinal treasure an ambassador, a story-teller from that season on the land.
On your end, with each season your own home apothecary shelves ripen and fill with medicine. Each remedy not only reflects what’s happening on the land, but is crafted to meet your seasonal needs. In spring, our bodies reawaken, revitalize, crave nourishment, cleanse, and the spring box is full of plant remedies that support these processes.
A Wild & Common Place is also a little different than other herbal CSAs. I use this medium as a creative outlet for myself as an artist, writer, and herbalist. The medicines themselves are one thread of this: I experiment with different ideas and recipes, creating items that are truly more fleeting and one-of-a-kind. But the boxes also include written reflections, poetry, stories, artwork—other outlets of my creator’s pulse. With these additional elements, the boxes become more experiential, the remedies given context, and, I think, the plant allyship deepens, for both you and me. The boxes become a conversation through a variety of mediums. And that’s what I want them to be.
Having the loveliest time going through your writing and trying these medicines. It really is so different than other apothecary-shares, and I’m so appreciative of the words you’ve written that accompany each bottle — helps me think through not just *how* to use but *why.* It also helps me think through where this comes from and how that place is similar and different from my own. So thank you so much for making and sharing! —Charlotte
There are two options this year: a shipped version and a local pick-up version. The shipped has shipping for all 4 boxes included in the price, the local has shipping taken off so folks can pick up right here at the farm in Pine Plains. You are also currently able to pre-order just the spring box, but it’s at a higher price point on its own. Sign ups are through the online apothecary.
If you do decide to choose to participate, I am incredibly grateful and excited to have you along for this sweet unpredictable seasonal ride.
deep in flower dreaming,
hannah