24/7 Herbal Access : The Herbarium

If you want to learn more about herbs and how to use them but don’t have time for an online class, The Herbarium is just for you!  Herbal learning resources that are available every day of the year.  

If you’d like to learn to grow your own herbs, please consider our book Herbs in the Bathtub, which can get you started with potted herbs right now, this year!  This book profiles several culinary herbs as well as wellness herbs and will get you started with your herb garden no matter when you live.  You don’t even need a garden!

The Herbal Academy

The Herbal Academy is someone I advertise for because I am simply so impressed with their work.  They take the huge concept of herbal medicine and make it manageable for us every day people. 

If you haven’t tried their Introductory Herb Course or their Intermediate Herb Course, I highly recommend them.  All online, all at your own pace and very well done.

The only fault I find with their courses is that the purchase price does NOT give you lifetime access.  You have one year to complete your course before it becomes unavailable.  You can purchase access again for a reduced cost ($50) but I find this irritating.  I hopeful that someday the Herbal Academy will make all their course lifetime access. 

Until then, The Herbarium is a good fit for me because I can come and go as I please.

Herbal Courses or Herbarium?

If you like to work on a schedule, push yourself to complete a course in one year, then please try their courses.  I’ve taken several and have learned SO much. 

If you’re not sure whether or not you’d like to purchase a course, try a FREE course first.  For example, the Becoming an Herbalist course is available to you completely free of charge.  Try it before you purchase anything so that you know whether or not you’re a good fit for an Herbal Academy course, or not.

The Herbarium

If you’d rather work with an herbal resource that is accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year then The Herbarium is for you!

The Herbarium, is a digital reference library for your studies for the great price of $45 dollars per year.  That averages out to $3.75 a month – I think I spend more than that in library fees!  If you’d like to test it out first, try their 3-day trial for $3.  Be sure that this is a resource you’ll use BEFORE you sign up.  

The graphics are breathtaking and so helpfully full of detail.  However, they’re coupled with videos and lots of text, as well as an online community of people to help you learn.  This richness in one place is going to require a good, high speed connection to use well, so bear that in mind if you live rural.

Unlike their courses, this Herbal Academy site is meant to be like an interactive collection of the coolest herb books you’ve ever read.  Similarly, it’s like having a congregation of all your herbal mentors in one place.  Candyland for the herb-nerds like me!

Features of Herbarium

In The Herbal Academy’s own words.

We are herbalists, a spirited group of individuals from all walks of life, joined together by our gratitude for nature and our desire to live and heal with plants. Along our herbal journey, we have grown closer to the earth and closer to the fellow beings whom it sustains. We have learned and continue to learn how even the smallest, seemingly insignificant plant has value. Real value — to its ecosystem and to us.

This connection that we share, this knowledge that we have gained, and all that we have yet to learn – these are the roots of The Herbarium.“

Since it’s a hub of information, I’m using Herbarium as a resource for our homeschool herbal studies.  While this site isn’t for young children, my teenagers are able to use it well.  

The Library and Shop

There’s a LIBRARY tab and from there you’ll find articles, videos, print outs like recipe cards, spice information and information on the Herbal Academy’s e-book, Cooking With the Seasons.

With membership in the Herbarium, you get access to this book AS WELL AS other e-books they have published.  There’s also a shop page where you can find all Herbal Academy products.

The Herbal Monograph

There’s also the MONOGRAPH section which is full of specific information for specific herbs.  There are all kinds of search parameters:

• how to use
• herbal action
• taste
• how to prepare
• etc.

My son has been struggling to get rid of bronchitis and I’m looking for something to help him with his breathing.  I wanted to know more about licorice root for that, so I popped that into the search.  I learned so many things I didn’t know, and I’ve used licorice root a lot.

Herbarium is Relevant Year Round

Any season of the year, for any herbal need you have, you’re bound to find something of value in Herbarium.

Part of why the homesteading lifestyle in general is the rhythm of life that one adopts.  I need to rest in winter; move slower, eat broth and make plans for future herb gardens. 

In summer, I’m all movement and watermelon and bare feet.  Seasonal eating, seasonal living – seasons!  Important to ebb and flow. 

Herbs work their way easily into our everyday during the year.  You harvest them during the growing season, then preserve and make use of them as the cold winds of winter blows.

For more information, be sure to visit The Herbal Academy’s site and poke around Herbarium.  Be sure to visit the sections I haven’t even mentioned!  For example, the downloadable media, handpicked gems by the Academy staff, an online community and so much more.

Cover graphic gratefully attributed to this Pexels user.