Herbaholic’s Herbarium

Looking Forward To Cheery Blossom

I’ve been busy with Herb Society web updates and editing and circulating their new newsletter Herbal Delights, so I haven’t had much time to blog recently. I have been in the garden and garden centres though and this weekend with the help of my trustee side kick Simon and Robin, I’ve managed to get in to the garden, begin the pruning and clearing and get some new plants to put in. He likes eating any uncovered grubs and worms as I dig, the robin that is not Simon lol! Robin has been visiting our garden for a couple of years now, he’s a little camera shy, but I’ll try to get a photo of him as soon as I can so you can see the cheeky little chap, he expressed an interest in the bird house last week, its lay vacant for about 5 years, so fingers crossed, the bird house may get its first tennant!

Last weekend I picked up an apple tree and a cherry tree (why do I keep typing cheery lol!?), the intention is that in a couple of years time we’ll be sorting out the side of the front garden having a small wall around it and planting a couple of fruit trees in their and herbs of course. The apple is a braeburn, one of Simon’s favourites and the cherry is for me YUM! But I also thought in years to come I’ll be able to use the flowers of both to make flower waters, nothing like thinking ahead huh? The trees were less than £4 each and came from Aldi, how well they’ll do it remains to be seen, but for now each have buds and I’m dreaming of sprinb blossom and maybe fruit later in the year

I thought I’d blog a little about something I’m always mentioning to folk when I give talks and demos on herbs and it ties in with the new herbs I’ve just added as well. This weekend I went to the local garden centre and they had a nice display of Grow Your Own herbs, but all they had were Sage, Chives, Mint, Rosemary, Lavender and a few of the other ’standard’ herbs. All super if you’re starting your herb garden from scratch or you need to replace an old plant that is too woody or has succumbed to winter frosts, but what hope is there for the herb grower who wants to try something different?  

Well lots actually, if you look beyond the small ’herb’ section that most garden centres seem to have these days, you’ll find even more herbs diguised as other things, for instance in the wild flower section I found Meadow Clary (Salvia pratensis), Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare), Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata), Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), Cowslip (Primula veris) and Field Scabious (Knautia arvensis) all of which have a culinary or medicinal use, Simon had to restrain me when two ladies were commenting loudly about the garden centre selling weeds!!! Over in the shrubs section I picked up a Wintergreen (Gaultheria fragrantissima) and a Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) and in the perennials I found Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), Bistort (Persicaria bistorta), Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla mollis), Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum commutatum) and an Orris Root plant (Iris florentina). If your local garden centre has a pond/bog plants section, mosey on over there to pick up gems such as Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), Calamus Root aka Sweet Flag (Acorus calamus), Bogbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) and Water Mint (Mentha aquatica).

There are many others that you can find, if you know what to look for, if you’re new a good start is to take along a pocket herbal that lists latin names, for some reason most of the perennial herbs in garden centres are referred to by their Latin names for example if you want Lungwort, look for the name Pulmonaria. With a good guide you can find a wealth of herbs beyond the 12 or so standards that they display in the herb section. You just have to know what it is your looking for, I’ve picked up some real gems this way, maybe we should petition the garden centres to put all the herbs together and stop dotting things about without a clear herbal identity? That said, I like going on voyages on herbal discovery, you never know what you’ll find, it really does help if you know the latin names of the herbs though, if you can’t remember them all (and who can?) learn a few each season and see if you can spot them in the garden centres.

Don’t forget you’ll also find things like Hawthorn and Crampbark (Viburnum opulus) in the shrub and hedging sections, and Calendula, Borage, Lovage, Meadowsweet, Catnip, Comfrey and Chamomile in with the seeds, don’t forget to look in the perennial flower and vegetable seeds as well as the herb seeds because the same thing happens with seeds as happens with plants. There are more herbs in the garden centre than the novice would first think, so if you haven’t got time to get to a specialist herb nursery, give your local garden centre a look and make time to have a proper browse.

My Photo Used As The Cover For The Herb Society Journal ‘Herbs’

Forgive this little indulgence, but I’m buzzing to share a smiley moment Regular bloggers and visitors to Herbal Haven, The Herb Society and other sites I’m involved with, may recognise the image on the cover of the magazine above? If not, it’s one of my favourite herbal bee photos that I’ve taken, and this month its been selected to be the cover of Herbs, the journal of the Herb Society. The journal is a quarterly magazine only available to Herb Society members, and is the only magazine dedicated to herbs in all their forms in the UK. Back issues from previous years can be purchased by anyone via the Society’s online shop.

My image is being used because as some of you will know, this year the Herb Society are campaigning to save the bees with our Bee Aware! campaign. On the website, in the journal and at our events and shows during 2010 we’ll be highlighting the plight of the bees. Showing what you can do to help save the bees by growing more herbs, providing places for them to nest, ditching the chemicals and generally being more aware of what the bees can do for us as well as what we can do for them. The current issue includes features on creating a garden to attract bees, 10 things to do to help honey bees and several pages of delicious honey filled recipes. You can also find out more about joining us for our 2010 Bee Aware! Conference being held in Stratford-Upon-Avon on the weekend of the 25th-26th June.

