As Gnome would put it, “Biomass is a Bitch!” and I truly agree with him, after the amount of work I have done in gathering medicinal herbs to dry.  As mentioned before, we are working in partnership with BotanicaBelize to produce a line of facial products.  One of the products is a facial tea which is jam packed with an array of medicinal herbs and plants (according to the season in which they are picked).  This entire week, I have been picking Red Head (Hamelia patens), Plantain, Bamboo, Hierba del Cancer, Lemongrass, Hibiscus (Sorrel), Sage, Basil, Chanca Piedra, Noni Leaf, Mint, Culantro and Jackass Bitters.

And it is not just a few plants here and there as I gaily skip from one plant to the other.  No, it is actually a real labour of love where I gather bunches and bunches of each plant in a wheel barrow.  I sweat and I use muscle power (Munchkin Power!).  You will not believe the amount of fresh stuff that I have had to harvest to get a final dry weight…for every 2oz (60g) of dry weight in material, I have to gather 1.5 lbs (600g) of fresh herbs!  And this is dried noni leaf…about 2oz dried.

So, when you buy any dried tea like chamomile or mint, to give an example, each teabag is actually 1 oz (30g) of fresh herb.  It is totally mind-boggling…plus a lot of work if you do it yourself!

Anyway, I am glad I have done it!  It is nice to hoard everything in jars to display:

Yay!!  I managed to get all the herbs gathered and dried in time, despite Gnome’s frenzied time with Miso (!) Everything is All Right and I managed to finish off all the drying process this afternoon despite a surprise early afternoon blustery storm.