Amazing Nature thematic challenge

This post goes for #AmazingNature Thematic Challenge. The weekly theme was: Natural pharmacy. Again, a great topic was given. I do have something in my pocket. There are a few plants that I use very often, almost on a daily basis: it is tea and ginger.

This is how the ginger looks like. The pic is my own, an actual plant I tried to grow myself at my office. The ginger roots I obtain at a grocery quite often have developing buds, i.e. have a great vitality -- every time I see such a picture, such a great will to live and grow, it is itching my mind, I want to plant it and look at the result. So, at least once I could not resist and ventured into this experiment. After 4 months successful growing period (see the pic!) I dig it out to look at the roots size (i.e. the possible harvest)... well, it didnt look much promising, so I gave up on the whole project, and continued to buy ginger at a greengrocery. I dont know, maybe some special researches were needed to gain more understanding what conditions it needs to grow well, so that in the end I could harvest a real deal tropheys. Anyway. I wanted actually to tell you, dear nature lovers, about quite a different medicinal plant, nor tea, neither ginger.. which you probably are already in the know.

Tadaaam! - fanfares - Aloe Vera.

#img #src

I think everyone have heard about Aloe. In Russia, it used to be found in the window of almost every kitchen, and the reason for its popularity is its medicinal qualities. Aloe is an amazingly useful plant, our grandparents did not run their households without it in the previous DIY epoch. Let's not forget our roots and the wisdom of our ancestors! Yes, Aloe isnt the most photogenic plant, I have never seen its flowers in my window (but ofc, I saw it in the Internet). But its not the case, we love it not for the flowers.

Aloe juice is a very powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-viral agent, its power comparable to an antibiotic. In fact, this is the trivia reason why I wanted to grow it in my home for many years. But it didn't work out until a colleague at my last job (she's a real green hands!) shared with me a bunch of leaves "for acquiring and breeding" purposes.

Алоэ - удивительно полезное растение, без которого не обходились наши бабушки и дедушки. Не будем забывать о корнях и мудрости предков! Да, это не самое фотогеничное растение, я ни разу не видел его цветков у себя на окне (в интернете, конечно, видел). Думаю, Алоэ известно всем. Раньше его можно было найти на окошке почти каждой кухни, и причина популярности -- его лекарственные качества.

Cок aлоэ -- весьма сильное противовоспалительное и антивирусное средство, по силе сопоставимое с силой антибиотика. Собственно, это и есть та банально-утилитарная причина, по которой я о нем мечтал и хотел выращивать у себя дома много лет. Но всё как-то не складывалось, пока на моей прошлой работе один из коллег (настоящие зелёные руки!) не поделилась со мной кучкой листьев "на разведение и обзаведение".

So... where do I start? Where did this story begin? Here's how it started: two little paper coffee cups turned into a small bush that lives in a pot in my kitchen over the course of a year or so. This photo was taken in December 2019. (I cropped the photo to the right and took out of the frame another plant I had left over from a past job: the Phalaenopsis orchid. But that would be another story).

Итак... с чего начать? где начало этой истории? Вот как все началось: два маленьких бумажных кофейных стаканчика за год с небольшим превратились в небольшой куст, который обитает в горшке у меня на кухне. Данное фото сделано в декабре 2019 года. (Я обрезал фото справа и выкинул из кадра еще одно растение, оставшееся мне на память от прошлой работы: орхидея Фаленопсис. Но о ней как-нибудь в другой раз).

January 2021. This is how it looks like 14 months later. This plant is a fast-growing one. Perhaps it's time to find a bigger pot for it now, and maybe we will do that this spring.

(All the other inhabitants of our windowsill are purely decorative: the Violets plantation, two Decembrists and one Passiflora).

Пожалуй, пора подыскать ему жилище побольше, возможно весной этим и займемся. (Все остальные обитатели нашего подоконника декоративные - плантация фиалок, декабрист и одна пассифлора).

part two: how-to

Photo is my own; does it looks like a PRO staged one? thats cause I made it like that :D By the way: I conducted a whole photo-session with this plant, accenting its medicinal healing qualities. My pictures are available to use for free (at the Hive blockchain) in the Hive Stock images community.

In general, I do not like to visit pharmacies, though sometimes I just have to. With today's prices.. it's so expensive. I am getting a pure heart attack looking at the price tags! And yet, I do not like to fight with my own body, taking down a fever and remove the slightest signs of a cold from a throat.

