Oat Straw
(Avena sativa)
These are herbs Marjory Wildcraft gathered. Nurtured and let to grow as if wild in rich, mature, biodynamic environments, they grow potent and pure, much as they did when we first encountered them.
If it's your intention to extract and focus the remedies found in these herbs - via tincture, salve, tea, or other preparation, you'll find no better source on earth than the ones gathered by Marjory and made available to you here.
Each is an exceedingly rare, profound friend. And as they're grown and harvested with care, they're good for the earth.
As long as you are, too,
Marjory just might let you have some...
Oat Straw (Avena Sativa) Overview
Appearance: Acquaint yourself with the profound gifts of wild-nurtured oats, and they’ll never again seem muted and familiar. Instead, like water or light, they’ll thenceforth appear to you both stirring and calm.
When commonly farmed: Pound for pound, it’s hard to top the nutritional benefits of wild oats. But 99% of the “wild oats” commercially available are farmed in unnatural isolation from the flora, fauna, and earth they connect with. And when you remove the wild from wild outs, you cause them to lose much of their punch and glory.
When wildcrafted: Wild oats reacquaint themselves with their old balance, giving and taking from light, water, soils, and creatures. When only lightly nurtured, it’s obvious the oats know best.
Given that respect, the resulting oats deliver a deep and varied payload of rare metals and vitamins that one can utilize to calm the spirit, fortify the immune system, and promote a strong and present virility.
Why this oat straw is more miraculous than all others: All Marjory Wildcraft Oat Straw is nurtured high in the central Rockies, at Colorado’s only Demeter Biodynamic Farm, by the sublime hand of the world’s most enchanting farmer- Stephanie Syson. There, at her miracle farm perched at the tippy-top of an unmolested alpine watershed, these oats were planted and let to grow wild, in deep rhythm with the land and air and animals about.
Herbal Profile
Oats (Avena sativa) is a plant with a long history of nourishing humanity.
Even its name, Avena, means nourishment and both the stalks and grains have medicinal and nutritional applications.
Oats are believed to have originated in Northern Europe or the Near East, possibly in the Fertile Crescent and have now been spread across the world, lending a great deal of job security as a feed for cows, chickens, and humans.
Besides its use as food, Oats have a long history in herbal medicine with a variety of uses. Oats are used as a restorative plant and they enhance mental capacities. The hulls were stuffed into mattresses and pillows as calm and rejuvenate anxious and over-worn people. Its reputation as a sexual enhancer and vitality restorer are so ingrained in our language that we still have phrases like “feeling your oats” and “sowing your wild oats.” Many of Oat Straw’s medicinal properties are linked to its high level of bio-available nutrition.
Oats are an wonderfully useful plant and its contribution to human culture, food, and medicines cannot be overstated. Oat Straw boasts such a long list of medicinal uses (and for all people, men and women, old and young), it’s hard to know where to start. But that’s okay, because when one is feeling overwhelmed, Oat Straw is just the plant to turn to!
The Grow Network is proud to offer this high-quality, Demeter certified Biodynamic herb. Great for use as in nourishing infusions, for gentle relaxation and restoration, made into a tincture for your medicine kit, as a ingredient in your homemade hair and skin care, and for many other applications.
Botanical Name: Avena sativa
Family: Poaceae
Other Common Names: Oat, common oat, cat grass, pet grass, oat grass
Product Contents: Straw
Actions: Anti-depressant, carminative, diaphoretic, diuretic, febrifuge, nervine (relaxing), nutritive, tonic
Energetics: Moist/Cool
Taste: Salty
Plant Uses: Nervous system exhaustion, strengthen sexual potency/desire, restorative and strengthening to the whole body, mood lifter, clearer cognition, stress reducer.
Preparations: Nourishing herbal infusion, bath, poultice, sitz bath, foot soak, wash, hair rinse, vinegar infusion.
Toxicities/Warnings: Possible gluten cross-contamination; potential danger for those with Celiac disease.
"Plants created herbs as precision medicines that would miraculously click with our biology and cure what ails us...all in return for giving them rides and keeping other animals from eating them.”