Annual membership to the Herb Society gets you an issue of Herbs 4 times a year, discounts of either 10% or 15% depending on the shop at a variety of herb nurseries and shops including Culpeper’s, Jekka’s Herb Farm, Scented Geraniums, The Cottage Herbary and Teapigs to name a few. You also get access to a Members Area of the website which contains articles not available on our public site, news, information and the discount code area. You’ll also recieve Herbal Delights, our members only electronic newsletter monthly, which contains a mix of current society news, stories from the world of herbs, with the odd recipe, herbal tip and offer thrown in. If your interested in finding out more about joining the Herb Society and getting all these benefits, plus a copy of the only UK magazine dedicated to herbs delivered to your door 4 times a year you can find out how to join here.

First Snowdrops Of 2010

This weekend I was supposed to be going to a workshop at Sarah’s, but a family crisis scuppered that plan, and also my plans to make some resin tinctures and sow some herb seeds. On Saturday afternoon, we went for a walk around kedleston Hall and grounds, we both needed to recharge our batteries once the crisis had been overted. So a nice gentle walk in the fresh air we thought would do us good, there I saw my first snowdrops of the year, against a lovely blue sky, it made me feel a little better about missing the workshop and it blew away the grumpiness about all the plans I’d made for the weekend being scuppered. When Sunday morning arrived though I did feel miffed at having got nothing done. So I thought I’d brave the snow filled garden yesterday as compensation, and empty the pots of things no longer growing, to free them for cleaning and replanting, and begin clearing the greenhouse and checking the heater still works ready for the new babies that will get sown fairly soon. Did I mention it had been snowing heavily on Saturday night?

Out goes I ready for a chilly hour or so in the garden ‘getting stuff done’, 15 minutes went by and I moved across the path at the side of the garden that was now going slushy as the snow melted, I slipped, slided and failed to stay upright, and didn’t even manage a triple salco! Okay I landed on the soft bit of the garden and not the path, for which my skull is very grateful, but somehow on the way down I managed to twist my stomach and make my umbilical hernia very angry. Now gardening and doing things that involve bending, lifting and stretching are banned, by order of heap big chief Simon, for my own good you understand.

I’m fine if I observe the rules, but I’m bored, sitting at the PC too long hurts because it puts pressure on my hernia, thank goodness for laptops and comfy sofas! When the pain died down a lot, I did get to go shopping yesterday. We’ve been going to Aldi for a few weeks now and been saving a fortune. As well as the weekly shop, I managed to pick up 2 x 400g balls of Aran wool for £3.79 each, I’m going to knit that into a jumper for my holidays, I got a knitting pattern book and a pack of 3 propagators perfect for seedlings and cuttings. The pattern book has some lovely throw patterns in it and some sock patterns which will be good for using up the bargain Regia sock wool I picked up just after Xmas. There’s a couple of other jolly items that will make good presents, so well worth the £2.99 it cost. There was a surprise find of Wild Garlic Tagliatelle, which we had for tea last night with some creamy chicken & mushroom sauce, and rather nice it was to. I also got a pack of herb plugs for a “Taste Of France”, very apt for me as I’ve just bought a new French cookery book for more things to try pre our holiday in the summer. The pack had Rosemary, Tarragon, Garlic Chives, Parsley, Sweet Marjoram & Thyme in, and all for £1.99. They do a Taste Of Italy plug plant pack as well for anyone that goes to Aldi, that one has Lemon Balm and Sage in and 4 other herbs I can’t recall. The herb plugs will get potted up later today with the help of Simon and make their way to the windowledge in the spare bedroom or as its now being called ‘The Library’ lol!

One thing I did manage to do this weekend was to finish cataloguing my books, I thought I had 442 and that’s what I said in my OMG! How Many Herb Books? post, but by the time I’d finished I discovered I had 468 and I’m certain there are a few more still to be found. At least it was a job done, and its now easy to find all the books I have on herb gardening, cooking etc. I found some curtains with herbs on that used to be up in the spare bedroom, so when I’m able I’ll be putting them back up. the curtains helped me to finally decide on the colour scheme for when we decorate the room later this year, I’m going for half and half sunshine yellow above and green below with a herbal border in between. Now I just need to find a suitable border and the right shade of green, but frustratingly I can’t do anything but plan and dream at the moment!

