12 Reasons Broadleaf Plantain is Called The "Herb Supreme" -- PLUS How to Make the Ultimate Remedy for Wasp Stings, Yellow Jacket Stings, Mosquito Bites, and More!

"How long do mosquito bites last?"

"How to stop mosquito bites from itching"

"How to get rid of mosquito bites overnight?"

"Can you die from being too itchy?"

"Hospitals near me"

I don't think I'm the only one who has begged Google and baby Jesus for help while scratching my body like a pissed off, rabid raccoon.

If you type "voluntary" and your autosuggest suggests "coma," I am very sorry that you are also a mosquito magnet, but I will assure you that you were meant to find this article. 

I have always believed myself to be an expert on mosquitos. I have been so wrong. 

Michigan has some of the most incredible summer days. As someone who has lived and traveled all over the Western hemisphere, I can say that with confidence.

The water is cool, but not too cool.

The trees are lush and vibrant, alive with chattering squirrels and melodies from song birds.

The evening bonfires with your family after splashing in the river slathered in sunblock and bug spray, cheeks pink with sunshine and happiness.

Nothing could be better.

Alright, listen. I'm gonna confess something here I can't say to my husband, so if you see him, zip it.

I thought I knew what bad mosquitos were.

I am from FLORIDA. Y'know -- the swamp?

My first day of pre-k, I had a mosquito bite on my EYEBROW.

Aaaaand I'm allergic to them. So my tiny little face was inflated and inflamed.

I looked like a balloon.

All the other 5 year olds kept asking me what was wrong with my face. Thank God for little Julia Barker, who wasn't afraid of my head floating away mid-conversation.

Anyway, for my entire life, I was used to staying up all night, driven to the brink of madness, clawing at my bug-bite-covered-body.

If you're here, I know you've been in those shoes (sheets? lol).

You've tried Benadryl cream and pills, antihistamines, every bug-bite, chigger, flea cream you could find, hydrocortisone, calamine lotion, alcohol swabs, ice, slapping your bug bites, distraction, and I'm sure you've tried willpower. 

How'd that go, by the way?

Babe. I'm going to save you all that wasted money, time, over-scratched skin, and fire-breathing frustration (don't beat yourself up. No one's willpower is strong enough to ignore that itch).

What I'm going to share with you is free, and then if you go further and want to follow my recipe, it's cheaper than any of that shit that doesn't work. 

Most of all -- it is INSTANT relief. 

I mean INSTANT. No waiting for the cream or pills to kick in. 
No more listening to your kid whine and screech because they're itchy. 
No more suffering longer than you have to!

So, allllllll these years, I scoffed at my husband's stories of horrifying Michigan mosquitos the size of cats. Whatever. I've scratched and suffered next to so many lakes, golden with the sunset, complimenting the spreading red pool of histamines rushing to the surface of my skin.

Like, how much worse can mosquitos get?

Then we moved to the Midwest.

Unfortunately my in-laws were not lying when they told me the mosquito is the state bird.

I've had to keep an eye on my toddler so she doesn't get carried off like a Pomeranian.

You know some people have a naturally occurring chemical that causes a scent on our skin to be ONE HUNDRED (100) TIMES more attractive to mosquitos than people without it?
Here's the article.

I would have rather had the cilantro soap gene, and that's saying something.

DEET is a good friend, but not a committed one. Also, it smells like total shit. Actually, shit probably smells better.

It will rudely depart after a few hours, and in your ecstatic abandon of those hazy summer nights, you will forget to reapply.

Then later, if you're anything like me, you'll suddenly look down realize your body looks like Will Smith's post-shellfish face in the movie Hitch.

And be suddenly overcome with The Itch.

Or your child will come running up to you, looking like she has full body mumps that desperately need an ER visit, and with your heart rate skyrocketing in the face of a seriously infectious disease, now you possibly do, too.

Ask me how I know.

So, when I say, if you are a delicious, sweet treat for mosquitos, I know the absolute hell and the severity you're dealing with.

I have it! I finally have the solution. 

Here is your backyard herb --

Broadleaf Plantain! 

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Broadleaf Plantain is one of the most incredible plants in the world and it is SHOCKINGLY abundant almost everywhere! It's not the one like a banana for tostones. This is where the Backyard part comes in. This plant is one of the most common garden weeds. It grows through sidewalk cracks and all over grassy areas and spreads like a puddle of juice on the carpet. 

The ones I'm talking about are plantago major (broadleaf plantain), but plantago lanceolata (narrowleaf plantain) is equivalent, I just have the big fat ones in my yard.

Wrong one.

Right one.

