Pick up any cake recipe and it will tell you to prepare the cake tin before you start measuring or mixing ingredients. You wonder why until you’ve ignored the instructions a few times and realise how annoying it is to arrive at the time when you pour the cake mixture into the tin and it isn’t there. Then you have to mess around with cake tins, greaseproof paper and scissors when your hands are covered with flour and fruit and other odd bits.
It’s the same with herbs. You’ve gather large amounts of various herbs and you need glass jars to put them in so each herb has its own jar in which to macerate and you realise that there aren’t any empty jars around. Or you’ve made a wonderful syrup and you need more than one bottle to store it in.
Several times this year, when I’ve scheduled a particular amount of time to sort out herbs or tinctures or dried herbs, I’ve had to spend the first hour finding jars, washing them and then scrubbing off the label. This process can make me very frustrated! However, if you can approach the washing and de-labelling task without gnashing your teeth, you do end up with a load of sparkling glass with their attendant lids ready for their next appointment with a herb or its extraction.
Do be careful if you’re washing jars and lids which have contained strong smelling items like Branston pickle or mango chutney. Make sure you wash both items until the smell is removed. Sometimes a single hand wash is not enough. You don’t want your herbal product tainted with curry or something similar!
It is best to take the label off before you put a jar or bottle inside the dishwasher, if you use one, because the washing process will only remove part of the label, which then gets lodged in the filter and bakes the rest more firmly onto the glass. If you are methodical, you can put each jar in a series of hot water baths (plastic jugs are good).
Most glues will dissolve or start to dissolve after 30 minutes or so. At this point the label will either peel away completely or you can rub gently with a wire saucepan scrubber and some washing up liquid until the glue is completely removed.
Sometimes you need to score the paper to allow the hot water to reach the glue. Some modern glues are vicious and won’t dissolve no matter how long you leave them. These will respond to brute force and washing up liquid, but you have to rub away like crazy until all the patches of glue are removed, otherwise you are left with sticky globules which are not aesthetically pleasing!
If a jar has a label both back and front, both need to be removed, otherwise you can fall into the “Can you bring me the mustard, it’s in the coffee jar” trap.
I once had to snatch a jar of St John’s wort oil from an unsuspecting workshop participant who was about to pour it into her herb tea. The oil was in a honey jar and I hadn’t removed the honey label! We all laughed about it at the time, but it would have been dreadful if she had poured it into her tea and then drank it!
The moral of the story is: you might know exactly what is in every jar or bottle, but unless you live in total isolation, you need to ensure there are ways for other people who may come in contact with those items to be sure what they are handling is really what it says on the label.
Everyone has their favourite jar or bottle in which to store a particular item. I tend to use 1lb or 2lb clear glass jars for my dried herbs, covering the most fragile herbs with brown paper bags to exclude light. Tinctures I am trying to ensure go into green or brown glass jars. Oils go into clear glass jars, as do vinegars. I love putting syrups into salad dressing or oil bottles or the 'one glass' wine bottles. Somehow it makes them look more official that way.
Where do you get all these glass jars and bottles from? I hear you ask. Most of them have been household items I’ve kept after using – large and small honeys jars, sauce jars etc. Every time we go and stay at a hotel which provides jams and marmalade in individual glass jars, I make a point of asking for any spares.
The last time we stayed at a hotel in Cheltenham during the February Folk Festival, I came back with 16 little jars which I’ve only just got around to cleaning out and washing. Now I feel secure in having sufficient jars to use for salves – mostly for workshops, but some to give away to family and friends when needed. Pickled mussel jars from the chippie are another great source of beautiful glassware in which to display larger amounts of salve.
Just occasionally I will buy glass items which are specific to requirements, but only if I can’t obtain them through any other form of recycling. A recent purchase was dropper bottles. They were handy to carry around during my recent cold and it didn’t look too strange dosing myself with a dropperful of elixir every half hour. I could have done it with a teaspoon, but the dose is more accurate and when you’re ill, you want to make things as easy as possible!
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Quince – A Tale of Abundance
Many authors mention the ancient nature of the quince tree, Cydonia oblonga. They refer to biblical references about apples actually referring to quince, showing how the fruit of this small, deciduous tree has been valued for thousands of years.
