Spring

Its official .. spring is in the air!

Venturing out today, we gave our lady elder a libation of nettle infusion to wish her well for the coming season. She is just starting to sprout buds into leaflets, so magical to see.

Pleased to see big fat healthy looking ladybirds all over the garden, particularly as the new growth on the elder was covered in aphids last year all spring/summer (I hosed them off each morning with a high power jet had a little chat and a stroke while I was at it .. nice to have that daily contact, but nicer to see hoardes of ladybirdies munching away instead!)

Which reminds me, I took a photo last autumn which I didn't get around to posting.. I had gone outside to have a little tidy up and was tying up all my tall-stemmed seed headed herbs into the fence, when I found this little ladybird party, all huddled inside an evening primrose leaf.

It made me really careful about not disturbing any of the big overgrown plants and aside from just securing things to the fence against the wind, I left everything be. So glad I did! Today I found my little ladybird friends still intact inside their (now dried out) leafy home. In fact, several little huddles on the evening primrose and one on a sage leaf. Think because the shape of these long leaves is such that they naturally curl, providing a little handy crevice for hibernating creatures. Hurray!

Supermarket SOS

Got the chance to try out some remedies this week, in my battle with a horrible flu thing. Not having my usual stocks of herbs and remedies, for one reason and another, I was unprepared and at something of a loss - but its amazing what you can still do with just a quick trip to the local supermarket these days. Fresh sage, fresh lemon thyme, a squeezy pot of organic runny honey, a couple of lemons and a big lump of ginger. And a ferret around in my box of essential oils. Here are some things that really worked ..

Strong cup of sage tea with a dollop of honey stirred in for a sore throat - gargle with each mouthful before you swallow.

Lemon Thyme tea with dollop of honey stirred in for nose, throat and chestiness - this one was better made in a pot and allowed to brew for a good 10minutes.

Steam inhalation for congestion - washing up bowl, hot water and a few drops of Rosemary, Eucalyptus, Peppermint essential oils - towel over your head and inhale!

A few drops of the same oils in a table spoon of carrier oil (I used sweet almond but sunflower oil would do) as a chest rub and in the bath for when you start coughing and/or it goes to your chest.

For mornings when your cold is so bad you think you will never be able to get going: lemon juice and several slices of root ginger in hot water, strong as you can take it with a nice dollop of honey mixed in. I peeled and crushed some of the ginger to get the juice. You can feel this warm you up all the way down to your toes - and its great when you can't taste anything anymore, because you will definitely taste this.

And as soon as you feel the slightest suspicion of a cold coming, take a garlic capsule every day I'm sure this lessens the impact and gets rid of it faster. I also tried a Nigel Slater thing - roasted a whole head of garlic, then popped the flesh out of each clove and spread the puree onto toast. It was absolutely delicious and I sure being in the warm kitchen smelling the roasting garlic in the oven didn't do me any harm either.
Hope this helps someone else out there feeling poorly and miserable!!

Please contribute any tried and tested cold and flu remedies that you set store by?

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

The name ‘salvia’ comes from the Latin ‘salvere’ (to save) and indicates the many curative properties of this herb, also giving rise to the well-known saying ‘why should a man die when sage grows in his garden’. The Romans used sage to increase fertility and Italian peasant custom was to eat sage to preserve health –many country people eat the leaves with bread and butter.

A cup of strong infusion should relieve a nervous headache and can be applied to the scalp to darken the hair. Fresh leaves rubbed on the teeth will cleanse and strengthen the gums and dried leaves smoked in pipes have been used as a remedy for asthma. A home remedy for sprains is to bruise a handful of leaves and boil in vinegar for 5 minutes, before applying in a folded napkin as hot as can be bourne.

Sage is good for the mouth and throat – an infusion used as a gargle is especially useful for an ulcerated throat and used as a mouthwash for bleeding gums. It is used for delirium in fevers and for nervous excitement accompanying brain and nervous diseases. It is helpful for women, taken internally for night sweats in menopause and excessive lactation, and is also used in anxiety and depression. It can be used externally for insect bites, as well as the mouth and throat problems cited above.