It grows in a rosette, like dandelions, but instead of a bright yellow flower that pops up, there is a stalk with seeds on it. Those are psyllium seeds, which are what Metamucil is made of. The leaves look like crinkled spinach (actually, they taste like it too, but more on that here).

It's wildly prolific, growing all over the globe in large numbers.

It is a super plant.

The medicinal benefits of Plantago major have been acknowledged around the world for hundreds of years. This plant contains a number of effective chemical constituents including flavonoids, alkaloids, terpenoids, phenolic acid derivatives, iridoid glycosides, fatty acids, polysaccharides and vitamins which contribute to its exerting specific therapeutic effects. Correspondingly, studies have found that Plantago major is effective as a wound healer, as well as an antiulcerative, antidiabetic, antidiarrhoeal, anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive, antibacterial, and antiviral agent. It also combats fatigue and cancer, is an antioxidant and a free radical scavenger. This paper provides a review of the medicinal benefits and chemical constituents of Plantago major published in journals from year 1937 to 2015 which are available from PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar. - Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapy, Science Direct 2017. 

 

Source: Science Direct

There are also no contraindications against its use, so this is a great one to start with if you're anxious about dying from not understanding or realizing an herb's possible ill effects.

Plantain's reputation as "the poultice herb supreme" is well earned.

Externally, plantain can soothe almost all skin problems.

It's strong properties include the ability to:

• take away pain from insect bites or stings
• draw dirt and poisons out (like mosquito saliva, snake, insect or other animal bites, stings from insects or nettle)
• draw out deep-seated splinters
• bringing pimples or spots to a head
• treat boils, ulcers, or most any other eruptive skin disorder
• provide sunburn relief
• improve acne or rosacea
• encourage cell growth
• maintain healthy, blemish-free skin
• significantly help treat even deep-tissue infections
• stop bleeding
• and of course -- takes away itch from bug bites, rashes, or other inflammation!

So far, you've learned that plantain is

• absolutely free and hugely available to the vast majority of people
• incredibly, almost magically, a treatment for almost all skin ailments
• has an even longer list of internal uses
• has no contraindications -- is a safe plant for beginners

And you're like, mmm, that's lovely, Kaity, but what do I do with it?

Well, tons and tons of stuff but I'll give you the ones you're here for.

Quick Fix

In a pinch, or when you left your salve at home, you can use the leaf itself. You make a poultice. The fastest way is to chew some of the plant and then put it on a bite or a sting for a few minutes.

If that seems strange, remember that these plants were engineered to be available for use quickly by its fellow inhabitants that grew alongside them. Chewing them allows the inner flesh of the leaves break out from the outer membrane by our teeth, and then our saliva allows it a medium to spread the active chemicals that heal our bodies. A poultice allows contact of the entire plant to the part that needs the medicine inside. This means its concentration is at a high level, unaffected by translation into another means of use, like a tea.

It's instant relief, kicking in over the next 20-30 minutes, but it's not bad practice to leave on the bandaid (or gauze or tape or whatever sticky substance you have in your other pocket) until you remember it again a little later.

If you're iffy about it still, you can just try the quick fix if you get a bug bite.

You'll come right back to this page (or google plantain salve. I'll forgive you... Actually, google "Kickass Magic Life-Saving Skin Soothing Salve" ....Go ahead, write that down).

Chew or mash some plantain up and tape that sucker down with a bandaid (or whatever).

Beautiful cooled green jars of medicine!!!!!
Hell yeah!!!

Recipe for my Kickass Magic Life-Changing Skin Soothing Salve (aka Plantain Skin Soother)

This salve recipe features yarrow and calendula. You don't have to add them, but these three herbs add up to more than the sum of their parts, Amortentia style.

What you'll need

Equipment

• Slowcooker, Stovetop (My husband calls it a range. Like a farm. ??), Bunsen Burner, Open Campfire
• if using anything but a slowcooker, you'll need a pot.
• If using an open fire, you'll need .. a little more. Send me a DM for a step-by-step on that one, I gotchu.
• Something you can put in the bottom of the pot to keep a jar off of it
• A jar that you can fit in the pot (an old pasta sauce jar works great).
• A strainer - cheesecloth, mesh, coffee filter, old shirt, clean sock
• A receptacle for your incredible medicine - you want a wide rim so you can stick your fingers into it.
• Maybe a coffee grinder.
  
  

  

  This is my equipment.

Salve Components

There is a long recipe for infusing oils and a short recipe. I know you want the short one, so I won't waste your time here. The long way to infuse oil is just put all these except the beeswax together in a window sill or other warm place for at least a month, shaking or stirring them every week or so. 

