‘Tis the season

With the arrival of the third month of the year, things are starting to move. The quince tree is coming out in leaf. The elder leaves were possibly the first to appear but I wasn’t there to watch them. The blackcurrant bushes are bursting. Spring in finally springing. The snowdrops have seeded, the early daffodils have been waving in the breeze for a month and the main show are blooming.

Sweet violets have been spreading their scented wonder since late January in my garden. We made a violet syrup at the February workshop with a round of “Ooohs” as the lemon juice turned the turquoise liquid pink. I searched for the white violet last Saturday in the nooks and crannies of the Sanctuary bank but although the leaves were present, there was no sign of the flowers.

We have been working at the Sanctuary on the few dry days in between the constant rain. We held our first Wassail on January 6^th; serenading the trees and gifting them with bread soaked in cider after a day of pruning and ivy clearance.

At the end of February we began the winter clear up. Wild cherry and crampbark trees were pruned, the large haul of twigs divided between four to debark at a later date. Half a ‘boot load’ was delivered to the Little Bird herbal apothecary in Shipston on Stour, the rest dried or made into tincture.

There are still untouched bottles of crampbark tincture in my larder from previous years, so I processed wild cherry for over an hour before my hands were too sore to do any more. It yielded three trays of bark for drying and those have filled two large jars to store for later.

A week ago, when my writers group were finalising details for our belated Christmas curry meetup, I received an email asking if I’d got any spare cough syrup. It seemed an ideal time to try out the new cherry bark, so the morning was spent decocting cherry bark, hyssop, mullein, sage, thyme and marshmallow leaves, elecampane and astralagus root and rosehips. The first five ingredients were aimed at the cough, the marshmallow to soothe any inflamed tissue and the last two to boost the immune system and Vitamin C levels. I tend to throw rosehips into any kind of winter syrup, ‘just because’.

After straining and measuring the liquid and cleaning out the pan, I let it evaporate for an hour or so, but didn’t have the patience to reduce it by 7/8ths, as you should with a medicinal syrup. After adding the same weight of sugar as the remaining volume of liquid, it made 4 jars of cough syrup and the recipient was delighted. The rest of the group received home made marmalade, made at the beginning of February.

After years of treading water thanks to Covid and various bereavements, we are now making plans and moving forward. Last year’s apprentices have settled into a community and brought a new set to join them this year. They spent Saturday’s workshop picking nettles for ChristopherHedley’s nettle iron tonic, all of them armed with thick gloves against the Sanctuary’s particularly vicious variety.

While the women used secateurs, the men took up pick axes and crowbars to remove roots from unwanted trees to make space for levelling the ground to receive flagstones for a new shed we’re intending to erect.

The bramble hedge which hasn’t been touched for the past three years and was threatening to engulf both the path and eventually the summer house was also given a serious haircut. Roots were dug up from the identifying shoots and I brought home a full basket of leftovers, which were duly washed yesterday morning, left to air dry overnight and this morning have been left in my kitchen hot cupboard to macerate with cider vinegar for three weeks. They still fought back, despite the scissors and secateurs brought in to subdue them! My previous bottle of bramble root vinegar, made around 2005, is almost empty. I’m looking forward to another full bottle in the larder to deal with digestive anxiety and upset tummies.

I have a whole article on “What to do with bramble”, written in 2015. I’ve also discovered Sally Pointer and Alex Langland’s YouTube videos on how to make bramble runner cordage. The apprentices seem keen to experiment but I’ve suggested we wait until summer when both nettles and brambles will be softer and more malleable.

This Wednesday will see my first public talk on holy wells and sacred water. I’m sure there will be a few herbs thrown in for good measure along the way.

What to do with sage?

I was standing outside Condicote church after the annual Harvest Festival service when I caught up with someone I hadn’t seen since my cousin’s wedding last year. Her sister was one of my first piano pupils and then my bridesmaid five years later. I told her I was going to raid my aunt’s sage plants before we returned home.

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked. “We have tons of sage and I’d love to be able to make use of it more.”

So this post is for Caroline and anyone else who finds themselves with a glut of herb they don’t know what to do with.

Why do we use sage? Some will only know it as a condiment, mixed with onions as a stuffing for a fatty meat such as pork or goose or as a flavouring to replace salt in a salt-free diet.

While these uses show sage to be an aid to digestion, its myriad of uses stem from very ancient times. Sage is known as a Mediterranean herb which doesn’t like to get its feet wet (as I learned to my cost by over-watering cuttings!).

It’s location has led people to think it must have been brought to the UK by the Romans, but as historical plant expert, Anthony Lyman Dixon, is wont to remark, Romans are blamed for many things, but we really can’t be sure whether they brought all their herbal flavourings with them or whether sage was one of those herbs which was growing here well before they invaded our lands.

Sage, salvia officinalis, is described by Maud Grieve as “about a foot or more high, with wiry stems. The leaves are set in pairs on the stem and are 1 1/2 to 2 inches long, stalked, oblong, rounded at the ends, finely wrinkled by a strongly-marked network of veins on both sides, greyish-green in colour, softly hairy and beneath glandular. The flowers are in whorls, purplish and the corollas lipped. They blossom in August. All parts of the plant have a strong, scented odour and a warm, bitter, somewhat astringent taste, due to the volatile oil contained in the tissues.”

