Essentially, if you use vodka or any alcohol that is not high proof, you don't add water to the solution, when working with dry herbs. When working with fresh herbs, you don't use any water. Put your herb cut as fine as possible in a jar half way and fill it up with alcohol. Shake it at least once per day. After 6 weeks, strain it using a cheese cloth and that's all there is to it.
You should look up some videos on youtube on parsley tinctures specifically, to see how it behaves. I didn't do parsley, so I don't know how it behaves. I didn't work with any fresh herbs. All of the tinctures I worked on were dried herbs or dried roots. They behave differently. they swell up and sometimes they need a lot more alcohol added. Teasel for example, drinks up a lot of alcohol, and I ended up having to move some of it into a different jar and add more alcohol to both jars.
The most important thing is to make sure all pieces are submerged in liquid or you risk to get mold and/or bacteria in there. It is ok to
open the jar once in a while to take a look and push the herbs back in, if any are on the lid, etc but don't
open the jars for long periods of time.
It gets expensive to do tinctures because alcohol is expensive. M, but it is still much cheaper than buy it it, and fun to make :)
Make sure you buy organic alcohol--you don't want to buy alcohol that is made from GMO crops. Alternatively, you can get vodka from countries that do not use GMO crops. Same with parsley, make sure it is organic, or grow your own from organic seed--you don't want to add pollutants to your tinctures.
alternatively, you can eat lots of parsley. I have a friend that eats half a cup of fresh parsley every morning. She has quite a ritual with other stuff she is using as well. She never got tested for Lyme but she has Lyme for sure since she was a child--she got bit multiple times for several years. She had several facial palsy's and most Lyme symptoms. She went to a herbalist in Europe and I don't know if he realized she has lyme or not, but he developed a protocol for her that kept her alive and above water. She is still working FT.
Editing to add:
Same for syrups: there are herbalists that show you how to do it on youtube.
Mountainroseherbs also has a blog with questions and answers on line as well as youtube videos with a couple of the herbalists--one of them wrote books that are best sellers on amazon. Her name is Rosemary Gladstar.
Post Edited (Simela1) : 5/30/2015 10:34:01 PM (GMT-6)