At least I can still read, which is a good thing given that I have a 6 books that I need to read and write reviews for, I’ve almost finished the new James Wong book review and this morning got an email from the publishers containing 3 recipes from the book and pictures of James to go with them, the subject of the mail was “Please collect “James Wong” from HarperCollins UK”, why thought I, is he lost? To explain I had to download an encrypted file from Collins containing the text and photos, I couldn’t help but think though if I did collect Mr Wong I’d be very popular. Especially with Sam one of the girls from the Mercian Herb Group, who is a bit of a Wong groupie lol! The recipes will be going in the members area of the Herb Society website by the end of the week and I may add one to the UK Herbarium in the Registered Users only section.

Frostcraig Spire Indoor Herb Garden

So with this lifting, bending etc ban, I’ve been running around, jumping from walls and trees gathering herbs, and then making potions and gaining alchemical experience. Settle down… I’m playing Oblivion again, for those not familiar it’s an RPG or role playing game, the appeal for me is that for part of the game you wander round finding herbs such as lavender, foxglove, mandrake, fennel, wormwood, milk thistle, peony, lady’s mantle and more. Each herb has an alchemical property and you can combine herbs to gain different effects, pretty much like real life, but the properties of the herbs don’t do what they do in the real world, but I guess it is supposed to be fantasy lol! Once you’ve collected them, you can make potions, poisons and elixirs which you can use on yourself or others, or sell to get gold to do other things. It’s rather complex, not in a complicated way, but in a ‘it would take me a long time to explain’ kind of way. I’ve been playing this now for a couple of years off and on, you can change your character to be male or female, chose from a variety of races etc. You can buy and furnish houses and you get to decide if you want to be on the side of good or evil, battle monsters, and generally wander around having a good time, and if you get hurt a magical herbal potion will fix you right up, if only they had one for hernia’s lol! It keeps me sane and can easily occupy several hours and banish boredom. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a potion of night-eye to brew up so I can finish exploring a rather dark dungeon

Angelica’s Emerging From Winter

I can’t believe we’re 2/3rd’s of the way through February already doesn’t time fly? It doesn’t seem like a minute ago that we we’re all blogging in January, I had problems again thinking of what to blog about this month. I felt certain that for this particular blog party there would be lots of submissions on herbs to take to make us feel brighter. Coupled with experience, advice and recipes given, on herbs that fellow bloggers use as the days begin to get longer and warmer. Herbs that are noted for helping to bring us out of the cocoon of winter woollies and emerge as herbally enthusiastic butterflies. Having said that this morning here in Derby it’s snowing outside and it’s blinking freezing! I thought that I could write about the tonic herbs I take or add to food, or about the wild herbs that are beginning to emerge that I harvest and use, but I’m certain others will do something similar. So for my blog ‘party piece’ this month, I thought I’d write about a different kind of herbal pick me up to help take us out of winter into spring and beyond.

I’m talking about seeds, herb catalogues and plans for what to grow as the weather warms up. I get a buzz and a feeling of excitement and anticipation at this time of year. I take time to look back at the previous year, reviewing what herbs I came across that I don’t currently grow. Herbs that we can benefit from here in the home, for food, medicine and a myriad of other uses. Then the planning, adapting and changing the garden begins, so that I can include new found treasures. The new herbal babies will either be raised from seeds sown or be new plants bought from herb nurseries, some may be acquired from friends and herby enthusiasts like myself, when they split and divide plants in the spring, or as a result of productive seed sowings of their own.

I don’t know about everyone else, but the promise of new spring growth, new herbal treasures to find, grow, nurture and use gives me a really positive mental lift and can banish the winter blues. Although some may find it sad that I can get so much fun and pleasure from looking at seed catalogues or sowing the first seeds of the year. If they do, I don’t care, I have to nurture the herbaholic in me or she’ll wither and die lol!

As a trustee of the Herb Society, I had the brainwave late last year that in 2010 the HS should have a theme for shows and events. My attention was drawn towards the problems that face the bees worldwide, it hit me that as bees take their nectar from so many herbs, the HS could focus on saving the bees with herbs, looking also at the benefits we get from bees with their honey and beeswax. Some of you reading this now may think I’ve lost the plot somewhat, but this waffle does connect with emerging from Winter with herbs, honest! As I wandered around my garden yesterday looking at things that needed replacing that were either shrubs with no real use, or things that had died over the winter I began to make a list of things to add. Additional herbs for bees are high on my list, some I don’t grow already such as White Horehound and Goldenrod will be useful for use as remedies, so they’ll benefit us and the bees.

