Our Story
My message to the FB community of medicinal herb growers--this is your page for sharing your passion for medicinal herbs. It is a GREAT place for you to share your stories and photos of success and experiments gone right! I’m happy to provide the diving board--you jump in.
My credentials are in my calluses. I’ve been growing large diverse gardens of medicinal herbs and introducing herbs to growers in the US and beyond for going on 4 decades. Many plants that I listed first in our catalog were rare and unheard of back then and are now widely understood, traded and used. In the early years, we traveled and botanized worldwide--South America, USA, Europe, 5 years in Africa, Asia... Back then it was relatively chill to bring seeds back to the US, and we did, and now we’re darn glad we did. That subset of world herbs became the basis for our mother plants that make the seeds that we move back out into the world once again. The perennials speak seeds, and we gather those words that tell the epic story of life. My wife Mayche and I (Richo) started homesteading in Lincoln County (Coastal Oregon) in 1979, raised three kids (Nadja, Jebran and Sena) in the woods, learned about self-sufficiency the only way one can--by immersing ourselves in it. I still remember sucking down an entire quart of canned plums, dehydrated and exhausted after a hard day in the garden and forest. It was all we had. There was nothing better! All along, we stayed tuned to the plants. Self Heal (Prunella vulgaris) was the first medicinal herb we used, and it really firmed up our faith--Self Heal works so very efficiently, killing pain and tightening flaccid mucosa. We learned to grow the herb from seed and planted it in our garden and--we were off! 5 years later we moved to Josephine County in Southern Oregon and started Horizon Herbs. We made tinctures, tincture presses, gardens and seedracks--the whole schmeal. Its not that unusual of a lifestyle--many have incorporated medicinal herbs into their lives on many levels, shallow and deep. These days we are called “Strictly Medicinal Seeds” due to our view that all nature is medicine. We love it that you garden, and remain in service to gardeners to grow the common and unusual to support all nature and the one-love family.
