Jade Alicandro weaves a love of bioregionally abundant herbs and kitchen medicine into her work as a community and clinical herbalist.
She started studying herbs formally in 2005 and has been intertwined with them ever since. She has a background rich in botany and plant ecology, Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and the Vitalist Tradition of herbalism, and brings this diversity and breadth of knowledge to her teaching and clinical practice. Her work as an herbalist revolves around self and community empowerment, food as medicine, accessibility, community resilience, folk medicine-making, locally abundant plants, and the sharing and spreading of herbal knowledge. She’s been in clinical practice since 2012 and currently sees client all around the country via phone and zoom.
Education is at the heart of her work and Jade teaches herbalism avidly throughout the northeast and leads a year 1 and year 2 apprenticeship program in bioregional herbalism, From the Roots Up, and hosts seasonal herb walks and workshops throughout the year. In the online classes realm, she offers a kitchen herbalism course each winter, Spice Rack Medicine, and hosts a monthly membership program on Patreon called Viriditas.
Her writings have been published in the Journal of the Northeast Herbal Association (NEHA), the Herbstalk blog, the Botanical Anthology, the Birthing Mama online holistic pregnancy program, Loam Magazine, The Other Almanac, Plant Healer Magazine, Herbaria Monthly, Aromaculture Magazine, and the Birth Institute's Birth Wisdom Blog. She has taught at conferences including the American Herbalists Guild Symposium, Northeast Permaculture Convergence, Radherb, Herbstalk, and the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) summer and winter conferences. From 2012-2019 she ran the Greenfield Community Herbal Clinic, a low-cost clinic dedicated to accessible herbal care. She has been an herbal educator with Herb Pharm since 2015.
When she’s not teaching or working with clients, you can often find her roaming the hedges with her harvest basket in-hand or at home in the kitchen brewing-up some potent food as medicine. She’s a mother, tender of a menagerie of animals (including chickens, goats, kittens and beloved family pup), naturalist, avid forager, and half-gardener to her mostly wild gardens. Deeply inspired by ancestral herbalism, she draws on the wisdom and traditions of her Southern Italian and Greek ancestors and carries this lineage forward in her personal herbal practice, cooking, and celebration of seasonal and earth-based rhythms. A perpetual lover of the weeds/misunderstood/so-called “invasive” plants, her current favorite herbs are Wild Rose (Rosa multiflora), Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) and Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). She makes her home in the rolling hills and valleys of western Massachusetts, on the traditional lands of the Nonotuck, Nipmuc, and Pocumtuc peoples.
Education
Jade has completed a 2 year training in Clinical Herbalism at Clearpath School of Herbal Studies, and is also a graduate of Blazing Star Herbal School, The Gaia School of Healing & Earth Education, the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine, FEAST Permaculture Design Certification, and the Goldthread Apothecary Clinical Herbalism 200 hr Training. She has also completed advanced clinical training and a clinical mentorship at the Commonwealth Center for Holistic Herbalism. She holds a B.S. in Plant Biology and a B.S in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
I love connecting people with plants and I am deeply grateful be doing this work through the container of Milk & Honey Herbs.
My Herbal Journey and the beginning of Milk & Honey Herbs …
Plants have always been a love… I studied Plant Ecology in college and after graduating I had a summer field tech job with the US Forest Service identifying plants out west in the gorgeous region of the inland Pacific Northwest (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington). In certain circumstances we had to collect specimens and I found the experience to be so incredibly engaging yet I wasn't really behind the cause....a random scientific study. So I began studying the herbal uses of these plants I was constantly working with and fell in love with herbalism. I have been thoroughly intertwined with the green world ever since…..
In the winter of 2004, in-between 2 summers in the field working for the Forest Service, I decided to spend 3 months traveling in South and Central America volunteering on organic farms that had an herbal focus. I made my first tincture in the middle of the Ecuadorian jungle with an American ex-pat who had studied with Susun Weed. She also taught me how to harvest and tend the Nettles patch on their off-the-grid homestead on the western slope of the Andes. I was hooked.
So, in early 2005 I moved back to Western Massachusetts with the intention of rooting down and studying herbalism in earnest. That spring I took my first herbal apprenticeship with Tony(a) Lemos at Blazing Star Herbal School in Ashfield, MA, where my training focused on using local, abundant plants (aka the weeds!), nourishing and food-based herbal preparations, and re-claiming our innate power to heal ourselves.
That same year I began working at Goldthread Herbal Apothecary in Florence, MA and began learning from the practicing Clinical Herbalist and Licensed Acupuncturist there, William Siff. I spent 7 years there as a staff herbalist, helping folks who came in with every ailment under the sun! I gained an invaluable amount of clinical experience- it was a very rich and fruitful time.
During those same years I also completed a 2-year training at Clearpath School of Herbal Studies with Chris Marano, receiving my certification in Clinical Herbalism, deepening my studies in Chinese Medicine that I had begun at Goldthread Apothecary. At the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in Ithaca, NY I completed a 7-month apprenticeship with 7Song, honing my botany and plant identification, wild-crafting, and herbal first aid and clinical skills. I spent a whole growing season apprenticing at Wilder Hill Gardens in Conway, MA with Lilian Jackman, learning the ins and outs of successfully raising healthy medicinal herbs. And finally I studied Shamanic Herbalism at the Gaia School of Healing & Earth Education with Sage Maurer in Brattleboro, VT. I have also taken numerous weekend workshops, attended many herbal conferences along the way, and also completed a Street Medic training. It was during this rich time that I founded Milk & Honey Herbs and began leading herb walks and teaching classes! In 2011 I received my Permaculture Design Certification through the Permaculture F.E.A.S.T.. program in Northampton, MA and have been incorporating the permaculture principals and philosophy into my life ever since. Most recently, from 2015-2017 I studied with Katja Swift and Ryn Midura and the Commonwealth Center for Holistic Herbalism, where I completed advanced studies and a clinical mentorship in the Vitalist Tradition of herbalism.
Milk & Honey Herbs has changed and evolved throughout the years, and- as gardening and cultivation have always been a passion- from 2013-2017 I ran a medicinal plant nursery from our small farm, offering a huge variety of live medicinal plants to the herbal community both local and beyond. Accessible herbalism has also always been important to me and from 2012-2019 I ran the Greenfield Community Herbal Clinic, a low-cost clinic dedicated to affordable herbal care. These days I can be found focusing on my practice, herbal education, and offering accessible online herbal classes through our Viriditas herbal learning community on Patreon. I’m passionate about educating the public about the wonders of herbal medicine and regularly lead herb walks and classes all throughout the northeast and at conferences. And I've been offering a seasonal class series on bioregional herbalism since 2013, which has now blossomed into a full herb school with a year I and II program. And I offer an online course each winter, Spice Rack Medicine, that goes deep into the rich topic of kitchen herbalism.