When I make my new planting plans, as I said above I look back at what I came across herbally the previous year, and if there is a new herb I want to grow that I’ve been inspired by the year before, then I find a way to incorporate it into the garden. Last year Sarah gave a talk to the Mercian Herb Group on herbs to help with the menopause. That night she introduced me to the wonders of Cramp Bark for monthly cramps and for helping to relieve muscle cramps I used to get at night that kept me awake. I had a supply of dried cramp bark that I used to make tincture and haven’t suffered from night cramps since, at the first sign that night cramps are coming on, I have some blackcurrant cordial with a dose of cramp bark tincture and the problem goes away. So my own Cramp Bark (Viburnum opulus) shrub is high on this years list of things to add to the garden. After encountering fresh leaves of the Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus-castus) last October in the Harris Garden at Reading University, I want to add a Chaste Tree to the garden so that I can experience their gingery, sagey, citrus fragrance in teas and tinctures. Other herbs on this years list include:-

Beautiful Burning Bush (Dictamnus albus) Flowers

Some of the herbs above are annuals that need to be sown every year, and as well as the above I’ll be adding a few new scented geraniums to my collection. I have to replace all the hyssops, a few lavenders and one or two other herbs that are either old and woody or didn’t make it through the winter. Most of the plants on my list I’ll be growing from seed myself, the ones in orange will be plants from nurseries. The Burn Jelly (Bulbine frutescens) and Chilean Guava (Ugni molinae) which is a member of the Myrtle family will come from Jekka’s Herb Farm, I’ve been intrigued by both these plants, especially the Chilean Guava since I read about it in a newsletter in September 09 (linked to above).

The Burning Bush (Dictamnus albus) pictured above, has intrigued me since I saw its beautiful flowers back in 2007 at Ryton Organic Gardens and smelt the lovely refreshing citrus scent the flowers give off. The plant is also named Gas Plant on account of the fact that throughout the summer, the whole plant is covered with a natural flammable substance, sticky to the touch; due to the flammable nature of this substance, if the plant catches light, it goes off with a flash and the whole plant goes up in flames. I’m curious to know just how flammable Dictamus albus is, but I’m not sure I could sacrifice such a beautiful herb to find out. As a herb it was used a lot historically to help resist poison and combat putrefaction, its hardly used today, when it is, it’s used as a stomach tonic and to apparently treat epilepsy. I have the seeds and they’ve been stratified for the 6 weeks it takes, all I have to do once they’re sown is wait 1 - 6 months to see if they germinate!!! I hope they do as I’d love to have this beautiful and exotic looking herb growing in the garden.

I already grow two small leaved Tarentina myrtles in the garden, but I want to add a True Myrtle (Myrtus communis) for using in teas, tinctures, cosmetics, cooking and pot pourri and anything else I can find a use for it. I did a Herb of the Month presentation for the Mercian Herb Group earlier this month on the Myrtle and I’ve promised some of the ladies there some seedlings if I get a glut. Something else to look forward to, the annual plant and seed swaps that the MHG have. I’ve been advised that Myrtle is really easy to grow from seed, I hope this is true, most people I’ve spoken to believed it to be difficult to raise from seed, must be down to its exotic looking flowers that people think this?

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking at seed and plant catalogues and browsing websites making my lists and ear-marking which plants will be getting replaced when the weather warms up. As I have a greenhouse and a couple of heated propogators, I’ll be making a start on seed sowing this weekend. We’re planning a Lavender Night at the MHG this summer, so I’ve bought some Lavender ‘Lady’ seeds that I’m going to sow which will hopefully raise enough plants to be able to give one to everyone that comes along I’m also going to sow White Horehound, Lemon Catmint, Myrtle, Safflower and Purple Basil (which incidentally can be used as a dye herb) all of these can be sown in February.

This year I want to experiment with herbs for dyeing, hence the Safflower and Alkanet being grown, I want to be able to make my own ‘menopause medicine’ in the forms of teas and tinctures, so I’ll be adding more ‘Womens Problems’ herbs to the medicinal bed. I also want to make more home remedies, I’ve mastered the art of tincture making, now I want to experiment with salves, oils and syrups. And of course there will be new tea experiments and new herb combinations going on in the kitchen. I can’t wait for summer when the Lemon Verbena is in abundance so I can make White Chocolate & Lemon Verbena Hugs, anyone that was at the MHG and sampled the Lavender & Chocolate Hugs will know where I’m coming from! I opened the jar of dried Chocolate Peppermint yesterday to make a cuppa and Summer hit me, amazing how a simple one herb tea can lift the spirits so much and make you see sunshine even in the cloudiest of days. The Pineapple Sage flowers that greet me in the greenhouse this time of year look so exotic and summery that you could almost forget that it was freezing outside. So that’s how I emerge from winter with herbs, I use the dark cold days to plan and dream about the delights of summer and use the photos and the previous years dried herbs, to help me recapture the summer sunshine. All you need is a little imagination and plans and you can be transported by herbs from the gloom of winter to the warm and heady scents of summer.

At the beginning of the year I decided that there were several things I needed to do this year, I don’t make new year resolutions as all my good intentions fizzle fast when other things get in the way. Lately though I’ve started making a list of things I’d like to achieve before the years out at the beginning of the year. This years list includes learning more than 6 words of French for my holidays, make as many Xmas gifts as possible, and to count, sort and catalogue all my herb and herb related books. I started and finished the initial sorting yesterday and took the photos, and on this cold rainy day it seems a perfect task to do, and as I’ve hurt my shoulder and can’t do much else I may as well, so today I’ll begin work on the database to catalogue my books.

