Jewelweed is one of my favorite plants weeds. Most people hate it but I think that is only because they have no idea how valuable it is! What a blessing our Father gave us when He created Jewelweed. Jeremy and I harvested Jewelweed this week. We filled a huge black trash bag, brought it home and put it on the kitchen table.
I chopped quite a bit of it up and made 1.5 gallons of tincture to treat poison ivy. If you even think you’ve touched poison ivy (or oak or sumac) just wash it off with Jewelweed! If you don’t realize it and break out – use Jewelweed to get over it in a matter of days instead of weeks. I use this a lot in my own family but I end up giving many jars away.
Elijah is my little poison ivy magnet. He gets poison ivy every time I turn around – even in the winter time! I guess that is because he is such a nature loving kid. And, well, nature includes poison ivy tucked in and around our farm!
I love the flowers on Jewelweed – they are so beautiful and delicate. When you make your tincture, be sure to include plenty of flowers.
I am also drying much of this harvest so that I can use it in my Jewelweed Soap and my Jewelweed Salve….both of which help Elijah get over his poison ivy very quickly. Once I get it good and dry, I store it in air tight containers until I need it.
I think I am going to need to harvest more just for drying. It is one of the most popular soaps and salves that I sell locally. Many of the farm stores have a VERY small tiny minute white bar of soap called “Poison Ivy Soap” at their cash registers. This bar of soap is probably about 1 or 2 ounces and they are selling it for $9.00!!! NINE DOLLARS people! Are they crazy? Does anyone really buy it? It says it contains Jewelweed but I am not sure how they do that and keep it pure white.
My soap is a lovely pale green because it is made with plenty of plant material! I’ll be putting it back up on my website soon. I sold out this spring when the poison ivy began to emerge. And since Jewelweed isn’t ready until summer, there wasn’t much I could do about that. Once it is done curing, I’ll put it back up – along with my salve. It was a good lesson to me to keep more of a stock of dried Jewelweed so that I can continue to make both….even during the…..ahem…….”busy” season next spring.
For more pictures and instructions on how to make your own tincture…use the search engine here on my blog. Just type in Jewelweed to learn more! And be sure to thank our Father for His wisdom in creating this incredible plant and for blessing us with something that can lessen our suffering with poison ivy. I believe poison ivy came about because of the fall….but in His immeasurable mercy He gifted us a cure! And if you think about it, He created it before poison ivy was a problem! What a loving Father we serve!
Blessings
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