Plantain herb is usually found in most yards, but can be hard to find if you live in a neighborhood because of all the pesticides sprayed on the grass. This plant is GREAT for all kinds of natural remedies! Recently I made a tincture with plantain for my hubby. He gets poison ivy a lot because of the type of work he does and it often spreads and really is uncomfortable to him. He also gets it very easily. After hearing about this remedy from the Bulk Herb Store I decided to try it myself and it works great! It also feels nice and cool putting it on.

Plantain is an astringent and can be used to stop itching, irritation, inflammation and bleeding. It can be used to ease the symptoms of poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, bug bites, insect stings, eczema, psoriasis, rashes, bleeding wounds, and I’m sure there is much more!

An easy remedy is to take as many plantain leaves and you can pack (not too, too tight!) into a pint jar (or smaller if you don’t have enough leaves or don’t want to make that much) and fill the rest with rubbing alcohol. Cap and leave it in a cool place for 2 weeks turning to mix every day. After the 2 weeks is up, strain the leaves out and now you are left with a green liquid. Rub it on a bite sting or wound as soon as it appears or as soon as you notice it and let it go to work!
If you end up with a mosquito bite or unfortunate bee sting before your two weeks us up, have no worries. Find some plantain growing pick as much as you can fit in your mouth, chew it up and spit the masticated leaves on the bite site. It will go to work! Leave it on for about 15 minutes or so and do it again if need be!

So, as I was hoping to make some of the tincture, I was scouring the common areas in our neighborhood and my yard with no results. I then went down to the playground and checked around the edges of the park, the basketball court, the sidewalk and it all must have been sprayed. There wasn’t a plant in sight! How disappointed I was…A few days later I took the kids to our neighborhood library and there was plantain! EVERYWHERE! I guess they didn’t use our taxes to spray the grass!!! YEAH!!!!

When we were leaving to go home, I put the kids in the car, grabbed a bag and started pulling handfuls of the leaves! I’m sure the other library patrons thought I was a mad woman, down on my hands and knees grabbing weeds and stuffing them in a bag, all with a huge grin and look of excitement on my face! 😉 I’m sure it was a sight to see! I would laugh if I saw someone else doing it! But at least I would know why!

When we got home I realized I had WAY more than enough! I made my tincture with extra to spare, so I dried it and I’ll have some for winter if we need it, or for tea. I know there are also internal benefits to plantain as well and it can be brewed as a tea; but that is a topic for another day and after some additional research on my part!
Best of luck and I hope this help ease some of the discomforts of summer!

The following is a video from Bulk Herb Store which is where I found out how to make the tincture and I found it very helpful!

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