All this came about because of a conversation at a workshop over at Sarah’s house late last year, the subject of how many herb books we each had, and whether you can have too many came up. I estimated that I had somewhere between 250 - 300. I was wrong, yesterday I counted 442, I’d stopped at 424 but as I wandered round the house, I kept finding others tucked away and there is a possibility that more could turn up as I organise and rummage through boxes that contain back issues of Herbs and my gardening magazines.
The 442 books include all my herb gardening, craft and cookery books, but it doesn’t include the everyday cookery and gardening books and all the non herb fact, fiction and craft books I have. If I counted these there must be about 800 books all told, so if the herb book estimate is anything to go by its more likely there will be 950 to 1,000 books lol!

The next task is to put all herbal cookery books together, all the medicinal books together as I catalogue them in a spreadsheet with author, title, date, publisher, subject and ISBN if it has one. I’m hoping that at the end of all this I’ll be able to find things quicker and I can use the database to make a note of snippets and facts I discover that will be useful one day, it does annoy me when I know that I read ‘x’ somewhere but can’t recall where.

I may add a list of some of the books I have to the blog, and write some posts on some of them that stick out for me, especially the 19th and early 20th century ones that I have. I think the oldest one I have is a Culpeper from 1698 which was a gift from Simon, but once I’ve catalogued them all I’ll know for sure, there is a broad spectrum of herbal books and they do bring me a lot of pleasure, so to me they’re worth every penny. Some people may say I have far too many, I’d argue you can never have too many herb books lol! It makes me wonder though, at 46 I have 442 books, how many more will I add to my collection before I shuffle off this mortal coil and what will happen to them when I do?

I can remember the first herb book I bought back in 1988, it was “The Complete Book Of Herbs” by Lesley Bremness, and that’s round about when my herbaholic tendancies began. It started small thanks to Geoff Hamilton and Gardeners World magazine giving away a free culinary herb collection. I sent away for the freebie, planted the herbs and began to use them in cooking and a new passion was born. The latest book to be added to my collection is “Nutritional Herbology” by Mark Pedersen, it arrived this morning, I bought it because I wanted to know more about the nutritional aspects of herbs. It turns out to be an excellent reference for the vitamin and mineral compostition of herbs, just flicking through quickly I discovered that Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) has 2.8mg of tin per 100g and 23mg of sodium, there’s so much more in it besides, can’t wait to sit and read this new treasure properly.

I dream of having a little herbal library, how many books does it take to make a library I wonder? Simon said it already counted as a library as its my personal reference library. As part of the things I do for the Herb Society, I look after their library of books, looking at photos of the HS library it seems they have about the same number of books as me, so logically if the HS call their collection a library, then I can call mine a library to, what do you think? I’m curious to know how many herb books other people have, so leave me a comment and let me know.

The next UK Herbarium Blog Party will be held on the 20th February 2010 and is hosted by Elizabeth over at Apotheblogary. The subject is “Emerging From Winter With Herbs” looking at herbal recipes to help us shake off the winter blues and put the ’spring’ in our step!

Elizabeth says “We often hear about herbal recipes to help you get through the winter - elderberry, rosehip, sage and more - but not so much about herbal pick-me-ups to help us emerge from winter.” Her suggested blog brew to sip when browsing is something she’s drinking currently and gives her a lift. It’s easy to make, if you want to try it yourself, have to hand some Nettle, St John’s Wort and Rosemary, the details for the brew will be on Elizabeth’s blog on the 20th Feb.

I’ve known this low growing, creeping perennial plant for a long time, although not as well as I could have! I used to grow it in my garden when I lived in Manchester as a border plant and it used to spread everywhere, every spring I’d have to cut clumps off and I’d pass them on to friends and neighbours. It’s readily found in the perennial flower section of most garden centres, but its actually a british native wild flower also know as Carpenter’s Herb, Sicklewort, Common Bugle and Middle Comfrey. Not to be confused with Bugleweed (Lycopus virginicus) a native of North America.

And how did I discover this herbal treasure? After last weeks blog party I was reading up on dandelion and burdock as I said I would, one of the books I was reading “Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine” [1] opened on the Bugle page when I was looking for some information, ‘Oh!’ thought I, ‘I recognise that plant’, so I had a read. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Bugle (Ajuga reptans) is a herb with medicinal properties, colour me further surprised when I discovered that Bugle had bitter principles and has traditionally be used to help cleanse the liver. Bugle also has mild analgesic properties.

