Mobile Herb Clinic

The Botanical Bus Farmworker Clinics, located at vineyard worksites and family service centers, provide culturally relevant integrative health services.  Latine and Indigenous clients are welcomed with music, tamales and herbal aguas frescas. Care stations are staffed by bilingual, bicultural practitioners who provide massage, acupuncture, physical therapy, somatic therapy, diabetes prevention and care, clinical nutrition and herbalism.  Services are accessible sliding scale.  Please see our schedule for upcoming clinic dates and locations.

Yolanda’s Anti-inflammatory Agua Fresca

We like the whole ingredients of this agua fresca that include nopales, antioxidant rich parsley and pineapple. Nopales or nopalitos are the pads of the nopal or prickly pear cactus, well known for its high antioxidant, vitamin, mineral, and fiber content. Nopales contain quercitin, a highly anti-inflammatory flavonoid specific for the treatment of allergies. And they are traditionally used throughout Mexico to lower blood sugar in type II diabetics. Pineapples contain digestive enzyme bromelain, which aids in the digestion of fats and acts as a natural anti-histamine.

Yolanda brought some of her agua fresca, which she drinks daily for allergy relief, to the community garden to share. With pollen counts high in the late spring air we were thankful for the anti-inflammatory refreshment!

  • 1 nopal (de-spined*, edges peeled)
  • Parsley, small bunch
  • Spinach, 1 cup fresh leaf
  • Celery, 1 stalk
  • Pineapple, 4 slices
  • Apple, 4 slices
  • Cucumber, 1 small cucumber
  • Chia seeds, 1 tsp.

Blend all in the blender. Easy and done!
* see Angeles’ Nopales Asados recipe for instructions on handling those spiny nopales

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Norma’s Avocado Salsa

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The wonders of raw garlic are countless. Abuelita’s (Grandma’s) cure-all remedy is rich anti-biotic and antiviral properties. Daily inclusion of raw garlic in your diet can regulate blood sugar, reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, improve digestive health and enhance immune function. But what about it’s bossy flavor? The bright cilantro and smooth, rich avocado in Norma’s salsa soften the intensity of the raw garlic and let you enjoy it’s big nutritional benefits drizzled on fish tacos or Angeles’ nopales sandwich.

  • 2 lbs tomatillo, peeled and core removed
  • 1-3 serrano chiles (depending on the spice you like)
  • ½ med yellow onion
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 bunch cilantro
  • 3 cloves raw garlic
  • 1 avocado
  • salt to taste
  • ½ lime

In a covered shallow pan, steam tomatillos, serranos and onion in 1 cup of water. Let cool and add to blender with cilantro, garlic, avocado, lime and salt. Enjoy this salsa right away as the avocado will brown with time (though the lime with help with this).

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Georgina’s Emollient Tonic

In the highlands of Peru, where Georgina was born, this beverage is prepared every morning in large batches and sent with the men into the fields to sustain wellness during long workdays. The corn silk and horsetail nourish kidney, liver and prostate in the reduction of water retention and the elimination of toxins. The Peruvian, wide-leaf plantain, is Georgina’s go to remedy for promoting the health of mucosal membranes throughout the body, specifically in the respiratory tract.

  • 24 oz water
  • 1 tsp. barley, toasted
  • 1 tsp. flax seeds
  • 1 cup pineapple skin and core, chopped
  • ¼ cup horsetail
  • ¼ cup plantain leaf
  • ¼ cup corn silk
  • ¼ cup alfalfa
  • stevia or local raw honey to taste

To make 1 small pitcher: In covered pot, simmer barley, flax, pineapple, horsetail, corn silk in 24 oz water for about 20 min. Remove from heat and add plantain leaf and alfalfa, and let steep for an additional 20 min. Stir in stevia or honey to taste.

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Breaking Ground in Corazon’s Jardín de Sanación

Our first workshop in the community garden at Corazon Healdsburg felt like picnic lunch with old friends. We stared in the garden, harvesting Calendula flowers for next month’s medicine oil making workshop. Dozens of radical Calendula plants have broken free of their garden beds to take over the space, which consists of 20 something plots tended by neighborhood families. So far we have yarrow, california poppy, white sage, valerian, epazote, lemon balm, peppermint, and borage growing in abundance. Jose and Mercedes, who live around the corner, come everyday with their son to water.

At midday, we moved into the shade to exchange recipes and remedies for Type II Diabetes, a chronic disease that affects 11% of Latinos in Sonoma County. We focused on recent studies that show the correlation between stress and blood sugar. After scrawling cycles of pancreatic insulin production and cortisol levels on a small chalkboard, we exchanged family recipes for nopales asados (grilled cactus), verdolagas chile verde (purslane in tomatillo salsa), and tomatillo salsa with raw garlic . Nopales, verdolagas, and raw garlic are traditionally used in Mexico to reduce blood sugar levels in type II diabetics. We shared a potluck lunch of frijoles a la olla (beans from the pot), kale salad from the garden, watermelon and te de jamaica sweetened with local honey.