I first came across quince when my friend, Jean, who was my child-minder for many years when Stephen and Kathryn were small, talked about making quince jelly for Christmas. My second experience was at a
Quince is related to both apples and pears. The five-petalled flower is pink tinged and as the year progresses, it turns into a small, green, lemon shaped fruit which eventually grows into a large yellow aromatic pear.
During my tree’s first year, the flowers dropped off and the leaves drooped. It wasn’t happy. Over the following years, it grew in size and always flowered, but produced no fruits.
This year was different. During one summer visit, I discovered a small fruit forming and was overjoyed. The next month, my father asked if I had seen my five quinces. This time I took pictures to record the momentous event.
At the end of October, one of the quinces had fallen off onto the floor, so we knew they were ripe to pick. The five quinces were reverently laid in a basket and more pictures taken. Then we brought them home and left them in the cool section of the fridge to wait until I could concentrate on turning them into jelly and cheese.
It would have been better if I had stored them in a cool, dark, dry place as they would have kept indefinitely. One of quinces was starting to go bad when I took them out of the fridge.
Surprisingly, Mrs Beeton doesn’t have any recipes for quince jelly, neither does the 1960s picture version of Good Housekeeping (my mother’s standard cookbook). I knew I’d seen recipes in my Good Housekeeping cookbook which I’ve had since before we were married, so even in the 1970s, people were using quinces.
I found another recipe on The Cottage Smallholder website which suggested cooking the quinces for many hours and using the juice for jelly and the flesh for cheese, which she referred to by its Italian name, membrillo. In the end, I used a combination of both recipes which yielded around 4lbs of cheese and 5lbs of jelly – not a bad quantity from 5 quinces!
Quince Jelly and Cheese
Wash the quinces. Chop into small pieces using a sharp, heavy knife as they’re very hard. I cored mine as I didn’t want the pips in the cheese, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to peel them either. Add the juice and grated peel of two large lemons. Cover them with cold water (I used 3 pints of water for 5 quinces). Bring to the boil and simmer on the lowest heat until the quince flesh is tender (between one and three hours). Strain.
You should use a jelly bag and strain overnight to ensure the jelly is cloudless. I didn’t have the appropriate equipment so I strained the juice into a plastic bowl and left it for a couple of hours so all the sediment fell to the bottom. Then I measured the juice and poured it back into the cleaned saucepan after I’d finished making the cheese, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the bowl.
Add 1lb granulated sugar to each pint of quince juice. Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved stirring with a wooden spoon continuously. Then heat to a rolling boil for ten minutes. Spoon several spoonfuls of jelly on to a pyrex saucer and place in the freezer to cool for 5 minutes. Keep doing this every five minutes until the jelly has a wrinkled skin over the top of it when you gently push it back with your finger nail. This is the setting point. Take the saucepan off the heat and pour jelly into sterilised glass jars heated in a low oven for ten minutes. Seal with jampot covers.
To make the cheese, place the quince flesh with a small amount of liquid in a liquidiser until you have a puree. Weigh the puree and return it to the saucepan with an equal weight of granulated sugar. (5 quinces produced 2 1/4lbs of puree and 2 ½ pints juice.) Cook on the lowest heat, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick or burn for another couple of hours. (I went away to start writing a new short story and returned for a stir every 15-20 minutes and it was fine.)
The cheese will turn a deep crimson and have the consistency of a thick soup you can stand a spoon up in. Apparently membrillo is cut into slices, so to achieve that consistency you need to cook it for at least three to five hours. I only cooked mine for two. You don’t need to cook at a rolling boil because you aren’t looking for a setting point. When the cheese is thick enough for your liking, pour into sterilised glass jars and cover in the usual way.
The cheese has a slightly gritty texture because of the stone cells which are also found in pears. It tastes aromatic and unique and very moreish! I’m looking forward to trying it with feta or other salty Greek cheeses. The jelly tastes very much like an aromatic pear and will be wonderful as an accompaniment to meat, cheese or just spread on toast.
Apparently the energetic properties of quince are linked to purification, protection and exorcism, but I prefer to look to the energies associated with apple – abundance. Quince is a veritable cornucopia and I am so pleased the tree has finally gifted me with its fruit.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
My first award and other excitement!
