Chickweed

According what all that I have read about Chickweed, it is found everyone on this planet even in temperate or even north arctic regions. It seems that it is one of the most common weeds where every white man has settled. It is indeed the one we pull out of our gardens a lot. This is because Chickweed is so invasive.

It is tiny and fragile looking. Chickweed has leaves that are succulent and egg-shaped but they are only about one half inch to one inch long with a width of just half their length with little points on the end. The plant is usually pale green and smooth. The flowers, located by the upper leaves, look like tiny white stars.

From this description, one would never guess all the wonderful things that this plant can do.
Chickweed has been known to attract fat, thus cleaning up cellulite. People use it in salads to allow it to grab the fat in one's intestine, for the purpose of losing weight. A lot of herbal weight-loss products have Chickweed in them but it is a delicious food. We put it into salads with an assortment of things like celery, carrots and tomatoes along with anything else you wish to add then combine it with any dressing and you have a wonderful weight-loss salad. The flavor that Chickweed adds is a very mild flavor. When it is eaten, it helps the body correct conditions in the stomach, bowels and kidneys.

Chickweed has been used as a bronchial cleanser, and helps with things like; peritonitis, psoriasis, eczema and even deafness.

At our house we use Chickweed on mosquito bites. After a bike ride with my nephew, I put two handfuls of fresh Chickweed into the bathtub and filled it with hot water. My nephew was covered with mosquito bites that were about the size of silver dollars. My only request before he went into take this bath was not to pull the plug. I didn't want the Chickweed clogging up the drain. After he was out and dressed and I saw him again, I noticed that the welts were gone and only the large red circles were left. I ask him what happened. He said that when he stepped into the water, the itching stopped immediately. What a wonderful thing. We also noticed that within an hour, the red circles were gone too. Chickweed drew the toxins out of the bites and allowed the body to heal.

When I had Shingles many years ago, I would boil a handful of fresh Chickweed for about 15 minutes, cool it and dampen a cloth to apply to the area that was so painful. As the cloth touched the skin, the itching stopped. I have since found a way to remove the Shingles residue from my body so that even under stress, it won't have to react to a virus that is not there.

Chickweed is so gentle that the water it is steeped in can be use to clean sties from eyes. Dr. Christopher said that it could even be used on new born baby's eyes with no ill effect. It will correct inflamed or sore eyes. One can apply this tea of Chickweed with cotton pads over closed eyes. It can be used for swelling and redness of the face very effectively.

Chickweed can be made into an ointment or salve because of its demulcent properties along with the anti-itching properties.

To make a Chickweed salve one needs to simmer olive oil with Chickweed herb in it for 20 to 40 minutes. Next, strain the herb out and return the "herb infused oil" to a clean pan then add some bee's wax. To find out just how much wax to add, check by dipping a spoonful of the hot mixture that wax has been added to into ice water and pull it out. Touch the salve to see if that is how you would like yours. If it is too runny, add a little more wax. If it is too hard, add some oil. Sometimes my students add some aroma oils to this to give it a more pleasant smell.

The salve has a long shelf life due to the olive oil, which also has a longer shelf life than other oils. One can dry this herb for later use but it does lose its color and turns brown faster than most herbs do. That does not make it bad as it still contains the properties that do what we have talked about in this article.

Now that we know just how great this plant is, it no longer has to take over our gardens faster than we use it.