Healthy wild herbs

Sean McCarthy says common weeds aren’t a nuisance, instead, they’re an apothecary shop on your doorstep.

Burdock or Arctium Lappa, has been the bane of sheep farmers’ lives for years – the dried weed heads stick to sheep wool with a vengeance and spoil the fleece for wool. And the common Irish weed was the inspiration behind the invention of Velcro — but it is as a herb that it is most prized..

The seeds can be used in herbal medicine, but it’s the root that is the primary element used in western herbalism. Bitter, sweet and oily, burdock root is best used in dry conditions where secretions need to be increased.