Hello
Herban allies story. About the founders.
Nice to meet you.
Herban Allies was born out of a vision to serve our community by fostering resiliency in our complex human-made environments. We aim to enhance the connection between humans and nature and educate people how to organically cultivate, process and preserve food and medicine while simultaneously respecting and stewarding land and habitat.
Our herbalist, Amy Charnay hails from the mountains of upstate NY where she was infused in nature at a young age and completed her Bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Science & Latin American Studies, focusing on agriculture, ecology and botany. After many years of serious health challenges and multiple surgeries, Amy began to explore plants through a different lens by studying herbal medicine & nutrition, earning her Masters of Science degree in the field. Through plant medicine, neuroplasticity & mindfulness practices, Amy has gone from disabled to thriving and is passionate about sharing her resiliency toolkit with others as a scientist, researcher, educator and clinician. Fun facts: Amy is an FDA trained botanical microscopist, had a summer job trapping black bears for a research project and is featured in Michael Pollans’ book “How to Change Your Mind”.
We are located on a 9000 square foot urban farm in the city of Santa Rosa, CA, in the heart of the agriculturally rich traditions of Sonoma County. We find inspiration from nature in many forms. As land tenders, we have backgrounds in herbal medicine, botany, ecology, nutrition, gardening, permaculture, beekeeping and more. We apply these principles whenever possible to create a vital, thriving garden landscape that we share with many other creates including plants, insects, birds and our local city deer "Moe".
We cultivate drought tolerant, native, aromatic & medicinal plants as food, habitat and medicine.