There are many different types of sage, but all those which begin with salvia can be used interchangeably. I prefer purple sage, salvia officinalis purpurascens, because this is the one most used medicinally in the UK and I prefer the flavour to the greener garden sage.

Sage has been a healing plant since ancient times and remained popular through the Middle Ages. Mrs Grieve quotes the latin phrase Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? ('Why should a man die whilst sage grows in his garden?') and gives a corresponding English proverb, 'He that would live for aye, Must eat Sage in May.'

As with most herbs, I began my journey learning about one particular use. Sage has an affinity with the chest and throat, so is good for sore throats (gargling with a tea) and lingering coughs brought on by the common cold. Then Henriette Kress mentioned sage and thyme together could be taken at the beginning of the year for three months to support the respiratory system in reducing sensitivity to pollens and other particles which induce hayfever in sufferers.

This remedy then led to a wonderful tea which could be taken for colds, coughs and general symptoms. One of my friends was working in a doctor’s office in Washington State at the time and used to give the recipe to disgruntled patients who had been refused antibiotics for their virus.

Sage and Thyme Tea
1tsp dried sage (or 1 tblsp fresh)
1 tsp dried thyme (or 1tblsp fresh)
Juice of ½ lemon
1 inch chopped or grated root ginger with the peel left on
Honey to taste
Infuse the dried herbs and ginger for approximately 10 minutes in a pint of water in a cafatiere or teapot or mug with a lid. If making the drink without the ginger you can get away with infusing for 3 minutes if you don’t want to have a really strong sage taste. Strain and pour into a mug containing the juice of half a lemon and enough honey to taste.

If you are thinking of making this tea for a child, don’t use either the thyme or honey if the child is under two years of age. They may not like the ginger either.

This drink is really warming and comforting and can be drunk 2-3 times a day.

Sage has been used for increasing blood flow to the brain and therefore to help reduce memory loss. James Wong, in his recent BBC2 series, Grow your own drugs, carried out an interesting experiment with two people in middle age who were having problems remembering things. He asked them to drink cups of sage tea for a week and afterwards both people reported being able to remember things far better.

Obviously two people isn’t a large sample and a week isn’t a long time to take a herb, since herbal actions often take a while to make themselves apparent. Still, it was an interesting experiment and something everyone can try at home. I know I should, since my family constantly sigh at me when I start a sentence and then can’t remember either the rest of it or the key word I wanted at the time I wanted to say it!

Matthew Wood says that sage acts on veins which are depressed and relaxed. Sage also acts on clotted blood. He says he learned of this use from the herbalist Eva Graf. She used it to cleanse blood vessels, remove plaque or hardening, for varicose veins and for diabetic ulcerations of the veins, especially the calves.

This use is something I haven’t tried yet, but I’m tempted to make an oil and see what happens if I add it to horse chestnut oil as a varicose vein salve.

Sage is a potent anti-viral. Like many febrifuges, it encourages sweating when taken as a hot tea, but is cooling when drunk cold. You can make a sage tincture using the simpler method by adding vodka or brandy to a glass jar filled with fresh sage.

Medical herbalist, Jenny Jones, recently demonstrated how to make this tincture at the Herb Society’s Volunteers Day. She recommended not filling the jar completely to the top with vodka as the alcohol would draw water out of the sage leaves. Jenny suggested taking a 30-drop dose three times of day at the first sign of any cold or flu. If you were using a higher percentage alcohol, the drop dose would be much lower.

Sage also acts to dry up secretions, which is why it is so effective for chest and throat issues and can help to alleviate hot flushes of menopause. It can also help to dry up unwanted milk production and has even been known to delay the onset of menstruation by a couple of days if extremely large amounts are taken.

Sage should be safe to take in culinary amounts if you are pregnant or nursing, but it may well be prudent not to use sage medicinally during these times.

I have to be honest and admit sage is not one of my most favourite flavours in tea on its own, but I love the combination of sage and thyme. This year I experimented with a sage and thyme elixir which tastes wonderful.

Sage and Thyme Elixir
Pick enough fresh sage leaves and flowering thyme sprigs to half fill a glass jar. You could use dried sage or thyme, but reduce the volume by three-quarters. Cover with runny honey, stirring well with a chopstick to remove any air bubbles and make sure the herbs are completely covered. Fill to the top with brandy and mix well. Seal with a screw top lid. Label and date. Store in a cool dark place for 4-6 weeks. Strain, bottle and use. Dose is one dropperful every half hour at the first sign of a virus.

Sage also makes an amazing vinegar. I suspect the soil sage is grown in affects the colour which is transferred to the vinegar. My clay-grown garden purple sage only turns vinegar a pale pink, although the taste is good. My aunt’s sage plants, grown on alkaline Cotswold limestone, turn the vinegar a deep crimson within half an hour of being infused. This is why I have been raiding her plants annually for the past three years!

