Valley Bounty: Sweet Birch Herbals
Sweet Birch Herbals is an herb farm, herbal education center, and the working home of clinical herbalist Hannah Morano (formerly Jacobson-Hardy), all packed on three tidy acres in Ashfield.
“Herbal medicine is a practice of community resiliency with plants that has been used for thousands of years,” says Morano. “I believe it’s meant to be shared, not copywritten or hoarded. It’s local and community-based, [offering] bioregional options for health and wellness with a focus on supporting the whole body. Herbs may be helpful for various ailments and diseases, and you can incorporate herbs into your everyday health – a lot of herbs are familiar foods. The real goal is to stay healthy and balanced by taking care of yourself and incorporating herbs into your diet and lifestyle. Of course, if someone is really ill or has major injuries, they ought to seek medical assistance.”
Morano founded Sweet Birch Herbals in 2014. Her interest in herbal medicine was sparked in her early 20s, and after seven years of study with Chris Marano (similar names, but no relation) of Clearpath Herbals and other teachers, she launched the business on a small scale. “I wanted to make really high-quality, small-batch, herbal products, and to see clients,” she says. At the time, she was growing herbs in her garden, digging up perennial plants every time she moved and sourcing herbs from local farms and beyond.
In 2018, she found the current home of Sweet Birch Herbals. “I was seeking a place to establish roots in this community, and I felt like I needed more sustainability and resilience in terms of sourcing my herbs. I didn’t want to have to rely on herbs being shipped internationally, and I needed land to change that. It felt really good to know that I was planting perennials that could stay. It allowed for abundance and a sense of being rooted in place,” she says.
The first cornerstone of Sweet Birch Herbals is a range of herbal products, which Morano and two staff members make to sell through local farmers’ markets, at the farm store on site in Ashfield and online. “My first year, I hadn’t really developed any products yet, and my sister applied for Tuesday Market in Northampton for me. At first I didn’t get in and I was relieved!” says Morano. “Then they had an opening, and I had to quickly come up with a product line.” At first, she focused on tinctures, which are concentrated herbal extracts made by soaking herbs in alcohol or another base. “In the past 10 years, I’ve probably created another 30 products. This year I said to myself, ‘that’s enough, nothing new this year,’ and then just yesterday I made a new product. The possibilities are endless – there are so many directions to go, and it’s fun.” Sweet Birch’s product line includes facial creams and herbal salves, syrups and fire cider, tinctures and other extracts, hydrosols and body oils, and a wide range of teas.
Education is another central function of Sweet Birch Herbals. Morano offers workshops teaching participants how to blend teas, make salves, and approach specific concerns with herbal remedies. She also offers an eight-month herbal apprenticeship (open for new students now), where students spend a day each month at the farm, learning about the plants and making their own herbal concoctions.
Morano says, “I especially love teaching beginner classes because it brings me back to the basics. Herbalism can be really scientific and complex, but it doesn’t always have to be a clinical approach: it can just be drinking tea, making balms, making herbal steams for yourself. My students are mostly people who want to incorporate herbal wellness into their own lives and share it with family, and I love working with people who are curious, open, and making this part of their lives.”
The final core element of Sweet Birch Herbals is herbal consultations. Clients can work one-on-one with Morano to develop an herbal support plan for their specific needs, and she specializes in women’s health, menopause, sleep, and stress and anxiety. “A lot of it is about figuring out what’s going to work for a specific client,” says Morano. “For some people, a tincture really works because they are too busy to make a cup of tea. Others love the ritual and want to sip the tea, or they don’t want certain tinctures because they are avoiding alcohol. Others want to cook with the herbs and love to use them fresh out of the garden.”
All of these pieces – along with a short-term rental and retreat space on the Sweet Birch property that welcomes visitors to the land – come together in support of Morano’s vision for how herbal medicine can support both individuals and the larger community. “When our community is nourished, healthy, vibrant, thriving and well-fed, everybody benefits from that. I just do my little part here on the hill to contribute in ways I can. When things feel really hard nationally and globally, it can be challenging to see how to wiggle myself in there to make positive change, but then I zoom out and say ‘ok I can work locally, I can work with the community here and I know that I am a healthier, happier human when my community is as well.’”
“It feels great to have people coming here to the farm – I had this vision as a 20-year-old that I’d be this witchy woman in the woods and people would come to me when they needed care, and it feels like I’m headed there!” says Morano. “I really just want to be of service and to remember how nature can heal us and has been for so many generations.”
You can find Sweet Birch Herbals products, including their herbal boxes, at sweetbirchherbals.com. Look for them at the Grow Food Northampton Winter Farmers’ Market in December or visit their farm store on Creamery Road in Ashfield.
Claire Morenon, Communications Manager at CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture). To find Local Hero farm stands that are open through the holidays, visit buylocalfood.org.
Photos by Carol Lollis, courtesy of the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
