Unit 12 (December): Review, the medicine cabinet, and next year

The last unit is an audit, and it is the unit that determines whether the next year is better than this one.

Inventory the cupboard against what is still good. Working lives: volatile flower and leaf 6-12 months, other leaf 12-18 months, root and bark 2-3 years, powdered herb about half, infused oils 6-12 months refrigerated, tinctures several years. Smell everything. A faint, dusty, hay-like smell means it is spent, and keeping a dead jar is how a medicine cabinet becomes a decoration.

Discard without sentiment. Anything under-dried with condensation, any jar with mould, any oil that smells paint-like, and anything you cannot confidently label. An unlabelled jar is an unusable jar, and the reason it is unlabelled is usually that the label habit slipped.

Check the labels you have. Plant, part, date, place. A jar marked only "tincture" is a jar you will not use, and one marked only with a common name is a jar you cannot check.

Then the honest review. Which plants did well on your ground and which failed? Which preparations did you actually use, and which sat? Which herbs did you find you did not need?

That last question is the one that matters most. A first-year apothecary is usually too big, because the appeal of making things runs ahead of the need to use them. A second-year apothecary built from what you actually reached for is a better and much smaller cabinet.

What you should be able to do now. Identify the plants you grew, in the field and in the jar. Say when each is harvested and why. Dry and store each correctly. Explain what the trial evidence says a herb does, and where it is weak or absent. Name the interactions and red flags for the ones you keep.

What you cannot do. Diagnose. Advise anyone on their prescription medication. Treat a serious illness. Knowing thirty herbs does not change any of that, and a course that leaves you thinking otherwise has done you harm.