Anglo-Saxon Herbs

Yesterday, a treat .. an overdue trip to West Stow Anglo-Saxon village while it was inhabited by seventh century Anglo-Saxon re-enactors, the Centingas. I haven't been for ages and was so excited to be visiting, especially to be taking my young son with me for the first time.

The first thing we saw on our visit was a new 'farm' area, designed to showcase some of the plants grown for food by the early Anglo-Saxon settlers at the village. I was so pleased to see the Wild Carrot I had been learning about growing here!

And then, bliss and joy, a great big medicinal herb bed .. brilliantly jumbled and tumbled but full of familiar friends, including the Mugwort I had just been learning about, too! What was great was that it was growing right alongside large amounts of Wormwood so I could clearly compare them and see the difference - wormwood's foliage is silvery all over, while mugwort's leaves have dark green tops but are silvery underneath.

Tansy

Wormwood and Saint John's Wort

Yarrow

Harvest

Well, I had only got as far as this when lumps of ice started falling out of the sky with some force upon my herbs and my head! I managed to collect enough ladies mantle to try a tincture this year. Its the first time I've had this herb in flower, and there's plenty of it, so I'm excited - I've wanted to use this for a good while now.

I strained my valerian flower tincture at 3 weeks, having watched and tasted it a little.. it has a pleasant appley kind of taste, for some reason I can't quite fathom! I have it bottled on standby and will be interested to see what effect it has. Meanwhile, the valerian has a wealth of fresh new heads, so I had thought to maybe make a second small bottle.

I'm also going to try making yarrow tincture .. in previous years I have made ointment for stopping bleeding. But I've never had much call to use it, and in case of emergency I think you can just use the fresh leaves straight from the plant as needed. And I read that the tincture is a good preventative for colds and flu in the winter and can be used in a spray bottle to repel insects in the summer. If you'd seen the mozzy/gnat bites I've had of late you would understand my eagerness on that score! There's enough in the garden now that I should still have plenty to dry for cold/flu tea (with peppermint and elderflowers).

There's so much happening out there right now, and with the sunshine and showers its a question of just darting out at opportune moments and snatching a few photos or snipping anything that's dry. Still, I'm not having to water, lol!

Colour

Picked a big splash of colour for the kitchen table yesterday ... not bad for November?

Calendula

Cerise Queen

A rose we inherited with the house .. it has no fragrance, but the blooms are beautiful as a cut flower.

Herb Garden

So much is happening in the herb garden at the moment - it is such a joy, because every time I go up onto the roof there is something new to see. So, today, here are photos of two old friends opening their flowers and turning their faces towards the sun...





Top: Feverfew, Bottom: Yarrow

Buds

There's a lot of budding going on in the Hedgewitch herb garden right now! And as we go from May to June (and from Spring-ish to Summer-ish) it feels as though we are also changing colours: in May the garden hosted purple blooms, the sage flowers and chives, then more white appearing with the elderflowers and valerian. The thyme is currently in flower with pretty pinky-white blooms and the yarrow is fit to burst, too.





Now, as the daylight hours approach their maximum the yellow flowers are opening to greet the sun: the calendula blooms are opening, the rue buds are turning from green to yellow, and it won't be long before the St John's wort flowers to mark the longest day.

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.

Yarrow

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has a long history of use – ‘achillea’ refers to its reputed use by Achilles to staunch his men’s wounds after the siege of Troy, and ‘yarrow’ is a corruption of its Anglo-Saxon name, ‘gearwe’. It has many alternative names, some describing the many segments of its foliage (eg. ‘milfoil’), some to its use as snuff and many others to its blood-staunching properties.

Yarrow is closely linked with divination in many parts of the world: its stalks are used to consult the I Ching (or ‘Book of Changes’) in China, for example.

Medicinally, yarrow is valuable in relieving hayfever, easing menstrual cramps and reducing heavy menstruation. The infusion can be taken for severe colds, flu and catarrh, especially at the onset of fever, and in the Orkneys is said to dispel melancholy. This herb can also treat diarrhoea, dyspepsia and hypertension, and is still used externally to treat wounds, as an ointment or by binding washed fresh leaves to cuts and grazes as a poultice.















A bitter, astringent herb.

Flowers June to September.
Collect stems, leaves and flowers from the wild in August (the flowers for teas and tinctures, the leaves and stems for salves and poultices).


CAUTION: Prolonged use may cause allergic reaction or sun sensitivity.


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)