My personal healing preferencies / routines are: vitamin C, lemon, honey, ginger, plenty of water/tea, and sleep. Honey and ginger are the 1st in the list, but if the things already developed a little worse, and I have to let my body heal itself using minimum medicines, Aloe comes to the stage. I mostly use this potent remedy against the runny nose. Instructions to operate. Tear off one leaf (or cut off half of a large one), crush gently the inner stuff without cracking the skin, squeeze some juice out of it, collect it in a dropper - and voila! you can use it. Put it in your nose, not in your eyes, don't get it mixed up :) Most of the time I do it even in a simpler way: without any dripper, just squeeze directly into my nose 3-4-5 drops of Aloe juice. NB: not necessarily, but you may cool down the cutted leaf in refrigerator for 1-2 hours - this will slightly increase the effectiveness of the juice.

In Arabic, "aloe" means "a bitter plant." This is the name it was given - surprise! - because of the bitter taste of all its parts. The bitterness is indeed strong, but not outstanding - anyone who has ever tasted elecampane would probably agree with me. So it's nothing terrible or intolerable. But it's certainly worth mentioning.

You also should know, however, that not all Aloe varieties are beneficial -- only Aloe vera has magical medicinal properties. It's also reminiscent of its cousin, the agave that makes tequila. Putting here a photo of a Golden Tequila bottle would be perfect, but I don't have one, and not going to look for it in the Internet, hehe. (And I do not like tequila, I prefer consuming cognac, gin or whiskey).

This plant is also often called the centenarian (that's what my grandmother called it). It came from the belief that this perennial, like the agave, produces flowers once every hundred years, or even once in a lifetime. This, of course, is not true - it's just that in domestic conditions, especially in Russia, aloe does not live, but withers away! Well, if you compare how its relatives live in the natural environment.

В общем, я не люблю ходить в аптеки, хотя иногда и приходится. При нынешних ценах - себе дороже. Да меня кондрашка норовит ударить, стоит мне посмотреть на ценники! А еще, я не люблю бороться с собственным организмом, сбивать температуру, убирать из горла маломальские признаки орви и придавивши каким-нить дорогущим спреем заразу, со всех ног мчать в родимый офис, дабы поскорей поделиться заразой с остальными коллегами. А чего, у нас же коллектив -- пущай все поболеют, ага.

Мой выбор - витамин цэ, лимон, мёд, имбирь, большое количество воды / чая, и конечно же алоэ. Оторвать один листок (или отрезать половинку от большого), размять, выдоить из него немного сока, собрать в пипетку - и вуаля! можете пользоваться. Закапывать в нос, а не в глаза, не перепутайте :)

На арабском языке «алоэ» означает «горькое растение». Такое название ему дали - сюрприз! - за горький вкус всех его частей. Горечь действительно сильная, но не выдающаяся -- кто хоть раз пробовал дeвясил, наверняка согласится. Так что ничего страшного и непереносимого. Но упомянуть об этом, конечно, стоит.

Также стоит заметить, что не все сорта алоэ полезны - волшебными медицинскими свойствами обладает лишь Алоэ Вера (Aloe vera). Алоэ также напоминает своего родственника -- агаву, из которой гонят текилу. Тут идеально подошла бы фотка золотой текилы, но своей у меня нет, а в интернете искать не буду, и так уже отдалился от темы.

Алоэ часто называют столетником (именно так его называла моя бабушка) - из-за убеждения, что она цветет раз в сотню лет, или вообще единожды за всю жизнь. Это, конечно, не так - просто в домашних условиях, тем более в расеюшке, алоэ не живет, а прозябает - никакого сравнения с тем, как оно в естественной среде...

_{Blooming Aloe - photo by Hive account@ludmila.kyriakou;}

_{she's planting it herself, and would be happy to share some leaves -- you may contact her here, at Hive}

Hive account@ludmila.kyriakou shared with me her Granny's recipe for a cold throat. I never used / confirmed it (yet), but let me keep it here as well. Recipe No.2: mix 1 spoon of Aloe juice + 1 spoon of honey + 1 spoon of soft cow's butter (with no sault extras). Consume slowly one teaspoon of the mix before going to bed (and dont drink or eat anything else till morning). Put the rest to a fridge for later use. Your throat will be cured in 2-3 days without any other remedies! A great recipe, isnt it?