Grow Your Own Drugs: Easy recipes for natural remedies and beauty fixes - Tapa dura

Whether you're struggling with insomnia, the kids have eczema, or your partner is feeling under the weather, this book could have the answer.

With easy recipes ethnobotanist James Wong shows how to make simple creams, salves, teas and much, much more from the stuff growing in your window box, the local garden centre or in the hedgerows. Using the flowers, fruit, roots, trees, vegetables and herbs that are all around us James provides preparations to help relieve a whole range of common conditions, including acne, anxiety, cold sores and general aches and pains - plus great ideas for beauty treats such as bath bombs and shampoos.

Inspired by his grandmother in Malaysia who taught him about the health-giving properties of plants, James uses his top class academic knowledge to show how easy - and cheap - it is to make creams, lotions, lozenges and more which can help relieve the symptoms of a variety of common complaints. He reveals how many plants contain the same active ingredients as over-the-counter drugs and chooses his Top 100 plants to grow or buy, complete with ideas for a whole range of uses. So unleash the power of plants and soothe the symptoms of everyday ailments the natural way.

James Wong grew up in Malaysia and Singapore. He trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew and gained an MSc in Ethnobotany from the University of Kent, graduating with distinction. His research has taken him to highland Ecuador, as well as to China and Java. He now lectures at the University of Kent and has also co-designed and built two RHS medal-winning gardens (in 2004 and 2008), which were designed to show that there is more to plants than 'looking pretty'.