Marjory
BIODYNAMIC OAT STRAW
The Biodynamic Farmer, Stephanie
And What Makes Her Herbs Extraordinary
Stephanie Syson has spent the past decade with her hands and heart in the dirt.
Growing and using the powerful herbs that create vitality and wellness.
She has 10+ years of experience in the herbal product industry as well as over 13 years researching and practicing various forms of sustainable farming across the United States and Latin America.
As a Certified Permaculture Designer, an educator in the fields of Greenhouse Management, Seed Saving, and Herbalism, she lectures across the United States on topics such as Public Food Forests, Seed Saving Libraries, and Culinary and Medicinal Herb Growing.
Stephanie grew one acre of Biodynamic medicinal herbs at Sustainable Settings in 2016 and was overwhelmed at the quality, potency, and vibrancy of the botanicals.
Her passion turned into a full-time partnership with Brook and Sustainable Settings to expand the quantity and variety of healing herbs that will be offered in the seasons to come.
A Sustainable Setting
Situated under the majestic Sopris Mountain on 244-acres once known as the historic Thompson Creek Ranch. Sustainable Settings is a working ranch and Whole Systems Learning Center.
Their daily and long-term committed effort is to provide the arena and programming where human beings might find a harmonious regenerative intersection with Nature.
With true passion, they continually strive for direct and locally applicable solutions to climate change, food and energy security, and the regeneration of healthy topsoil, and health in all systems.
These are things that are paramount if we are to survive.
All effort is intended to move the culture into greater awareness of human beings’ responsible participation as humble stewards and reverent members within Nature’s economy.
Biodynamic Botanicals found its home here in 2016 and currently has 4 acres under cultivation.
"Biodynamic Botanicals is devoted to the research, education, and production of high-quality Demeter Certified Biodynamic herbs in order to yield highly potent, vibrant, healing herbs for people, pollinators, and our planet."
Stephanie Syson
Why Is The Demeter Biodynamic
Certification Important?
The US is one of the largest consumers of medicinal herbs. And our demand is increasing quickly.
While there has been an ever-growing push for production within our borders, as much as 80% of bulk herbs available now – even from the most well-respected suppliers - are shipped in from international farms to meet demand.
Not only does this increase our reliance on inefficient, earth-destroying supply chains…
It also means that much of the beneficial properties these herbs contained were destroyed as they are subjected to mandatory irradiation at ports of entry…
Even when the herbs have been grown organically on US soil, well, we all know that Organic label doesn’t mean a whole lot when coming from massive farms in our chemical-saturated world…
And perhaps, like me, you’d prefer your wellness-supporting herbs don’t come with a dose of radiation, possible contamination, or unknown growing practices.
But, what can you do?
How can you ensure the herbs you use and recommend are truly pure and potent?
Where can you find herbs truly worthy of being used medicinally, especially if you can’t grow them yourself?
These questions drove my tireless search for the absolute purest, most potent, and locally sourced herbs. And I was extremely lucky!
Right down the road from me, in the high-altitude and organic heartland of Colorado, I found radiant herbs that are grown with a method that far exceeds my expectations. A Demeter Biodynamic Certified, herb-focused farm. Idyllically placed among the rolling highlands and pure glacier streams of the western Rockies.
After spending some time visiting this farm, I can honestly say - Biodynamic is way beyond a fancy label!
It’s a method of growing that demands a deeply holistic, completely chemical-free farm.
A farm that relates the entire ecology of the earth to the larger cosmos. One that treats the soil, animals, and plants grown on this land as one whole and living organism.
On this only Demeter Biodynamic Certified herb farm in Colorado, at the top of a pristine watershed, each plant is mindfully grown. Planted among companion species, cared for according to natural cycles, and nurtured by deep, living soil - just as Mother Nature does it herself. Then each herb hand-harvested at its individual peak.
This careful and thoughtful work results in the most potent of medicinal herbs.
Powerful plants that provide vitality in you and help regenerate the earth in significant ways, too.
With these herbs you can have the same confidence that I do, knowing that you’re working with extremely potent herbs, and making the most effective medicines the earth can provide.