Debs Cook, who writes Herbaholic's Herbarium kindly awarded me the Uber Amazing award last week, which was a wonderful surprise. I love knowing that other people read my blog and enjoy sharing the information and experiences I post about.
The rules of this award are:-
* Put the award logo on your blog or post (right click on award, save as)
* Nominate at least 1 blog that you consider to be Uber Amazing!
* Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog
* Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.
I'm going to nominate Tammy from The Witchen Kitchen Beginner Herbal for inspiring me to try making herbal products I hadn't thought of before and Cathy from Growing Curious who isn't afraid to mix emotions with her developing knowledge of the growing world.
I have another piece of exciting news I wanted to share. My first book of poetry was published by Romance Divine on Friday 8 November. It's very rare for poems to find a publisher, so I'm grateful to Greg Causey for giving me the opportunity to share my poetry more widely.
The book is available as an ebook, a paperback and an audio CD featuring my dulcet tones(!) reading and singing plus my daughter, Kathryn, playing a couple of my tunes on her flute. You can find it on http://www.romancedivine.com/AtHomeAndAway.html if you're interested in purchasing a copy. The paperback is also available on Amazon.com
Email me at sarah@headology.co.uk if you're interested in details of my other published books, which include an Arthurian Romance, an Iron Age romance and a book of short stories from the dark side!
Friday, 31 October 2008
Song for Samhain
Remembering the dead
“They will always be there, it is our sight that grows weaker”
Drummer beat the measure slow
Soft the pipes let horns sound low
Then rise to greet all those who come
Drawn now towards us by the drum.
All around they wait for those
Whose sight has faded with their woe
Who cannot hear the loved one’s call
Who weep for those who went before
We bear their love, their pride, their joy
Upon ourselves until that day
When, as the sparks, we too will rise
To join our loved ones in the skies
Then beat the drum and blow the horn
Remember we are always one
With those before and those to come
A universe of light and love.
SJH 1995
At this time of year, when the earth is preparing for the long sleep of winter, I find it helpful to spend time thinking of endings and beginnings. All change is scary, but it is the one constant factor of our lives. Nothing stays the same, no matter how much we wish it to do so.
So many times I find myself paralyzed considering what may happen or what needs to be done, only bringing myself back to normality by realising I don’t have to worry about that particular event or issue at this moment in time. What is important now is what is happening now or what needs to happen to enable me to do the next small thing which has to be completed in the immediate future.
Herbs are great allies in helping me focus. Not just medicinally when I’m feeling emotionally fragile or stressed, but reading or thinking about them helps to calm me down after dealing with a difficult situation.
Last Tuesday night I decided to pamper myself with a long, hot bath after a draining four hour car journey following a workshop where I’d been on my feet for most of the day. My brain decided to target a particularly frustrating argument I wouldn’t be able to engage in and I found myself becoming increasingly agitated rather than relaxed!
Then, out of the blue, I suddenly realised I did have the ingredients to make a nettle and rose petal cordial I’ve been wanting to try for two years. I was so happy, all the negative emotions completely disappeared and I felt sufficiently content and relaxed to fall asleep once I got into bed.
For the second year running, I have no special celebrations to attend this weekend, but I know many family members will be dropping by. There are two large bags of nettle and horseradish roots waiting to be scrubbed clean and processed along with five huge, yellow quinces – the first harvest from my quince tree.
I wish you all a peaceful and contemplative Celtic New Year as we travel together into another new season.
“They will always be there, it is our sight that grows weaker”
Drummer beat the measure slow
Soft the pipes let horns sound low
Then rise to greet all those who come
Drawn now towards us by the drum.
All around they wait for those
Whose sight has faded with their woe
Who cannot hear the loved one’s call
Who weep for those who went before
We bear their love, their pride, their joy
Upon ourselves until that day
When, as the sparks, we too will rise
To join our loved ones in the skies
Then beat the drum and blow the horn
Remember we are always one
With those before and those to come
A universe of light and love.
SJH 1995
At this time of year, when the earth is preparing for the long sleep of winter, I find it helpful to spend time thinking of endings and beginnings. All change is scary, but it is the one constant factor of our lives. Nothing stays the same, no matter how much we wish it to do so.