This garden plant growing in I don’t know how many gardens in the UK has a long history of use as a wound herb but its very rarely, if at all used today. It was considered useful in stopping haemorrhages and was also used by old herbalists for treating coughs and blood spitting associated  with consumption.  Culpeper thought of it highly, he recommended a decoction of the leaves and flowers in with wine for dissolving congealed blood in people that were bruised internally, because it ‘dissolveth congealed blood’, he also recommended a syrup to take internally and a ointment and plaster be made from it to use externally. The juice from the leaves can be made into a lotion with honey added which makes a wonderful cure of sores and was used in the treatment of ulcers and gangrene. Thomas Green (Universal Herbal 1832) says that the astringency of the leaves have a gentle laxative effect, making it a useful herb to have on hand when suffering from constipation.

Mrs Grieve [2] says of Bugle in her book “A Modern Herbal” that the whole herb is used and is best gathered in May and early June when the leaves are at their best, the herb should be dried, Chevalier says that only the aerial parts are used which seems to be born out in recipes I’ve since found, nobody seems to use the roots. I’d assumed that whole herb meant that, roots and all! Bugle is aromatic, astringent and bitter, Mrs Grieve recommends an infusion of Bugle, 1oz of dried herb to 1 pint of water be given frequently for biliary disorders.  Bugle is similar to digitalis in its action of lowering the pulse rate, “it allays irritation and cough and equalises the circulation”, its been called “one of the mildest and best narcotics in the world”.

I don’t have any Bugle growing in my garden here in Derby at present, I will add some this year though to experiment with, it’s a wonderful plant for the bees, so that’s another reason to add it. I do know where there is a wild patch of Bugle growing which is where I took the photo last May, so maybe I can harvest some leaves there whilst I wait for my Bugle patch to grow?

References

[1] Andrew Chevalier FNIMH. The Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine. Dorling Kindersley. P163.
[2] Mrs M Grieve FRHS. A Modern Herbal. Random House Publishers. P139.

Back in 2007 I set up this blog and in April 2008 I started up the UK Herbarium Webring, after this months Blog Party I became inspired by all of those who took part, to take the UK Herbarium to the next level and start up a website which I hope will become a herbal community. The UK Herbarium is based in the UK but open to everyone. You can join in with the herbal burble of life over via a forum, read a variety of herbal posts in the community blog and learn new tips and information about herbs or share your experiences.

No Blog Of Your Own? No problem, if you’d like to occasionally post or take part in our monthly blog parties and either don’t want to or can’t set up your own blog, the UK Herbarium can help, all you have to do is register for a blog account on the UK Herbarium and your registered ’subscriber’ account can be turned into an ‘author’ account. This will enable you to post on the Herbarium blog and take part in monthly blog parties.

I’m really chuffed to be hosting the first ever UK Herbarium blog party, back in 2008 when I set up the UKH I never dreamed that so much would come out of it, I’ve made many new herbal friends in blogland, so many enthusiastic people sharing what they know and learn on their herbal journey’s, it’s amazing and keeps me sane. I’m really thrilled with all the contributions received this month, it’s been interesting to read the posts and I’ve learnt things I didn’t know, which for me is one of the main reasons for these blog parties, to share our knowledge and learn from others.  It was Sarah that came up with the topic for January’s blog party.

Martin (Earth Gazer) - Wrote about how he knew very little about bitters before the blog party, then took us on his own journey of discovery from his first Herbal Bitters experience with dandelion, the biological process that occurs when we take bitters. Martin writes about the American herbalist Jim MacDonald and his Blessed Bitters article and using some of his books on herbs and internet refrences he wrote a little about 7 different bitter herbs: Angelica, Agrimony, Burdock, Dandelion, Hops, Mugwort & Oak. 

Brigitte (My Herb Corner) - In My Favourite Bitter, Brigitte who lives in New Zealand wrote about Mugwort a herb I’ve always avoided because of it’s bitterness, but one thing this blog party and everyone’s posts has shown me is the importance of adding bitters to the diet. Although this had been highlighted in the past I hadn’t done much more with the information, so this year will be a bitter year in the nicest possible way, I’ll try some of the recipes that Brigitte posted next time I have access to fresh mugwort.

Elizabeth (Apotheblogary) - Wrote 7 Interesting Things To Know About Bitter Herbs, in which she describes how she came to know about bitter herbs via Swedish Bitters, that famous bitter herb formula that has been around since it was introduced by the Swedish doctor Dr Claus Samst in the 18th century. The formula was actually credited to Dr. Phillipus Paracelsus also of Swiss decent 1493 - 1541, the chap who is credited as giving the chemical element Zinc the name Zincum, but I digress. Elizabeth shares previous blog posts she did on Swedish Bitters including one she made whilst researching making a Swedish Bitters Cream.

Sarah (Tales of a Kitchen Herbwife) - Wrote in praise of bitters in her blog post Citric Bitters, it was Sarah that gave me my first taste of medicinal herb bitters when she offered me some Motherwort tincture at one of her workshops, I remember the earth shuddering experience and walking away thinking that bitters weren’t for me, my opinion changed when at another of Sarah’s workshops we made and sampled a Grapefruit Bitter Aperitif, and since then I’ve been using tinctures of yarrow, dandelion, agrimony and cramp bark, all of which have bitter principles. Sarah’s post has some lovely bitter recipes to try, I’m going to have a go at the Seville Orange bitter this weekend, assuming I can find some Seville Oranges.