After you have that oil, you jump into back the end of this recipe right where you add beeswax. 

Do that if your heart is calling you to it, but if this is one of your first projects, I'm really excited for you to not forget about this forever and actually use this. 

So. 

Maybe listen to what my heart is calling you to do.

This recipe involves all dried plant components. Recipes made with fresh herbs have a possibility of going rancid, and I don't want you to waste your time, money, plants, or worst of all -- get discouraged.

There are 3 parts to this and -- wait, seriously, don't go -- they're all so much easier than you think. 

If you have fresh plants, you can set them out or hang them in bunches for a few days until they dry, or use a dehydrator. 

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup (237ml) Carrier Oil
• my favorite is jojoba -- it's the closest to our natural skin oil, but you don't have to get fancy
• you can use oils like avocado, olive, grapeseed, or coconut. If you use EVOO, you may smell like a Macaroni Grill. Which isn't a bad thing, but you should just keep that in mind.
• 5 - 8 tbsp Plantain (here's a link in case it's not growing around you right now!)
• 4 tbsp Yarrow Leaves 
• (optional. THIS one is hard as hell to find and I'm gonna do a whole post about this incredible plant bc it DOES NOT have DAMN NEAR enough information on the internet! Anyway, here's a link, I found it for you. THIS one is just as amazing as plantain, you will never regret buying this. I'll link the article here when it's published. Here's the link to buy.)
• 4 tbsp Calendula
• 1 oz (28g) Beeswax
• If you're vegan or just don't want to use beeswax, there are quite a few other options
• soy wax, sunflower wax, rice bran wax, candelilla wax, bayberry wax, paraffin wax, carnauba wax
• VeganFoundry has a great piece that goes into depth about pros and cons of each.

Instructions 

A tiny patch of plantain on the edge of my driveway.

Part 1 - Getting Your Herbs

1. Find your plants (the right ones). Harvest the big leaves on a sunny day. Try to find the ones that are whole.
2. Dry 'em.
3. Use dry plants only. Remember what I said earlier. You know we both care about your time and money.

Part 2 - Infusing Your Oil

1. Put your pot on the stove and in your cooking vessel, cover at least the bottom third with cool or cold water.
2. Put in that thing you decided to use in the bottom of your vessel (steam shelf, big flattish rocks from outside, kitchen towel, whatever you think won't explode or dissolve).
3. Make sure your jar is very clean.
4. Put all your herbs in your jar. Put all your oil in the jar afterwards, if you put the herbs in, they'll float. It should cover all the plant matter in the jar.
5. Shake it so it's all in the right place.
6. Put your jar in the cold water pot.
   - Slowcooker: set on keep warm for 8 hours.
7. Stovetop: bring to a slight simmer and let it sit for at least 2 hours. I just go about regular stuff at home and go back in whenever I think of it to check the water level.
   - DON'T let the water boil over and definitely not into your oil
8. Strain the herbs out of your oil using your cheesecloth / coffee filter /

Part 3 - The Finish

1. Melt your beeswax in a double boiler.
2. Gently pour your infused oil into the beeswax and mix them together.
   - Mine instantly cooled down and then I had to put it into the food processor and then heat it up on the stove until it all melted together. YMMV.
3. Now that it's all mixed, dispense this mixture into the (very clean) container of your choosing.
4. Let it cool and feel a rush of pride and accomplishment at the medicine you made by hand.
5. Give it out as holiday presents. Enjoy the compliments rolling in.

You've done it!!! 

You made an incredible, endlessly useful medicine.

Cheap and easy with a wonderful finished product. 

Next time you get a mosquito bite, you have something you know will work. 

When your little people run up to you in tears with a wasp sting or a yellow jacket sting, you can rub your homemade backyard weeds plant magic onto their boo-boo's and not suffer from the overwhelming guilt and helplessness we get when our babies get hurt. 

Here's a walk through for anyone who needs more visual instructions. 

Plantain, ground into small pieces.

Calendula, kind of ground into smaller pieces
but it's already little, so no worries anyway.

This is the rich green color it changes into.


 

    

This is about how full the jar was after 5 TBSP.

Lil plant magic 

This is the water level on the stovetop.

Straining through nut bag (lol).
I squeezed that MF like it owed me money. 

Hot jars. 

Finished! Green magic!

I am so proud of you. 
You should be, too! Look at you, out here making backyard weeds into medicine.
Using double boilers and shit. Amateur who? Beginner what??
Good job, you sharp lil flower bud. 
Send me a message or leave a comment and tell me how you did!!! I am so excited for you!

... So, what are you gonna make next?