Over lunch we shared our stories of overcoming health challenges such as cancer, back pain, and chronic stress. In one particularly moving testimony of roots, resilience and recovery, a participant shared her process of realization that a traumatic event in her early childhood had led to chronic migraines and recent life threatening illness. There is powerful healing in this opportunity to share our stories and our paths to recovery.

We are so thankful for the open hearts and hardworking hands of the community gardeners and herbalists that are coming together for the Botanical Bus wellness workshops at Corazon Healdsburg!

Linda’s Verdolagas a la Mexicana

Verdolagas, or purslane, often considered a common weed, is an annual succulent that pokes up in the summer garden. Owing up to its “superfood” title, verdolagas contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acid that supports brain function, bronchial heath, and our body’s ability to respond to stress in a healthy way. High in minerals like zinc, phosphorus, manganese, copper and calcium, verdolagas can optimize immune function and reduce inflammation throughout the body. Verdolagas also have the highest levels of Vitamin A then any other leafy vegetable, which is great for your eyes, bones, cartilage and epithelial tissue.

Linda is well known for her magic in the kitchen. She remembers harvesting verdolagas from in between rows of corn and beans on her family farm in Hidalgo, Mexico. We are saving seeds this year in the community garden so that she can grow verdolagas in her backyard.

  • ½ medium yellow onion, chopped in crescents
  • 1 tsp olive oil or coconut oil
  • 2 lbs tomatillo or tomato, peeled and core removed
  • 1 cup water (organic, free range chicken broth for more flavor)
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 2 serrano peppers* optional
  • salt to taste
  • large bunch of verdolagas (purslane), clean + dry

In a deep pan with lid, steam tomatillos in water or broth, add garlic cloves and serrano peppers. Once tomatillos/tomatoes are soft, let cool and blend mixture into a salsa. In a separate deep pot, sauté onions in oil until lightly browned, pour salsa into pot and add salt to taste. Add verdolagas to the pot. As the verdolagas cook they give off a lot of water and reduce in size. You should start with enough liquid salsa in the pot to steam the verdolagas, turning them into the salsa with a spoon as they cook until just soft. Add more hot water/broth if needed in the process. Serve over rice or alongside your favorite protein!

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Yerba Santa Strong at La Luz in Sonoma

One year after the devastating fires, we gathered with the Latine community at La Luz Center in Sonoma to nourish our lungs and heal from grief. We circled up in the kitchen, to share evacuation testimonies still alive with trauma and to prepare a batch of fresh Yerba Santa syrup.

Yerba Santa, a shrub native to California grasslands (especially those touched by wildfire, as its seeds germinate with heat), supports lung health by toning respiratory tissue. It’s sticky leaves are full of volatile oils that act as a powerful expectorant, helping to balance and soothe wet lung conditions. Yerba Santa is traditionally used as a sacred herb to free the breath and release deep sadness.

Lu Lu shared that she harvests fresh Yerba Santa and packs it in warm compresses for a wet cough. Others agreed that it makes an excellent addition to broths.

We mixed the Yerba Santa, with elderberry, rose hips, and thyme over low heat and the crowded kitchen filled with its warm, spicy scent. Stirring in local, raw honey, we passed around the finished syrup for all to try. Yerba Santa STRONG! An immunity syrup made in community that empowers our resilience and recovery!

Our growing group is making plans to visit eachothers gardens, share medicinal plant seeds, and prepare more community medicine.

Health Justice in Roseland

In partnership with Sanación del Pueblo (Town Healing), a project of North Bay Organizing Project, we gathered in Roseland, Santa Rosa to learn about environmental toxins and how we can empower healthy communities.

Roseland is a 65% Latine neighborhood that ranks lowest in well-being of all Sonoma County neighborhoods according to the American Human Development Index (Burd-Sharps et al., 2014). Residents face limited access to secure income, healthy food, clean air, green spaces, and affordable healthcare.

Together we walked from the Dollar Store, to Roseland Elementary, across the creek, to Land Paths’ Bayer Farm, stopping to notice the pesticides sprayed along sidewalks and to discuss the quality of lunches served at our schools.  We circled up, standing strong as a group of women committed to the health of our children and confident in our ability to do something about it. Si se puede!

We celebrate recent victories banning the spraying of Round Up pesticide in Santa Rosa City Parks and the unanimously vote by Sonoma County Supervisors to reduce use of synthetic pesticides on public land countywide. https://www.conservationaction.org/our-victories/

After our walk, we got busy chopping artichoke leaf, orange peel, dandelion root and milk thistle seeds, all plants that grow around us that can help our bodies eliminate toxins.  The bitter leaves and roots support our liver in its innate clean-up functions.

Did you know the liver contains a unique enzyme system that co-evolved with plants, and that this system can detoxify just about everything we encounter now? Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, estrogens: Check! Rancid cooking oils, new car smell, stress hormones: Yup! Your liver breaks it all down.

The chopped plants were swept into jars, covered with organic cane alcohol and distributed to the group for safekeeping.  Herbal medicine making requires the plant to macerate for at least a month before being pressed out for use. A month later we would come together to share our medicine and move forward as a community advocating for health justice!