Sage (Salvia Officinalis)...

... yes, Sage is an easy herb to plant for your organic  garden ....

... just in time for spring planting, that's it  ... if you are in Australia

I just bought another heap of Sage seedlings .. I love Sage .. I still got some nice plants in my garden, but I wanted a few more. Not only does Sage look nice, but it makes good companion planting for the garden as well. The main reason obviously is for using the herb as a kitchen or medical herb.

How nice is it, to be able to grow your own medicine.

Lets lay down the virtues of Sage:

Sage ( Common) Salvia Officinalis ( German > Salbei )

Lets start in the garden, Sage as a companion plant and aids Rosemary, and the other way around. Yes, I have them alternating in a garden border row. Sage goes well with cabbage, it is protective against cabbage butterfly or moth .. not sure, what is it?

Anyhow, Sage aisd cabbage and many other vegetable in general, making them more digestible. Sage is also useful as a tea, to water vegetables with, but never water the very young vegetable plants, only more mature ones.

Have a look now at the possible healing powers:

Sage - Salvia in Latin means "to save", that already is a good start and it certainly is one of the great panacea (remedial) herbs.

It is useful to have at hands at all times, thats why it should be grown in every garden. Generally known to be good for gargles, sore throat, breath cleansing, light infections, sleep, mild depression, as an antiseptic and many other interesting indications which we will all talk about.

Using Sage as a tea:

Sage is a general tonic, and will taste nice if you drop a few leaves into your black tea for general consumption.

A word of care here, Sage is a herb with volatile oils, which is great against infection, however if you use pure fresh leave Sage to drink as a tea, it should be boiled for 3 minutes to boil off the oils, whereas, if you use it to gurgle, you have to let it steep for 10 min's and make sure to use a lid on your cup or pot. For most other application, Sage is used as a dried herb.

Sage is easy to be used as a dried herb, that way you can use it as a tea without boiling.

A general dose would be 1-2grams of dried Sage leaves to a cup (200ml) of hot water, the direct action is astringent and even more important it is, what is called an Anti-sudorific.

This is an interesting function, which makes Sage a very useful tea for Menopause and hot flushes and nights sweats.

Anti-sudorific, actually means that it reduces or even inhibits sweating.

In my experience as a herbalist practitioner, I have used Sage regularly for women with menopausal hot flushing symptoms. Obviously, I always used it in conjunction with diet advice, esp. staying of sugar, salt, coffee and tea, and a good general well balanced diet, free of processed food. In 75% of cases, this advice was enough to keep the hot flushes down. In more severe cases, additional herbal remedies in tincture form were used.

This anti-sudorific property has some other great uses, such as for treating sinusitis and post nasal drip, which is excessive mucus, frequently caused by an allergy, which may be seasonal or persistent throughout the year.

For young mothers who want to wean off their babies from breast milk, Sage is the perfect tea to stop the flow of milk.

Generally speaking it is good for any condition where there is fluid involved, which needs to dry up, that's why it is even good in the early stages of colds and flu.

Because of this drying effect, it should not be used for longer than 1 week without supervision, but during that time, 3 to 4 cups of the infusion ( tea) can be taken daily.

Other functions may be hard to prove, such as the general tonic effect on the liver and digestive processes, and as mentioned before, as therapy for depression and as a brain tonic and for better mental functioning or capacity.

A good way to try it out would be for mental fatigue or mental anxiety ... let me know if you have any success.

Try it also for headache by adding some Rosemary and Peppermint.

Externally it works best as fresh plant infusion, as a gurgle for sore throat ( antiseptic) and mouth ulcers, it may also be used as douche for vaginal discharge.

For skin irritation, including eczema, use it in your bath, in combination with a handful of rolled oats, kept within a stocking, which is pumped, to squeeze out the oatmilk, very soothing as well as anti-septic, works great, fantastic for itchy skin as well.

There is a bit of history to this herb as well, it has a reputation as a preventative against the onslaughts of old age ( I better get stuck into it), and the ancient Egyptians used sage as a brain tonic.

Not bad for a common garden variety herb, and on top of that, it is easy cultivated, you can propagate is from seed or just by buy seedlings. Sage likes a well drained sunny position, once established it doesn't need much water, just perfect for my garden and climate ( South East Qld ).

Harvest the plants for drying just before they start flowering, dry them and store in an airtight container. Always prune off the dead old wood.
Are you wondering how to preserve the fresh leaves?

Just chop fresh leaves finely, put into ice cube trays covered with water and freeze, will keep for many month.

It is also used as a hair tonic, shampoo and in cosmetics.

Sage is great in cooking as well, all the usual meat, fish, pork and poultry dishes, it used to flavour sausages.

Funny with herbs, isn't it .. and not only with herbs, with other remedies as well?

Why is something going out of favour?

It's like certain herb qualities are forgotten ... don't be fooled, there is nothing wrong or not working with sage, it's a truly great herb.

Some more simple therapy recipes:

Coughing or Hoarseness - 1level teaspoon of dried Sage to a cup of hot water with a teaspoon of Mananuka Honey.

In the old days, (whatever that means) Sage was boiled in half water, half wine, esp good against colds and flu.

A very weak Sage tea stimulates sweating, a strong Sage tea- the required dose, stops sweating.

Another recipe as a good standby herbal throat gurgle remedy, is to use a handful of the fresh leaves, squeezed and macerated in clear spirit for 10 days. Filter and store in a bottle. Use 1 teaspoon in a glass of water to gurgle.

Note - Caution: Not to be taken in pregnancy or while breast feeding.

Please leave some comments ... have a good day out in the garden harvesting your herbs :-)

Article by .... Dieter L. - for the useNature Magazine - Herbal section - Find a Herbalist - click Herbalist Directory