So many times I find myself paralyzed considering what may happen or what needs to be done, only bringing myself back to normality by realising I don’t have to worry about that particular event or issue at this moment in time. What is important now is what is happening now or what needs to happen to enable me to do the next small thing which has to be completed in the immediate future.
Herbs are great allies in helping me focus. Not just medicinally when I’m feeling emotionally fragile or stressed, but reading or thinking about them helps to calm me down after dealing with a difficult situation.
Last Tuesday night I decided to pamper myself with a long, hot bath after a draining four hour car journey following a workshop where I’d been on my feet for most of the day. My brain decided to target a particularly frustrating argument I wouldn’t be able to engage in and I found myself becoming increasingly agitated rather than relaxed!
Then, out of the blue, I suddenly realised I did have the ingredients to make a nettle and rose petal cordial I’ve been wanting to try for two years. I was so happy, all the negative emotions completely disappeared and I felt sufficiently content and relaxed to fall asleep once I got into bed.
For the second year running, I have no special celebrations to attend this weekend, but I know many family members will be dropping by. There are two large bags of nettle and horseradish roots waiting to be scrubbed clean and processed along with five huge, yellow quinces – the first harvest from my quince tree.
I wish you all a peaceful and contemplative Celtic New Year as we travel together into another new season.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Blackberry cordial
Debs asked for a blackberry cordial recipe. Here's what I've come up with.
I’ve been looking at Kings Dispensary on Henriette’s site and come up with this recipe as something fairly easy to make as a blackberry cordial.
1lb blackberries
1oz cinnamon (in sticks or powdered)
1oz cloves (whole or powdered)
1 inch root ginger (grated)
1lb honey/sugar
¼ pt alcohol
Cover blackberries with smallest amount of water. Add prepared spices and simmer for 20 minutes. Mash blackberries, strain and measure liquid (should be around 1pint). Clean saucepan, pour liquid back into saucepan together with 1lb honey or sugar per pint of liquid. Heat gently, stirring until honey is dissolved. Add 1/4pint of alcohol of choice. Pour into hot, sterile bottles, seal. Label and date.
Alternative method
The original King’s recipe called for the spices to be percolated in alcohol separately and blackberry juice to be added to syrup together with purified talcum! It might be fun to try making the syrup a different way.
Prepare separate tinctures of ginger, cloves and cinnamon. (i.e. fill small glass jar with single spice, cover with vodka, remove air bubbles, refill with alcohol, cover with screw top lid, place in dark, cool, cupboard for three weeks shaking occasionally, then strain and bottle, label and date.)
Pick large bowl of blackberries (2-3lbs). Squeeze fruit until 1 pint of juice is obtained.
Prepare 1 pint of syrup by dissolving 1lb sugar or honey in 1 pint water. Cool.
Add syrup to blackberry juice then add 1 fluid oz of each of three spice tinctures. Stir well. Bottle in sterilised containers, label and date.
Dose (1/2 -1 fluid oz)
I’ve been looking at Kings Dispensary on Henriette’s site and come up with this recipe as something fairly easy to make as a blackberry cordial.
1lb blackberries
1oz cinnamon (in sticks or powdered)
1oz cloves (whole or powdered)
1 inch root ginger (grated)
1lb honey/sugar
¼ pt alcohol
Cover blackberries with smallest amount of water. Add prepared spices and simmer for 20 minutes. Mash blackberries, strain and measure liquid (should be around 1pint). Clean saucepan, pour liquid back into saucepan together with 1lb honey or sugar per pint of liquid. Heat gently, stirring until honey is dissolved. Add 1/4pint of alcohol of choice. Pour into hot, sterile bottles, seal. Label and date.
Alternative method
The original King’s recipe called for the spices to be percolated in alcohol separately and blackberry juice to be added to syrup together with purified talcum! It might be fun to try making the syrup a different way.
Prepare separate tinctures of ginger, cloves and cinnamon. (i.e. fill small glass jar with single spice, cover with vodka, remove air bubbles, refill with alcohol, cover with screw top lid, place in dark, cool, cupboard for three weeks shaking occasionally, then strain and bottle, label and date.)
Pick large bowl of blackberries (2-3lbs). Squeeze fruit until 1 pint of juice is obtained.
Prepare 1 pint of syrup by dissolving 1lb sugar or honey in 1 pint water. Cool.
