Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1631/en

Preparation and Application

The green shoots of the field horsetail are gathered around St. John's tide, at the height of its vegetative development, on a sunny day, and then spread out thinly in airy shade to dry. With regard to further processing, Rudolf Steiner states: "that one makes Equisetum arvense into a kind of tea, a fairly concentrated tea, which one dilutes and then uses as liquid manure for those fields […] [on which one; addition by the author] wishes to combat blight and similar plant diseases." Stappung has documented worldwide the diverse practices of tea preparation from horsetail herb — with respect to the duration of cooking and the subsequent fermentation into liquid manure, as well as cold fermentation of the fresh herb, application times, quantities and frequency, and whether the preparation merely prevents or also promises an effect in cases of acute fungal attack. From the sum of experience in tea preparation, the following recipe has emerged: "In ten to twenty litres of water, 200 to 300 grams of dried herb are simmered gently for about one hour. When using fresh herb, approximately 1.5 kg to the same quantity of water." The longer simmering time is necessary, on the one hand, to break open the heavily silicified peripheral cell tissue, and on the other, to hold this process within the universal primal element of warmth.