How to Prepare Herbs for Use

I'm curious about how to use the herbs once I get them. Many of them come in a root form, leaves, or the whole plant. Are they best used as a "tea" or is there another way of using these herbs?

There many ways that herbs can be used for medicinal uses. Preparing a tea from leaves, roots, and other plant parts, is perhaps the most common way. But medicinal herbs are also taken in other ways such as ointments, poultices, capsules, tablets, tinctures, extracts, and others. Some herbs are better taken in one form than another. For example, echinacea is not effective take as a pill (although some companies sell it in that form). Which way to take a herb depends on which part or parts possess the medicinal activity, and on which route that medicinal activity is best delivered to the patient.
An excellent guide to medicinal herbs and how to prepare and use medicinal remedies is Andrew Chevallier's "The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants" which is available from us (see our online catalogue and search for the book).