Puna Woman Planting Her Pot of Gold

with the Advent of Booming Herb Use 

Standing on a path on her one-acre lot in lower Paradise Park, Barbara Fahs points to a plant she believes could hold the future of Big Island agriculture--at or at least a healthy second income for a lot of Big Island gardeners.

"It's The Plant," she notes enthusiastically, pronouncing it so one can hear the capital letters.

"The Plant," Siberian motherwort, is a tall herb crowned by dark pink flower spikes. Its stems and lacy leaves, which manage to resemble those of chrysanthemums and marijuana at the same time, are used in heart tonics and in treatments for PMS, menopause and post partum depression, and sometimes to speed up delivery during childbirth. Dried, the leaves and stems fetch about nine to eleven dollars a pound. And it apparently grows very well in lower Puna. Fahs points to the leaves on her healthy-looking stand of plants. "This stuff has no insect damage," she notes.

Fahs is one of a number of island residents who earn their livings from the growing market for natural herbs. Siberian motherwort is among dozens of herbs that she grows in Hi`iaka's Healing Hawaiian Herb Garden, which she named after Pele's younger sister, a legendary gardener, herbalist and healer. The garden has been in the ground for less than a year, but it's already the basis of a full-blown cottage industry, from raw materials all the way to finished consumer products. From her website, www.hiiakas.com, Fahs markets dried awa, herb tinctures, lip balms, massage oils, teas and salves, all created from the garden's products.

But the real purpose of the garden, says Fahs, is education and research.

In the workspace beneath her house, Fahs keeps a detailed record for every planting: where the plant came from, whether it came from a log, seed or cutting, how the soil was prepared, what the soil composition and light conditions were. She periodically tracks the height, leaf condition, insect damage, and fertilizer/mulch for each planting. Her goal is to discover which plants are commercially adaptable for lower Puna conditions--and then to spread the word. She hopes eventually to have research garden plots at other elevations on the island as well.

Would be gardeners who want an intensive, hands-on education can sign on for internships at the garden. Fahs also teaches a series of classes there that provide participants with the basics of the herbal business, from planting to herbal properties to preparing oils, salves, teas and tinctures. The next round of classes at the garden begins on January 13.

Fahs is especially on the lookout for "wonderful weeds": useful plants that can reseed themselves and grow well, without getting out of control. Her garden consists of shallow patches of cindery soil nestled among lava pillows--hardly prime agricultural land. But it already holds a surprisingly lush assortment of success stories: from ajowan, an Indian relative of cumin, to yarrow, a feathery little plant that grows wild in mainland American cow pastures.

Many of the herbs have colorful histories. Clary Sage, for instance, is grown commercially as the source "muscatel oil" used in flavorings and perfumes; in the 16th century, wines flavored with Clary were used as an aphrodisiac. Wode yields a blue dye with which Celtic warriors once painted on their naked bodies before charging into battle. Epazote, a Mexican herb, was traditionally added to the water when soaking dried beans. "It de-gases them," explains Fahs. "It's nature's Beano." Had that bit of folklore traveled north with the burrito, it might have spared U.S. consumers untold gastric misery.

Tulsi basil, also called "holy basil," another plant with a history, looks very similar to common sweet basil. But brush against it, and the pungent, musky odor dispels any doubt that this is a different plant. Tulsi basil was commonly grown around Hindu temples.

"The story behind it is that if weary travelers came up to a temple and were thirsty, they would just eat a leaf of this plant and it would quench their thirst," says Fahs.

One section of the garden is devoted to plants used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine, a healing tradition that goes back at least 4,000 years ago. Other beds were planted with the advice of a local acupuncturist. "A lot of these plants are of Chinese origin, because there's a local market for them," notes Fahs. Problems of poor quality and adulterants have surfaced in herbs from Mainland China. If local practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine can buy herbs here, they get a fresher, higher quality product.

Like the herbs, Fahs has her own interesting history. Born in post-World-War-II England, where her father was working as a foreign correspondent, she spent much of her life in the San Francisco Bay area, where she got a degree in Anthropology with a specialization in Pacific Island cultures, then went on to get a master's degree in Instructional Technology. But she also completed coursework to become a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener, and has been growing and studying herbs for three decades. But somehow she ended up working as a technical writer.

At midlife, she decided to remedy that.

Hi`iaka's Garden, she says, "got started in my mind when I was a captive in a high tech company and was miserably unhappy. I would surf the Web for information about herbs and Hawaii and just basically whatever I needed to help plan my move and career change...."

She finally made her move two years ago. Despite the setback of double hip replacement surgery, she finally got her dream garden in the ground this year, with the aid of friends, volunteers and hired help.

Fahs doesn't necessarily expect the Hamakua Coast to bloom in thousands of acres of Siberian motherwort. Huge acreages aren't needed to have a substantial economic impact. A single acre of skullcap, an herb used in Chinese medicine, can produce 2000 pounds of dried plants, which sell for $12-15 per pound. Every second year, a single acre can produce 1500-2000 pounds of dried Valerian root, which sells for $10-12 per pound. Spilanthes or "toothache plant," whose flower heads can instantly numb the mouth and which may boost the immune system, sells for $13-16 per pound.

Such figures make herbs an ideal "second income" for gardeners on the Big Island's thousands of rural subdivision lots, especially if small growers can market cooperatively. "I've got a quarter acre, maybe you've got a quarter acre...together, as a bonded group, we can be an economic force," Fahs believes.

But profit isn't the only motive for growing herbs. Fahs notes that gathering, or "wildcrafting," herbs for commercial use has decimated many species in the wild. Fahs notes that even common plants such as ginseng and goldenseal are "dying out in the wild because of wildcrafting." She hopes that her little garden, and others like it, will become a refuge for endangered plants from around the world.

The key to building a successful herbal industry, she believes, is a combination of education and good sense. She applies the same combination in using herbs. Her literature notes, for instance, that it's unwise to use an herb such as Siberian motherwort during pregnancy. That makes a great deal of sense, given its other uses.

And obviously there are things that herbs can't do. "As an herbalist, I'm constantly surprised at how often I tell people to go to the doctor," she says. "A very large part of what I'm all about and what I believe in is using common sense to take care of yourself. For example, if you have a lump in your breast, go to the doctor. Don't mess around."

Fahs can be contacted at 966-9775 or hiiakas@lava.net.

Author’s Note: The above headline, and all Kama`aina Shopper headlines, were written by an editor at the Hawaii Tribune Herald, and not by the author.