Hi niteblume,

I'm so happy to hear you're going to tincture, you're gonna have a blast.  When I tincture I feel surrounded by goodness.

Can anyone help with ordering herbs for tincturing? I am just wanting to try a few easy ones and want to try to get them in time to make on July 11. On the echinacea, is it the angustifolia root and the purpurea root? I am looking at mountainroseherbs.com.

Yes, you want both the Angustifolia and the Purpurea root.  You use equal parts of both.

When it says they are out of the red clover blossoms isn't that because they are not in season? Is it any good to make it out of just the red clover herb? Or maybe that is what should be used anyway?

No, they aren't out of them because they aren't in season, they sell them dried.  MR is famous for being out of herbs lol.  You can order the blossoms from Pacific Botanicals, I checked and they have them in stock.  If you're making a Red Clover tincture then the blossom and leaf is what you want but if you're using it as an ingredient on another tincture be sure to check the formula to see if it calls for blossoms only.

I've heard Dr. Christopher and Dr. Schulze talk about substituting when you can't find an herb but in this case you can get the blossoms from PB.

It is quite common to have to order from all three companies when compiling an order, I had to do just that the first time I tinctured.  One of them is always out of stock on something. ;(

For ginkgo biloba, they have ginkgo leaf. Is that what I want?

Yes, that is what you want.

For milk thistle they have 'milk thistle seed'. Is that what I need?

I don't know what kind of tincture you'll be using it for but MR and PB only offer the seeds.  Starwest had the leaf and the seeds.  I tried to look in Uny's Storefront to see what the Milk Thistle tincture is made of but there seems to be a problem with it right now, it won't come up.  I'm sorry I cant help you with that one.  If you have a bottle of it from Uny you could look on the label and see what she uses.

For lobelia, it simply says lobelia. Is that what I need?

What we use is the Lobelia in seed stage, it's the plant and some seeds.  I want to make sure you know that if you're making the Lobelia tincture you need to make 1/2 in alcohol and 1/2 in ACV and let them tincture separately until the full moon you'd combine them.  If you're using the Lobelia as an ingredient in another formula then you wouldn't separate it.

Also I don't know if you're aware that after the herbs have been tincturing in the jars for 3 days you should macerate them in the blender/Vita-Mix and put it back in the jars to finish tincturing.  That way you'll get all the goodies from the herbs.

Finally, to make hawthorn tincture...there is hawthorn berries and hawthorn leaf/flower. Which do I need?

What you want to order are the actual berries not the leaf/flower.

Does anyone have any suggestions on ordering also for the amount of each herb? I don't plan on trying more than two tinctures this month but just wanted to save on shipping.

I was so excited to tincture that I ordered a pound of everything lol!  I think it was 26 or so pounds! I'll be able to tincture for the rest of my life on that amount except for the few that I take everyday, for those I'll have to order more.  What I've learned is that I will always order a pound of the ones I'm planning on using daily for the rest of my life like the Echinacea and the Hawthorn and then there are those that I just want to always have on hand.  Just to give you a clue I've made 3 gallons of the Echinacea tincture and I have enough root left to do about 1 more gallon plus maybe another 1/2 gallon from 1 pound of each root.

I appreciate any help. I need to be asking Uny a lot about what to order from her, but I'd like to do this by the new moon and my brain needs to be in gear about what all I need to ask for her help.

I hope this helps instead of confusing you but figuring it out and ending up with way more tincture than you were planning on making is part of the fun!  I read a post that Uny made about how much the Echinacea roots swell and still I had to split my jars because I used too much.  I started out making all my tinctures in 1/2 gallon jars but had to split all but about 3 of them which meant I ended up with 1 gallon of each instead of 1/2 gallons lol.  It was the funniest thing and I got so much joy out of that mistake.

The most important thing of all when tincturing is to NOT be stressed, I've heard Uny say over and over again "it's not rocket science" lol.  I was trying to be persnickety perfect when I did my first tincturing and just had to laugh at myself when I ended up with double the amount I wanted lol.  

I'm sure you'll do great, anything you make yourself will be much better than what you can buy anywhere except of course from Uny, her tinctures are the bomb!

I'd get that order placed ASAP.  Uny said something about MR having been closed for a week and being backed up on orders but I don't know if that's still the case or not.  I know she just placed an order with them but I don't know if they've closed down yet or not. You could always call them to check it out and it might be faster to call the order in, I just don't know.  I'm in Tennessee and I'm thinking it took about 7 to 10 working days for me to get my order once I placed it.