8 Backyard Plants to Boost Your Immune System
By: Marcus Griswold
Tags: Health, Covid 19, Psychology, Nature, Food

8 Backyard Plants to Boost Your Immune System

Because Winter is Coming

Winter is coming and there’s a good chance you will be exposed to cold germs, the flu, or Covid-19. Let’s hope not, but here are some plants that can help you build a wall of immunity around yourself. I love medicinal plants, and there are many in your backyard that can help with a range of ailments, but with Covid-19 back on the rise now seems to be the time to create an immune bubble for ourselves.

And bonus, you can find many of these plants in your own backyard. But don’t wait until winter to find them. Fall is the best time to track down these plants, and I personally love a walk in the woods or park in fall. The crisp air, sun beams cutting through the tree braches, life taking one last look before winter.

Pumpkin Seeds

Yes, that’s right pumpkin seeds and what better to do with that old pumpkin? Well there are 26 other things you can do with your old pumpkin if you don’t like the seeds.

Pumpkin seeds are packed with zinc, magnesium, iron and vitamin E, all great for boosting the immune function. Just one serving of pumpkin seeds can supply 14% to 42% of the daily target for these essential nutrients.

Pumpkin seeds also have anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. They help in cell growth, improve your mood and is even better for quality sleep.

You can sprinkle pumpkin seeds on just about anything, from oatmeal or overnight oats to garden salads, cooked veggies, stir-fries, soups, whole-grain dishes, tacos and, desserts. Roasted shell-on pumpkin seeds make a great snack or trail mix add-in. Pumpkin seed butter can be whipped into smoothies, swirled into yogurt, drizzled over fruit or used as the base for energy bars or balls.

Peppermint

Peppermint grows like a weed inside or out. Its leaves and essential oils contain active components, including menthol and rosmarinic acid, which have antiviral and anti-inflammatory activity .

Peppermint-leaf extract can battle respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and significantly decreased levels of inflammatory compounds. Peppermint oil can kill also bacteria such as E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella in food and Staphylococcus and pneumonia-linked bacteria. Menthol, also an extract from peppermint can kill bacteria.

Since it’s the extract and not the leaves you will need to extract the oils and chemicals to see the benefits.

Burdock

Burdock root is high in Vitamin C and E to build immunity. Clip the prickly heads and the brilliant pink flowers and focus on the root. You’ll want to look for first year plants for the greatest benefit.

A great article on how to prepare this plant tells you how not to have a bad experience the first time. You can roast the root, make kinpira gobo, or stir fry it.

Rose Hips

Go to any garden and you’ll see the little bulbs left over after the roses have bloomed. Roses grow wild in every state except Hawaii as well as in gardens. If you have your own, refrain from dead-heading the spent flowers otherwise the seed pods won’t form.

The rose hip is the oval shaped fruit or seed pod of the rose plant and is found directly beneath the flower after successful pollination. They are often missed because people prune their rose bushes back to encourage more flowers. Rose hips can range in color from an orange-red to a dark purple or even black depending on the species and harvesting time.

Amazingly these are full of Vitamin C, A, B, E and K. But, they are best after the first frost when sugar is concentrated and they become soft. If your area doesn’t have frost then plan for a late fall harvest when the rose hips gain a deep-red hue and slightly soft to the touch when gently squeezed. Eating them fresh is best, as the drying process destroys from 45 to 90 percent of Vitamin C, and infusions extract only about 40 percent of what’s left.

Photo by vasilisa.via form PxHere

Before use, rose hips require de-seeding to remove the tiny hairs that surround the seeds. Rose hips can be dried in the sun or by using a dehydrator; afterwards they can be cut into pieces or powdered for later use.

You can eat the rose hips raw or make it into a tincture, tea, jelly, or syrup. Tea is really easy. Pour boiling water over the rose hips and let them sit 10–15 minutes. Strain out the rose hips.

Elderberry

This was one of the first medicinal plants I bought for my garden — it’s an immune system superstar. Be careful not to confuse these with pokeweed. On elderberry there are many more berries and the elderberry is a bigger shrub than the simple pokeweed. ID with the berries and the reddish branches they hang from.

The elderberry tincture and its derivatives have long been a medicine that is used for cold and flu season. It has a history of use in preventing and treating symptoms of influenza, colds and sinusitis, with anti-viral activity against influenza virus and herpes simplex. They are also edible, but are best cooked in order to avoid any stomach upset — they have toxins that create hydrogen cyanide in the gut.

Make an immune boosting elderberry syrup and tincture, or try elderberry mead, soda, or fermented honey. They can also be included in a medicinal herbal tea blend.

Cherry Bark

Growing up on the east coast I remember ravenously eating the sour cherries from the tree in my back yard, but I never thought about the bark. The inner bark of the black cherry or choke cherry tree can be used as a cough remedy to support the immune system and stop unproductive coughing so a person can sleep. Follow step by step instructions here, and enjoy foraging for this wild medicinal herb or try out this bark and root recipe with cherry bark.

If you can’t find a cherry tree, you can buy a tincture and syrup from Naturopathica.

Garlic

Yeah I know winter is cuffing season, but sometimes you’ve got to fend off that vampire. Garlic is a powerful antimicrobial and liver protector. Garlic is great because it’s friendly to your gut flora and fauna but kills off the invaders.

Garlic can also be employed as a preventative to the common cold. It has been shown to reduce the incidence of colds by 63%, decrease severity of symptoms and accelerate recovery time when compared with a placebo. Garlic has anti-viral activity against influenza A and B, cytomegalovirus, rhinovirus, HIV, herpes, viral pneumonia and rotavirus — note it does not prevent any of these.

Echinacea

Echinacea is native to North America, and is commonly known as purple coneflower. The species used medicinally are Echinacea angustifolia and Echinacea purpurea. This is another plant found easily in backyards.

Echinacea is an immune stimulant. The main actives in the plant are alkylamides — which give a characteristic tingle on the tongue while making your mouth water. Echinacea may lower the risk of developing colds by more than 50% and shorten the duration of colds by one and a half days. Echinacea has also been known to help with depression and anxiety, perfect for the cold, dark winters.

E. purpurea is easier to cultivate, and the whole plant can be used, including the leaf, flower, seed and root. The roots however shouldn’t be harvested until the plant is at least two years old.

Echinacea has a great safety profile and can be taken as a tincture or capsule. You can also enjoy E. purpurea as a carefully dried tea, to preserve the alkylamides.