Add syrup to blackberry juice then add 1 fluid oz of each of three spice tinctures. Stir well. Bottle in sterilised containers, label and date.
Dose (1/2 -1 fluid oz)
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Sing the Song of Harvest
A Song for Mabon
Summer glories are past
Autumn fruits here at last
Here's a health to the land and the flocks
As the evenings draw in
Let us gather our kin
Singing praises for harvest and crops
Singing praises for harvest and crops
Now the apples shine bright
And the nuts are all ripe
Here's a health to the trees and the briars
As the light equals dark
Let us all strike a spark
Singing praises for wood, copse and hedge
Singing praises for wood, copse and hedge
Mother Elder stands firm
Berries black on her stems
Here's a health to the herbs and the flowers
As the sun looses heat
So we gather to meet
Singing praises for plants, wild and free
Singing praises for plants, wild and free
Now the leaves are on fire
As we gather in byres
Here's a health for the harvest and crops
As we all eat our fill
Please recall if you will
To sing praises and thanks for the year
To sing praises and thanks for the year
Sarah J Head , September 2004
Growing up on a small arable farm in the heart of English countryside, harvest conjures up furiously-busy August days, golden severed stubble, dust laden cereals and barley hales sticking to everything. September and October herald a very different kind of gathering with splashes of colour emblazoning hedgerows.
In past years I gathered bright red haws and black elderberries during the August Bank Holiday and the first weekend in September, but this year, whilst haws were ripe both in field and garden; elderberries were still green and hard. I had to be content with putting up hawthorn brandy and vinegar and trust my parents would find time to gather elderberries for me whilst I was half way across the world enjoying myself.
Ever since I started working with herbs, elderberries have been one of my most important harvests. For two years I spent the first weekend in September at the Bristol Kite Festival. When not watching amazing kite teams like The Decorators with their eight revolution kites, I was sitting by the caravan stripping berries from their stalks and then squeezing juice into a plastic bowl by twisting them around inside a length of old cotton sheet ready to make Non Shaw’s elderberry rob. I always wondered what other festival goers made of my purple stained cloth and fingers!
Elderberries are a wonderful way to introduce people to making their own herbal medicine. At my September workshop last year, a new participant was greeted by having a bowl of elderberries thrust into her arms together with a fork and she spent the next half hour happily stripping berries ready to make Kiva Rose’s elderberry elixir. She was also given a handout with several recipes for different cordials to take home with her.
She emailed me the following week saying she had gone out and picked her own supply of elderberries from trees nearby and made a cordial which she had taken into work to treat her colleagues’ dreadful colds. She said everyone had been very grateful and impressed by how well the elderberry worked to make them feel better.
The elixir prepared in September’s sunshine was distributed to women who came to my first home workshop in November. Everyone loved the taste so much; there were grumbles about the dosage being only one dropperful at a time!
Elderberry Rob 1
from ‘The Countryside Cook Book’ by Gail Duff.
1.8kg (4lbs) elderberries, weighed on stemtwo 5cm (2inch) pieces cinnamon stick1 piece ginger root bruised2 chips nutmeg5ml (1 teaspoon) allspice berries5ml (1teaspoon) cloves275ml (1 ½ pint water)350g (12 oz) honey to each 375-ml (1 pint) liquid150ml (1/4 pint) brandyTake the elderberries from the stalks. Put them into a saucepan with the spices and water. Bring them gently to the boil and simmer them until the pan is full of juice, about 20 minutes. Put a piece of muslin or an old linen tea towel over a large bowl. Pour the elderberries through it. Gather the sides together and squeeze out as much juice as you can. Measure it and return to the cleaned saucepan. Bring the juice to the boil and add the honey. Stir for it to dissolve and then boil the syrup for 10 minutes. Take the pan from the heat and wait until the syrup stops bubbling. Pour in the brandy. Pour the hot cordial into hot sterilised bottles and cork it tightly. Fills about 1 ½ wine bottles.
