A User's Guide to Sida acuta, Sida cordifolia, and Sida rhombifolia

The Many Healing Powers of Sida

This book is written to be an easy read that tells you how to grow Sidas, how to harvest them, and how to make simple medicinals from them. My growing experience is with Sida acuta, but the growing conditions and requirements for Sida cordifolia and Sida rhombifolia are quite similar.

This small book is based upon a much larger, seminal book I have published

Here’s how simple it can be. Even apartment dwellers with a porch, or any space at all, can grow a bunch of Sidas in a planter, harvest the plant, drown it for a few months in some vodka, and have some potent medicine for when they really need it.

Sidas are not the only solution to our health problems, but they are absolutely the best (and easiest) first step you can make for home-based health. Sidas can protect you against many (if not most) disabling conditions and diseases. Hundreds of millions of people over thousands of years can’t be all that wrong. If you already take herbs this will go right to the front of your herb cabinet.

This small book is based on a larger reference book I wrote on the genus Sida: Sida acuta, Sida cordifolia, Sida rhombifolia, Etc.: Everything Science and Tradition Knows About the World’s Best Herbal Antibiotics, Used by Millions of People Every Day, Top Ayurvedic Herbs, Protein-Rich Survival Plants, Superior Fiber, Grow Them with Your Tomatoes

This “big book” comprises all of the peer-review research on Sidas from around the world, as well as traditional uses for a wide array of health benefits, including Ayurvedic medicine. It is fully referenced.

Sida Is A Powerful Herbal Antibiotic, Antifungal, etc.

• Sidas are consumed by millions of people every day all over the world for their health, and people have been healing themselves with Sidas for thousands of years.

• Sidas control or kill 27 pathogenic bacteria, including many resistant strains, including MRSA.

• Sidas have shown excellent effect against malaria and other parasites.

• Sidas have tested well against 16 different pathogenic fungi, including 15 strains of candida.

• Sidas protect your liver, kidney & brain (and more). They are blood cleansing and help to balance your fats/lipids. They are adaptogenic, tonic, aphrodisiac, beneficial to digestion, and much more. This book lists 160 ways that Sida can benefit you!

• At least 10 Sidas are top Ayurvedic herbs, including the famous Bala. Several Sidas are Rasayana rejuvenating tonics as well.

• Sidas are outstanding fiber crops -they compare to jute. Great brooms.

• Sida acuta can be grown in temperate climates as an annual. I grow it in Zone 8 outdoors. If you can grow tomatoes, you can probably grow Sida.

Why have you never heard of Sida before? That is a good question. The genus Sida is not in any Western herbals, but is well-known and esteemed in all tropical countries, especially India. Everyone assumed that since it was a tropical plant it was confined to greenhouses.

My "great discoveries" are that Sidas can be grown in most temperate climates as an annual, and Sidas are fully medicinal when grown as an annual. This puts the world's most powerful herbal anti-pathogen (antibiotic, anti-fungal, anti-cancer, anti-malarial, etc.) right in your backyard!

Sidas are weeds, and as such are very easy to grow. It is easy to make Sida plants into potent medicine, and this pamphlet tells you how. Sidas are non-toxic, do not interfere with pharmaceuticals, and have no significant side-effects.

For naturally grown Sida seed, and further information on Sida, go to my website (bbruneau.com).

I have been a plant person most of my adult life. My wife and I started Bountiful Gardens Seeds in 1982, which is part of Ecology Action of the Midpeninsula, an organization that has been desperately trying to save the world’s soil for the last 45 years while refining a farming method (bio-intensive) that actually creates soil while being very productive.

We started Bountiful Gardens because heirloom, open-pollinated seeds were hard to come by in the 1980s, and disappearing. At the time it was not certain that these heirloom seeds would continue to be available to the general public. We offered a considerable number of varieties that otherwise would not have been available. Back then we also had a “Healing Herbs Garden Club” that really educated me in medicinals of all sorts. BG has always carried a strong section of medicinal plant seed.

For years I selected many of the varieties we carried in our catalog, which was not unlike being an Indiana Jones of the plant world. All of this has given me good experience with discovering everything about a plant. It also helps to be married to a biologist who fills in any blanks. I retired as the third longest-tenured employee ever at Ecology Action after our founders.

I consider myself a personal herbalist. I do not have the intimate, extensive knowledge of hundreds of herbs that a professional herbalist would know, but rather I know very well the few plants that I need, seeking only my health, and the health of my family. Medicinal herbs and preventative medicine have been at the core of my family’s health for at least 50 years. I know the plants I use very well, and when I discover a new one that is as good as Sida is, I am completely on board right away and want to know everything about it. The next step is a thorough and intensive research into its known benefits. So for over a year I intensely scoured the internet for peer-review research on Sida, and in particular studies on Sida acuta, the species that I use. The results have exceeded my wildest expectations.

Around 1990 I created a poster, The Vegetable Gardener’s Guide (in its third printing), that has been a perennial favorite of master gardeners – they are grateful to have all the essential questions beginners ask right there on the wall.

In 2004 I decided to put my enthusiasm for the French bidet into a book. I wrote the "bidet bible" of the industry, first book ever in our Library of Congress.