I have a similar question, but I think one of the things we have to figure out is if we are eating the herbs, tincturing, making teas, etc – because each use will consume/use a different amount of herb. My thought is that tea making would use the most, and tincturing would use the least. Factor in other things like culinary or salves, and then perhaps it will be easier to figure out how much to grow – though I have such a teeny garden that 1-2 plants of anything is about the best I can do! I doubt this helps much, but I’m hopeful 🙂

In the case of culinary herbs, I found that one of each plant was enough to get a family of four Kochs (pronounced “Cook,” lol) through an entire frost season (September – June) of meals.  Except chives – I had six chives plants.  In the case of medicinal herbs, since I often combined them, and didn’t need them often, only one of them was sufficient for my needs as well.  (One hyssop plant was enough to make two dozen lip balms, as was my lemon balm, plus tea) What I didn’t grow, I was able to get from out in “the boonies,” vacant lots, and even neighbors.   It really depends a lot on how much/how often you use a particular plant.  For a pint of tincture, you will only need, on *average,* 2 ounces/60 grams of dried herb. Same with an infused oil.  A tsp. for a cup of tea, so a pint jar of dried herb is going to make a dozen cups of tea.  At 1/2 tsp. 2x daily, a pint of tincture will last a long time!  Unless you are sharing that pint with all of your friends and family, of course.  Then it won’t last very long, lol.

I don’t know if this was helpful to you or not.  I hope it was.  🙂

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susan freeman, Lori Merritt, GCubed, Sharon

Of course a pint of tincture won’t last that long if you have a chronic problem and use it topically as well as orally!

Now you guys are starting to catch on, lol.  Hmmm… I was able to get a LOT of lemon balm out of one mature plant.  Even dried, I was able to fill a pint easily, then a few weeks later, harvest another pint.  All of my mint family members were exceedingly prolific – so much so, that I had to divide them after two years!  I honestly had more than I needed.  But that was mostly me.  Sometimes I shared samples of this or that with friends, but mostly it was just me, and I really didn’t use much.  So if you want to be sure, and you haven’t set up shop as a business, go ahead and plant three of everything.  If it is just you and your household, I really think you will have all you need to get through next winter.  : )  The only ones I found to be really slow growers are rosemary and lavender.  They take a couple of years to mature to abundance.  And if you live in a zone where rosemary is an annual, good luck — I never did get enough to make it worth bothering with!

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susan freeman, Janice Long, MaKayla, Lori Merritt, Sharon, Jennifer Donkin, GCubed

I’m new to growing medicinal plants as well. I’ve purchased so many seed varieties that I know I have too many and not enough space. I watched a few videos on medicinal cottage gardens on YouTube and I’ve seen a ton of plants being planted in small spaces. Idea being to plant several and then clip out weaker growth so you will have more than needed. Gives me hope for what I have. Wanted to share that with you as it may be an extra place to see what others do. I’m planning on planting all I have. So I’lllook at plant height and will start from tall to small…lol I just know if I plant 1 of this or 1 of that I’ll end up with none. For whatever reason it’ll be like they’ll die or get stepped on or dug up by critters etc.. Good luck to you on your adventure.

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Peggy, GCubed