Elderberry Rob 2
This elderberry rob recipe is from Non Shaw's book, "Herbalism: An Illustrated Guide". Her method is "Take a quantity of elderberries and strip them off their stalks with a fork. Press out the juice using a wine press or jelly bag" I usually put them into a large piece of clean used cotton sheet and twist one end around until you can't squeeze out any more. This is a very tactile experience and you shouldn't use or wear anything you don't mind getting stained purple from the juice! "Add 1tsp allspice and 1/2 tsp ginger (optional) per 2 pints of liquid in a heavy bottomed pan" (preferably stainless steel or glass)"Reduce over a low heat until the juice is the consistency of molasses. Bottle and store in a cool place. Dose: Take 1tsp in a cup of hot water daily." I like this recipe because it doesn't use any sugar or honey and therefore is suitable for people with diabetes either type 1 or 2.
Elderberry Syrup
From Roger Phillips’ Wild Food Simmers the berries for 30 minutes and then add 1lb sugar and 10 cloves to each pint of juice. Boil for 10 minutes and allow to cool. Freeze in small quantites or pack in small, screw-top sterilized bottles.
Elderberry Cordial
Barbara Grigson, in her book "The Greenwitch: A Modern Woman's Herbal" gives a very simple recipe for spiced elderberry cordial which I like. "Wash and destalk the berries. Put 2lbs of them in a pan with a cupful of water and simmer until they have given up most of their juice. Crush and strain the berries through a seive. Put the juice back in a saucepan with five cloves, an inch or so of fresh root ginger, grated and 1/2 lb of sugar. Simmer for another hour and then store in tightly sealed jars."I strain my cordial before bottling. I either add it to a "cold tea" or my cough syrup or have it by itself if I remember!
Last year I made jars and jars of elderberry tincture and cordial which are still waiting to be used in the larder. For some reason we weren’t afflicted with the usual winter diseases! I know I have two boxes of elderberries waiting for me in my parents’ freezer so I shall be trying Kiva Rose’s new recipe for elderberry elixir at the workshop in November or before.
My other hopes for late harvest include blackberry syrup and nettle root tincture. All I need now is the time to forage amongst the hedgerows and dig deep into the earth, ever grateful for her miraculous bounty.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Honouring the Ants
In three days time I shall be journeying skywards to the hopefully sunnier climes of West Coast USA. It is nearly seven years since I last visited Oregon and thirteen years since I last set foot upon Californian soil. It will be good to be going back and smelling the eucalyptus trees again and hearing the thunder of the Pacific Ocean.
So much to do and so little time to do it! After the emotional turmoil of my parents’ frailty and trying to do something to celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary and my mother’s 80th birthday, all I could think about was processing the last of my herbs just in case something dreadful happened to them while I was away.
It struck me, as I was sitting on the patio last Saturday nursing my aching back and diligently transferring dried herbs into glass jars, that I don’t have free weekends. If I’m at home and not committed to public healing or doing some writing, I’m decanting tinctures or vinegars or sorting out dried herbs or making oils or syrups. I made a huge issue last year that it had taken me a whole day in October to process the dried calendula and all the other dried herbs, yet this year I must have dedicated at least three entire weekends to herbal products, not to mention the countless evenings after work cooking double infused oils or finishing off syrup evaporations before adding the honey or sugar.
I’m a terrible one for lists. I make notes of how many words I’ve written per story or story segment and how long it’s taken me to write them. Somehow I find it comforting to notice that a story which was only 5,000 words a few months ago has now expanded to 25,000 and if I add up other portions of each character’s tale, I might have enough for a book if I can just find the time to finish it!
I’ve started doing the same with herbs. Not content with keeping a herbal diary this year, I’ve now put together a spreadsheet to show what I’ve done with each herb. So far this year, out of 85 different plants I have dried 43, made 24 different double infused oils and one sun-infused oil, 33 different tinctures, 14 infused vinegars, 3 infused honeys, and 7 combination syrups. I haven’t made any flower essences for myself, but people who have attended workshops have made 13 different kinds of flower remedy. It’s no wonder there is no room in my larder for food, most of the shelves are completely taken over by herbal products!
If you are thinking of harvesting and storing your herbs, here are some hints and tips to help you make the most of them.
Harvesting
Pick your herbs after the dew has gone from them and before the midday sun has stressed them. Some herbs need to be picked before they flower e.g. lemon balm, mint, while others need to be picked when they flower e.g. boneset, motherwort. Others can be picked whenever you need them such as comfrey, marshmallow, plantain. (see tables)
Drying
Drying is possibly the easiest way to preserve herbs either to keep throughout the winter or until you decided what you would like to do with your harvest. Drying takes some thought and preparation to achieve the best results.
