Paati Vaithiyam : Headaches

Remedy#1 * Take a piece of chukku (dry gin­ger), rub it on a san­danakal (grind­ing stone) with a lit­tle water to make a paste. * Apply this paste on the fore­head for relief from headache.

Remedy#2 Rub kram­bu (clove) on the grind­ing stone and apply to the fore­head.

Remedy#3 * Take some pep­per pow­der in a pan, and heat on medi­um flame (to a tem­per­a­ture that is tol­er­a­ble for you). * Apply this heat­ed pep­per pow­der to the fore­head.

Clove in Ayurve­da

Known as kram­bu in Tamil, clove has been used in India and oth­er parts of Asia for many cen­turies. It is an essen­tial ingre­di­ent in Indi­an cook­ing. It is known for its anti­sep­tic and anal­gesic prop­er­ties. In Ayurve­da, clove is used for its med­i­c­i­nal prop­er­ties such as improv­ing diges­tion and reliev­ing bloat­ing, gas and abdom­i­nal col­ic pain. It is also used to relieve cold, cough and res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­or­ders. Effect on the tri­dosha: Clove bal­ances kapha and pit­ta.

How to grow clove Clove is the aro­mat­ic dried flower buds of the clove tree, and are native to India and Indone­sia. Cloves are prop­a­gat­ed by seeds or by cut­tings. The seeds can be direct­ly plant­ed, or soaked in water overnight to remove the out­er lin­ing.

Cli­mate: Clove thrives best in a warm humid trop­i­cal cli­mate with an annu­al rain­fall from 150–250 cm. It prefers par­tial shade. Clove grows best in rich loamy soils in the wet trop­ics.

Soil:

It can also grow in heav­ier red soils, but in either case, needs good drainage.

Plant­i­ng: * Buy pol­li­nat­ed clove seeds from an organ­ic source. Ensure that the seeds are recent­ly gath­ered and not dried out, because dried clove seeds will not ger­mi­nate. Plant the clove seeds as soon as they are bought, for suc­cess­ful ger­mi­na­tion. * The seeds of the clove can be sown in poly­thene bags filled with soil, sand and ful­ly decom­posed cow dung mix­ture and kept in a shady cool place. The seedlings are ready for trans­plant­i­ng in the field when they are 18–24 months old. * The pits (of dimen­sion 75 cm x 75 cm x 75 cm) for plant­i­ng the seedlings are par­tial­ly filled with com­post (ver­mi­com­post which is an excel­lent com­post, can be used), green leaf manure or cat­tle manure and cov­ered with top­soil. * Water­ing is nec­es­sary in the first 3–4 years in clove cul­ti­va­tion. * Keep the soil moist for your clove trees and place them in a sun­ny, warm loca­tion. Do not allow the soil to become water­logged or your clove tree may die from root rot. * Main­tain a high humid­i­ty for your clove tree by mist­ing it dai­ly. * Fer­til­ize the clove tree using organ­ic fer­til­iz­er and decom­posed manure. Con­sult your local farmer (who prac­tices organ­ic agri­cul­ture) for instruc­tions on the rec­om­mend­ed dosage and time of appli­ca­tion of fer­til­iz­er, and pes­ti­cides for pest con­trol.

Growth: Clove trees pro­duce clove buds after 20 years of growth. After 20 years of growth, the clove tree begins to pro­duce flow­er­ing buds. Once flow­er­ing begins, cloves can be col­lect­ed dur­ing both the spring and win­ter of trop­i­cal regions for at least sev­er­al decades.

Har­vest­ing: The unopened flower buds are har­vest­ed when they turn pink in colour. At this time, they are less than 2 cm long. Har­vest­ing of cloves should be done using step lad­ders, with­out dam­ag­ing the tree branch­es, as it adverse­ly affects the suc­ceed­ing growth.

Dry­ing: Indi­vid­ual flower buds are sep­a­rat­ed from the clus­ter by hand and spread in the yard under the sun for dry­ing. The cloves are con­sid­ered well-dried when the stem of the clove is dark brown and the bud, light brown. Well-dried cloves are about one-third the weight of the orig­i­nal cloves.