It’s Oat time!
Wild Oats (we often call them ‘Milky Oats’ in herbalism) are an awesome restorative for exhausted bodies and souls. The grass is rich in water soluble minerals (particularly silica which forms much of the structure of the herb and those (sometimes) sharp hairs that grasses have.
We have two varieties around Gawler – the larger Avena sativa and a smaller one that I’m pretty sure is Avena fatua. Commercially (and hopefully organically) grown Oats are bigger, juicier versions of Avena sativa.
The most famous part of oat grasses is the milky goo that you can find in the seeds just before they ripen. It’s why they’re called ‘Milky Oats’. This is the immature endosperm of the seed and is herbally used as, probably the best, nervous system restorative available. Something more and more needed in these troubles times when it seems that we just can’t switch off.
As a Bach Flower Essence Wild Oat helps our true calling to come forth and helps us to align more strongly with what we are really here for. This too can strengthen us as we drop habits and outlooks that may have been dreaining energy from our body and soul without being wholly beneficial. It was Wild Oats that helped me decide to study for an herbal qualification.
Using them
The other way to use them us to dry the whole plant and then make a strong infusion out of them. This extracts most of the water soluble minerals from the herb. If you add a little vinegar, it helps extract a little more.
You can tincture fresh Wild Oats when before they are ripe, when you can press one and squeeze out a little glob of milky goo. This is the most potent way to utilise their nervine restorative properties.
Macerating the dry herbs in vinegar makes a mineral rich aceta that combines nicely with Mugwort to increase the effectiveness of Strong Bones Vinegar.
Other herb pages on Ligaya Garden
We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –
