My medicinal garden in spring (and what's already feeding the medicine cabinet)
- Jackie
- Apr 13
- 8 min read
A walk through a medicinal garden PNW gardeners can start right now, in April.
People think a medicinal garden is a summer thing. Big calendula blooms, bee balm in July, lavender bundles drying in the kitchen in August. That is the picture everybody has in their head.
The truth is that a medicinal garden runs all year. Right now in April my calendula is in full bloom, the mint is strong enough to cut, the bergamot is sending up new leaves, and the lemon balm is at that perfect tender stage where the whole plant smells like a lemon you crushed in your hand. The St. John's Wort is waking up and the elderberry has tiny green buds on every branch. None of this is dramatic. It is just plants doing what plants have always done.
A medicinal garden is not a separate project from your kitchen garden. It is the same beds, the same soil, the same care. A few of the plants happen to do double duty: they feed you, and they quietly turn into tea or salve or something you rub on a sore shoulder. That is the whole secret.
Here is what is actually happening in my garden right now, what I am already harvesting, and the one plant I am about to put in the ground for summer.
What I am already harvesting in April
Mint. The first cuts of mint are happening this week. Mint is the most reliable medicinal plant I grow. It is up before almost everything else, it survives anything, and the fresh leaves make a tea that settles a stomach faster than anything in a pharmacy box. I keep mine in a separate bed because if you plant mint in your main vegetable beds you will be pulling mint for the rest of your life. The first spring leaves are the best of the year. I cut a small handful, pour hot water over them, wait five minutes, done.
Lemon balm. Right next to the mint, the lemon balm is already several inches tall. This is the calmest tea I know how to make. I drink it in the evening when my brain will not slow down. The leaves are at their best right now, before the plant flowers, when the lemon smell is at its strongest. Cut it back hard a few times this season and it will keep giving you tender new growth all the way into September.
Chives, shallots, and the other alliums. These are also in the medicinal column for me, even though most people just think of them as kitchen herbs. The whole allium family (onions, garlic, leeks, chives, shallots) is loaded with the same compounds that show up in folk remedies for colds and circulation. I use a lot of chives raw on eggs and potatoes in spring, and I think of every one of those meals as a small medicinal act.
Chervil and parsley. Both up, both ready to use. Parsley is one of the oldest tonic herbs in the European tradition. Chervil is the one nobody grows in America and everybody should. Light, anise-like, gentle on the stomach, and beautiful in egg dishes.
Calendula. Mine is in full bloom right now and the whole front yard looks like someone spilled a bowl of egg yolks. Calendula is the most forgiving medicinal flower I know. It self-seeds everywhere, the bees love it, and the petals dry beautifully for tea or for infused oil. I dry them on a flat tray on the kitchen counter, no fancy equipment, and once they are crisp I put them in a clean jar with olive or jojoba oil and let them sit on a sunny windowsill for a few weeks. That oil is what I use on dry skin and on the small scrapes I give myself every other day in the garden. If you plant calendula once and let it go to seed, you will have it forever.
Bergamot and bee balm leaves. The new leaves on the bergamot are already big enough to cut. I do not have to wait for the flowers to use this plant. The leaves alone make a tea that tastes like Earl Grey crossed with oregano. I drink it when I feel a cold coming on. A handful of fresh leaves in a mug, hot water, ten minutes, done. Native peoples used bee balm for sore throats and chest colds long before anyone wrote a wellness blog about it.
So if you think you need to wait until summer to start a medicinal garden, you are wrong. You could be drinking tea from your own backyard this week.
What is waking up but not ready yet
Bee balm flowers. The leaves are ready now, but the deep red flowers do not come in until July. Worth the wait. Once they bloom the bees lose their minds and so do I.
St. John's Wort. Already growing back. The yellow flowers come in June and I infuse them in olive oil for a deep red salve I use on bruises and sore muscles. What I do not do is take it internally. St. John's Wort interacts with a long list of medications, including some very common ones, and that is not territory I want to be in without a real conversation with a doctor. I tell you this because honesty matters more than enthusiasm. Just because something grows in your garden does not mean you should swallow it.
Elderberry. The buds are out. Last year I got a small handful of berries and turned them into syrup, the kind everybody at my house drinks by the spoonful in January when somebody comes home with a runny nose. This year the bush is bigger and I am hopeful. Elderberry needs patience. You plant it, you wait two or three years, and then it starts paying you back. If you are thinking about adding one shrub to your garden that does real work for your kitchen and your medicine cabinet, this is the one I would pick.
Lavender. Different varieties, all waking up. Lavender is the one I use when I need to actually slow down. A small bundle of dried flowers in a hot bath, or a few drops of infused oil on my temples when I have been staring at a screen for too long. Lavender loves the dry summers we get in Seattle once July hits. It hates wet feet, so plant it in the sunniest, best-drained spot you have and then leave it alone.
Echinacea, hyssop, chamomile, hibiscus, lovage, borage, goji berries. All quietly coming back. The chamomile self-seeds like a weed (in a good way). The hyssop is an old medieval medicinal herb that tastes a little like licorice. The lovage is the giant in the back, with leaves that taste like celery on steroids. Borage will throw up its little blue star flowers in a few weeks and the bees will lose their minds. The goji berries just pushed out their first leaves, which still surprises me. Who knew goji berries grow in the PNW? They do, and happily.
The one I am planting again this summer: Ashwagandha
If you have never grown ashwagandha, this is the year. It is one of the oldest medicinal plants in the world. People have been using the root for thousands of years as a tonic for stress and exhaustion, and it has a long, well-documented history in Ayurvedic medicine. The plant itself is in the nightshade family, which means it grows the same way a tomato or a tomatillo grows. If you can grow tomatoes, you can grow ashwagandha.
The reason I start it in spring is that ashwagandha needs a long warm season to develop a real root, which is the part you harvest. I start the seeds in the greenhouse, transplant out in mid to late May, and harvest the roots in October before the first hard frost. The plant is not particularly fussy. It likes full sun, well-drained soil, and not too much water. It is a desert plant at heart, and overwatering is the most common way to kill it. Once the roots are big enough, I dig them up, wash them, slice them, and dry them. The dried slices go into a jar and I use them slowly, a small piece at a time, simmered into a tea or ground into powder.
I am not making medical claims about what ashwagandha will do for you. I am telling you that it grows well in the PNW, it is interesting, and it is one of the few plants I grow that I think of as a true experiment every year. Some years the roots are big and beautiful. Some years they are sad little things. That is gardening.
If you want to try it, order seeds now. Most local nurseries do not carry them. I get mine from a few specialty seed companies online and I am happy to point you in the right direction if you ask (e.g. Banyan Botanicals).
What I am not telling you
I am not telling you that any of this replaces a doctor. It does not. I am telling you that a kitchen garden can quietly do more than feed you, that most of these plants are easier to grow in the Pacific Northwest than people think, and that you do not have to wait until July to start. Mint, lemon balm, parsley, chives, and chervil are ready for you this week.
The medicinal garden is not a separate section of your yard. It is just a few extra plants in the kitchen garden you already have, or the one you are about to start.
If you want help putting this together
If you are in Seattle and you want a kitchen garden that does double duty as food and medicine, that is exactly the kind of thing I help people plan in the Executive Kitchen Garden System. We pick the plants based on your space, your sun, and what you actually want to use. No herb you will never touch. No plant that fights the climate. Just the things that will quietly keep showing up for you year after year.
And if you just want to start with a few herbs and see what happens, that is also a great place to begin. My May herb workshop is designed for exactly that: a small group, a hands-on afternoon in my garden, and you go home knowing how to grow and use the three herbs I recommend to every beginner. A few spots are still open. Reach out if you need help picking the first three, or if you want to join the workshop.
Happy spring growing. The bees say hello.
Grow With Me & Get Monthly Garden Tips:
April and May bookings are now open for both the Executive Blueprint and one-on-one consultation sessions.
→ The Blueprint is the full design phase - soil assessment, crop selection, succession plan, and layout - everything covered in this post, done for your specific space. Book here.
→ Consultation sessions are a good fit if you want to work through one piece of it yourself with guidance. Either way, the spring planting window sets the deadline, and spots fill before it arrives. Book here.
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