Sarah also hosted on her blog a post by Danny Proudfoot who wrote about his experiences doing a kidney detox using a kidney herb mix which contained bitter herbs Steaky & Kidney Pie.

Claire (Hedgerow Hippy) - Newly qualified as a Medical herbalist wrote about Yarrow one of her favourite herbs, she writes about the benefits and virtues of the bitter principals of this contrary herb.

Lusach (Wild Crafty) - Another herby blogger joining us from New Zealand wrote about How To Eat An Artichoke, in which she talks about the value of bitters in the diet, and gives a detailed explanation of how to prepare and eat an artichoke, that bitter herb disguised as a vegetable.

Debs (Herbaholic’s Herbarium) - My blog post is called My Favourite Bitter - Do I Have One? I thought I didn’t use bitters but looking at our daily diet more closely I discovered I use a lot of bitter herbs without knowing it! I also wrote about a bitter experience I had with Ben Fogle when I appeared on BBC’s Countryfile in 2008 and included my Dandelion Soup & Salad recipes.

Jackie who is one of Sarah’s new apprentice’s submitted a late entry to the blog party, she wrote about a member of the labiatae family White Horehound which is a bitter used to help with respiratory disorders  Bitters and White Horehound. Jackie talks about her surpirse at learning that bitters can be used for respiratory problems as she’d only assoaicted them with digestive problems before. White horehound has a bitter principle called marrubiin as its chief constituent, something it shares in common with Hyssop, Black Horehound and some of the other members of the labiatae (Mint) family.

If you’d like to join the UK Herbarium Webring and you live in the UK or a Commonwealth country then please join us via the webring link above, you can take part in next months blog party if you missed this months, details of the next blog party topic and date will be posted soon both here and on Sarah’s blog and anywhere else we can fit it in

When Sarah suggested we blog about our favourite herbal bitter I went into a panic, do I have one, what do I know about bitters and what the hell am I going to blog about? This’ll look good I thought, the host of the first UK Blog Party hasn’t got anything to contribute! So I had to put my thinking cap on, there are two bitters that I regularly enjoy, coffee although these days it’s decaf and dark bitter chocolate, but neither of these count as far as herbs go, not in the strictest sense that is, so I had to look at what other herbs I’d been using of late.

With the winter I’ve been using lots of warming ginger, turmeric and coriander, all three have bitter principles although I haven’t been adding them to our diet for that reason. When we think of bitters, these three spices aren’t ones that immediately spring to mind. Turmeric improves the function of the liver, and is great for stimulating the appetite and increasing bile production, making it good for the liver. Ginger has one ketone which is 6-gingediol, which has been identified as the bitter principle, while hexahydrocurcumin is known as the choleretic or bile-producing principle [1], ginger is a herb I turn to when I feel sick, especially when I get a nervous stomach and on the odd occasion I start producing acidy bile. Although I use it more for its carminative and circulatory properties as a rule, so I was pleased to discover that it to counted as a bitter. Coriander seed is another digestive aid with a bitter principle and another spice I adore, it goes in everything these days because it’s in my special pepper and spice blend which I’ll blog about at another point. So I’ve been consuming bitters on an almost daily level without knowing it!

Another herbal friend used often in this house is Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) and she also has a bitter principle, I’ve mentioned before how valerian has the opposite effect on me that it does on most people, instead of a sedative action it acts as a pick me up. I learnt this the hard way when I was prescribed valerian tablets by a herbalist for a case of insomnia, which led me to be awake until the very early hours with a brain that refused to shut off and go to sleep. Not good at the time and after 3 days of very little sleep I twigged what was going on, stopped the valerian switched to passionflower and slept like a baby. But now when I need a boost I reach for the valerian, I actually like the smell as well as the taste, I must be part cat

I’ve been regularly using dandelion for its diuretic properties, but she counts as a bitter as do agrimony, yarrow and cramp bark, which I’ve been taking to ease time of the month symptoms. I’m only now beginning to study and use the medicinal aspect of herbs, there is so much to find out that I thought inbetween everything else I’ll look at bitter herbs in more detail over the next few months. Dandelion and burdock are the two that call out to me most, so I’ll begin with them and what better way to start than to be adventourous in the kitchen and put the bitter principles of both those herbs to work. So here in honour of the first blog party is a tasty brew I just ‘invented’, maybe others have done the same thing, but its new to me

Blog Party Bitter Brew

1 Part Dandelion Root
1 Part Burdock Root
1 Part Liquoirice Root
1/2 Part Fresh Grated Ginger Root
1 Tsp Bitter Orange Zest

Put all the ingredients into a cafetiere and pour on boiling water, leave to brew for 5 - 10 minutes depending how strong you like it. The liquorice root adds sweetness to this brew, but I added a teaspoon of honey to the mix, more on this golden nectar soon! It makes a warming delicious and spicy brew, the bitterness of the herbs gets you at the back of the throat but it isn’t unpleasant, it will be on my herbal brew list from now on and it’ll do my body the power of good and whilst I’m sipping it in the future, I’ll find out just what good its doing by reading about the herbs within.

