I have been around aloe vera plants my entire life.  I have always had one, my mother and grandmother always had one, my aunts always had one.  Aloe is the staple you will find in any bustling kitchen as it brings immediate and effective healing to burns, cuts, and wounds.  When the baby touched the wood stove on accident a piece of aloe was quickly dispatched, opened, and wrapped on the wound.  It didn’t even blister.

My aloe vera plant is something else.  I have never seen such a huge specimen in my life.  All of my previous aloes and those of my family fit nicely in a kitchen window.  Mine oddly thinks it lives in the desert.  It outgrows its pot every year and this year is no exception.  I sell its baby shoots at farmer’s markets so others can have the beautiful plants in their windows too.

This year my aloe did something I have never seen before.  It shot up a flower.  I have been waiting to see what it would look life when it was in full bloom.  It is beautiful and interesting.  What a fabulous plant!

Aloe vera is antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiyeast, and is demulcent.  Which means you can use it on black heads on the skin, on warts, as a personal lubricant for yeast infections or herpes outbreaks, to remedy stomach ailments, to sooth inflamed skin, to fill a wound instead of stitches, to prevent infection in a cut, or to heal a burn quickly should you touch the wood stove!