Sage Vinegar
Fill a glass jar with sage leaves. Pour over cider vinegar until the jar is full. Remove air bubbles with a chopstick, then refill with more cider vinegar. Seal the jar with a screwtop lid and label and date. Store in a warm, dark place for three weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain and bottle, label and date. Use with honey for a delightful hot drink or in salad dressings.

Sage Honey
Fill a glass jar with sage leaves. Very slowly, pour runny honey over the leaves, pausing regularly to remove air bubbles by stirring with a chopstick. When the jar is full, seal with a screwtop lid and leave to infuse for several weeks. Strain before use if you don’t fancy eating the sage leaves.

My sage honey and vinegar have now been infusing since the end of August. I’m looking forward to decanting them this weekend and trying out my first sage oxymel. That’s the wonderful thing about herbs. It doesn’t matter how many herbal products you have made with a particular plant, there are always more to experiment with and try.

Being passionate in public

I was going to write about actually spending a week without doing anything herbal, but I realised that wasn't the case - it was just my memory failing me!

I had two evenings to myself last week while Chris went down to the farm to do more work on our ancient caravan. It's a 1957 Paladin Buccaneer which his parents bought from new. They towed it all round Scotland and half of Europe. We took it over in 1987 with the proviso there might be "a little bit of damp rot in the one corner". When Chris and my father started taking it apart, the whole framework crumbled to dust and had to be completely rebuilt. Inside we also put a large fridge, eye-level (if you're very small) grill and a three burner hob which has enabled to me to provide several 3-course meals for 11 people. It's the only one of its kind still on the road.

Two years after rebuilding, we then had one of the wheels sheer off on the motorway, so that was another building project, with a new shassy and floor, but still our wonderful caravan. It has returned to Scotland, when 6 of us slept inside during one night at Loch Lomand (Kathryn was in her carrycot on the sink!) and spent twenty years trundling down to Cornwall and various other amazing places. The kids soon graduated to beds in the awning and then tents of their own, but now we have it all to ourselves which enables us to keep the double bed set up and still have a table to sit at and admire the view.

Two years ago the skylight started to leak into the sink and we noticed that when there was torrential rain there would be a slight damp patch on our jumpers in the top of the wardrobee. Chris decided this winter would be a restorative one, so once again the roof has been removed, new insulation laid and everything re-sealed within an inch of it's life! He's now at the rubbing down stage prior to starting painting this week, so it will be ready to take to Exmouth at the end of May.

So, while he was busy re-sealing the caravan roof in the Cotswolds, I took advantage of his absence to make another mess on the kitchen table. On Wednsday night, there was very little debris as I merely heated up the dandelion flower and leaf oil I'd made on Sunday with beeswax to make a wonderful yellow salve. It even smells faintly of dandelion flowers!

On Thursday night, after teaching my piano pupils, it was nettle tincture and the nettle/apricot/orange peel iron tonic I was decanting. The tincture was poured into an old malt whiskey bottle with a label to discourage people from thinking there might still be something aromatic inside! The iron tonic was a beautiful red colour from the mixture of red wine and madiera. (I can never write or say madiera without thinking of Michael Flander's wonderful inebriated rake in the song "Have some madiera, m'dear!". I knew the song before the wine!) The tonic dregs tasted good and so did the infused apricot pieces.

I made the iron tonic for my niece, Jennifer, who suffered really badly with anaemia last year. I was expecting to be able to give it to her during the family party in Surrey to celebrate her mother's 50th birthday, but she was busy playing corfball in Cardiff and didn't attend, so I don't know when she'll get it. Her grandmother also muttered darkly that her anaemia was "not the usual kind", so I don't know if it will be useful or not. The family all treat my herbal exploits with grave suspicion, so I doubt it will be viewed with any degree of seriousness, which is a shame, because it's Christopher Hedley's recipe so I know it would be efficacious.

During the party, I happened to mention something about nettle soup, which drew the attention of a group of my sister-iin-law's friends, who asked what it tasted like. I made my usual suggestions (i.e. it depends what other vegetables and herbs you cook it with) and then began to tell them all about nettles and how the different parts can be used for different things in different forms. One of them commented on my passion for my subject and I realised it was true. I only have to be given the opportunity to wax lyrical about herbs and I can bore people for hours!

One of the friends asked for suggestions for irritable bowel, so I mentioned marshmallow and slippery elm. None of them had heard of the latter and thought I was talking about a new breed of owl! Interestingly, when I got home, Henriette's email list was discussing management of this painful and debilitating condition and there were many really useful suggestions. I may put it all together and send it to him.

One woman found that a few drops of her bramble root vinegar really dealt with the pain she was suffering from. My first batch of this vinegar is now awaiting straining, which may actually happen this weekend as Sunday is amazingly free of commitments! I'm really looking forward to seeing if it can help my difficult times when my stomach decides it doesn't love me any more!

I do hope the warmer weather arrives soon. I did go out on Thursday evening when I got home from work to look at the new herbs I planted last Sunday evening, but they showed little change and I could only see one of the two black cohosh - which was a little worrying! I am determined not to put slug pellets down this year as the frogs are already in the garden and I don't want to risk hurting them. I shall be very upset if the slugs eat everything!