So by now some of you are wondering what my post so far has to do with the photo of me in a kitchen fiddling with dandelion leaves? And no before anyone gets the wrong idea the kitchen isn’t mine, I wish! The photo is me making dandelion soup and dandelion salad when I appeared on BBC1’s Countryfile in 2008, Sarah did ask us to share stories, so here is a cautionary tale about the bitterness of dandelion.

Someone from Aunty beeb contacted the Herb Society and asked if any of us would like to take part in the programme talking about dandelions, Jenny Jones a fellow trustee of the Society agreed and whilst Jenny talked about the medicinal properties of the dandelion, I was tasked to show Ben Fogle what a treasure the dandelion was in the kitchen. I chose a simple soup and salad, both of which are very tasty and I was sure would win Mr Fogle over. I was asked to bring along all the items for the soup and salad, but was told they would supply the dandelion leaves, I explained that to eat dandelion leaves they have to be young and tender, old leaves would be very bitter and make the soup taste awful. In fact I mentioned this on several occasions and was assured that they’d take care of it, it was the BBC, I believed them!

So there I am preparing the potatoes etc for the soup and I ask the producer for the dandelion leaves, just a moment she says. The next thing I hear is where’s the spade? 5 minutes later she comes back with a dandelion plant, roots and all covered in mud, and from the size of the root the plant has been around for 5 years at least! Oh dear, what could I do… Not much so I washed and chopped the leaves and added them to the soup and salad and proceeded as per the recipe. This tasty and nutritious soup is really quick and easy to make, although the producer preferred me not to follow the method in my recipe due to time. Preferring instead their patented chuck it in the pan altogether method, finished with a potato masher to mush it all up to save waiting 5 more minutes for the potatoes to be cooked, which is why the soup on the programme looked more like a puree! You can do that if you want, just add a little more stock to thin out the soup.

The tasting time came and those that saw the programme may have noted my face said “I don’t want to eat that” and I tentively put the spoon in my mouth, I knew the leaves were as old as the hills and would be choc full of their strongest bitter principles, however I made Ben Fogle go first lol! He ate it and then went on to say how surprisingly tasty the soup was PMSL, it was tasty all right, it would have tasted nicer IF the leaves had been younger! As it turned out it wasn’t entirely inedible, but I would strongly advise anyone making the soup to pick fresh young leaves. Here are the recipes for both the soup and salad that I made for the programme, you can give them a try when you have access to fresh young dandelion leaves and let me know what you think!

Dandelion Soup

200g Young Dandelion Leaves
25g Butter
1 Small Onion (finely sliced)
1 Clove Garlic Crushed
1 Medium Potato (peeled & diced)
750ml Chicken or Vegetable Stock. (Chicken stock is best but you can use veggie stock if you want to make it vegetarian)
Salt & White Pepper to taste

Method

Pick the dandelion leaves, make sure that the leaves picked are young and tender or the soup will taste bitter! Wash the leaves well and drain. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the onion and garlic and fry gently. Add the potato, cover the pan with a lid and sweat the vegetables over a low heat for 5 minutes. Chop the dandelion leaves then add to the pan, sweat for another 5 minutes with pan lid on, then stir in the stock, leave to cook for another 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with chunks of crusty bread.

Zesty Dandelion Salad

The light citrus dressing goes just right with the tangy, bitter taste of the dandelion leaves. Serves four.

150g Fresh Young Dandelion Leaves
150g Baby Spinach
1 Red Onion, thinly sliced
Bunch Flat Leaf Parsley, finely chopped
Handful of dandelion petals and pumpkin seeds for garnish
100ml Orange Juice
50ml Lemon Juice
100ml Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Chopped Lemon Thyme
2 Tbsp Chopped Lemon Verbena (if you can’t find lemon verbena, tarragon is a good substitute).
½ Clove Garlic, crushed
Pinch Sugar
Sea Salt & Black Pepper to taste

Method

Dressing - Make the dressing a few hours in advance for the flavours to infuse, if you can make it and leave it in the fridge over night it will be better. Finely chop the herbs, peel and crush the garlic and juice the citrus fruit. In a bowl, combine all the dressing ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Salad - In a large salad bowl, combine the washed and dried dandelion leaves, spinach, onion and parsley. Drizzle with enough dressing to coat greens and toss well. Sprinkle with dandelion petals and pumpkin seeds and serve.

References

1. Tyler VE. The New Honest Herbal. George F. Stickley Co.