A pungent, bitter, cool and drying herb with many properties: stimulant, astringent, tonic, carminative, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, anti-depressant, oestrogenic.

CAUTION: Toxic in excess; Do not use if pregnant or epileptic

Leaves are picked before flowering and dried for infusions and tinctures.
Harvested May-Sept (leaves picked at midsummer considered the best).




PLEASE NOTE: These notes on the history and use of herbs have been compiled for general interest and are not intended as medical advice, for which you should consult a professional herbalist.

BIBLIOGRAPY:
'A Modern Herbal' Mrs M. Grieve FRHS ed. Mrs C. F. Leyel (1973)
'The Herb Society's Complete Medicinal Herbal' Penelope Ody MNIMH (1993)
'RHS Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses' Deni Brown (2002)

Gardening

Despite the weather forecast for extreme cold and possible snow even as far south as London this weekend, yesterday found me on the roof in a tshirt in glorious sunshine!

This was my first visit to my garden this year.. and I spent several very happy hours making a tour of inspection, tidying up, and re-aquainting myself with old and valued friends.

I was so excited to see nearly everything looking green and verdant and full of life and potential. I lost my rose-scented geranium and my thyme this winter, but that was entirely my fault as they should have been got in .. they're not hardy enough to tough it out up there.

I also had a great time building my self-assembly mini-growhouse which I got very marked down in a sale at B&Q! I'm usually pretty DIY in my garden, making cloches and cold frames out of anything to hand rather than spending money on purpose-built things (watch out for my shower-cap wearing carrot troughs later this month!) But I'm glad I rescued this from the 'unloved' shelf at B&Q .. I'm so please with it and it means I can put out my taller seedlings for acclimatising. One of the problems of gardening on the roof is that it can be pretty blowy.. I'm continually amazed how some of my taller herbs stand up to it! But the new guys need a little help ... so my sunflowers and dwarf beans are zipped up safely in their new home.

I was particularly pleased with the lemon balm and yarrow and have been able to get some really good leaves for ceramic impressions. I'd never had much luck with getting yarrow to grow before last summer, so I was so pleased to see it looking healthy .. and I found its little babies everywhere too! And Lemon Balm is a big favourite of mine because its a lovely tea, you can put it in cooking and I make and use the tincture, which is invaluable.

Another lovely surprise was finding that the little clary and sage seedlings of last spring are now enormous healthy plants. I'm a proud mama! I can't believe how well they've come on and they are both in bud. The clary is a particular favourite of mine .. I only grew it once before, from a plug plant I bought at a herb stall. It just took off!

It had these amazing huge leaves and then threw up a great strong spike which was covered in purple flowers which exuded the most incredible scent (its where the essential oil Clary Sage comes from, which is a favourite of mine). I have really missed it from the garden, so I tried growing some seed last year and am really pleased I did.

I noticed a ladybird on the clary when I went up into the garden, and later discovered loads of little baby ladybirds (or I should say BIG baby ladybirds, because the grubs are a lot bigger than the adults, which always amazes me!) So they must like this plant and this bodes well for the year, as you can never have too many ladybirds in a garden.

When I first go up into the garden each spring its always nice to find the rosemary in flower to welcome me. I like how there's always something happening and something new flowering and this is the first thing in the chain. I was also happy to discover little edible things! The kitchen garden area was looking pretty good and I should be able to put together a nice salad with chives, garlic chives, sorrel leaves.. I also appear to have a life-time's supply of parsley .. don't understand it, because I can never keep parsley alive for longer than 5 minutes in the summer, but found 4 pots of it looking fresh and appetising. Think the judicious use of drip trays may have helped enormously.












This morning I had the great pleasure of going up first thing and seeing how it was all looking (I always have a quick chat with my plants and ask them how they're doing!)... happy Hedgewitch.