If you have a warm airy room away from the light, you can hang your herbs up in small bunches until they are dry and leave them as intact as you can for as long as you can. If you have a spare bedroom, both the bed and the floor space can be utilised for laying out your herbs on sheets of newspaper or an old cotton sheet. Cover them with another sheet or newspaper and leave until dry.
If you have a warm space to hang your herbs but you can’t keep out the light, put your herbs inside a paper bag and hang the bag up. If you are drying lavender or any other plant which is likely to shed seeds once dried e.g. heartsease, it is much easier to dry it inside a paper bag rather than have the seeds or heads fall off so you lose a significant part of your harvest.
If your herbs might contain moisture e.g. elderflowers, it is much better to dry them flat and separate on a sheet of paper, rather than altogether in a paper bag where mould may grow. It is heartbreaking to lose your entire harvest because it has grown mouldy.
Never be tempted to pick leaves which have even a touch of mildew on them. The mildew will grow during the drying process and your harvest will be worthless.
Some people buy a purpose built desiccators or make one. These can be used to dry fruit as well as herbs.
There will be times when the herbs you pick are wet. You will then need to decide whether you air dry them, by laying them flat somewhere or put them next to or in a heat source. Always try to use the lowest heat setting you can. You are aiming to dry the herbs, not cook them.
If you are collecting seeds, it is worth spending the extra time preparing them properly. Haws can be dried whole. Nettle seeds should be either hung up in bunches whilst still on the stems or laid flat on newspaper. Rosehips should be split in half and the seeds and pitch removed before drying. NB The insides of rosehips are irritating to the skin and used to be used as itching powder!
Both hips and haws need a heat source to dry properly unless you are living in hot country. If you have a hot water tank or a cupboard where hot water pipes run through or radiators which warm up regularly, you can place the seeds there. Leave for a month or more before you remove them to see if they are properly dry.
Roots need to be thoroughly washed (i.e. scrub with a scrubbing brush, wash, scrub and wash again) and cut into 1” sections before drying. If the root is thick, cut it in half. Roots are probably best dried in the bottom of the oven on the lowest heat setting or pilot light, ensuring air can circulate all round them. Leave the oven door slightly open during the drying to allow the moisture to escape. Dry as slowly as you can and turn everything over from time to time to ensure evenness.
Storing
To make sure your herbs keep their “strength”, they should be stored in a cool, dark place in bottles or jars with screwtop lids. Ideally brown or green glass would be the most preferable, but since most jars are clear glass, you can overcome the problems of light by placing the jar inside a paper bag once it is full. This ensures the herb stays colourful and potent for up to a year and sometimes more.
If you have picked and dried the whole aerial part of the plant, you may need to remove the leaves and/or flowers from the main stem, since this might not be as dry as the other parts. Try to keep everything as whole as you can. Once you have crushed a leaf, all its aromatic oils will be lost and so will its efficacy.
Herbs with a great deal of moisture/resin take a while to dry (at least one month). Calendula flower heads are best dried whole, but the only part which is kept are the petals. Each petal has to be plucked from the centre and then stored in a glass jar. If exposed to the light, they will lose their colour very quickly, but if encased in a paper bag, they will still be vibrantly orange twelve months later.
Nettle seeds are best removed from the stem by passing through a metal sieves. This ensures you only get the seed and not the leaves or any other dried inhabitants.
Make sure your jars are labelled and dated correctly. Despite your best intentions, you may not be able to remember which leaf or flower was which and if you don’t have the correct date on it, you will not know whether the herb is 6 months or 18 months old.
Freezing
Some herbs such as lemon balm, St Johns wort and tarragon, have a very short shelf life when dried. It can be easier to store them by freezing the plants fresh from the garden rather than drying them. This also applies to cleavers, shepherds purse, chickweed and possibly heartsease. All these herbs lose vitality once they are dried and should be tinctured or infused into oil when they are fresh.
Place the fresh herb into a plastic freezer bag, remove the air and freeze until needed. If you want the herbs specifically for tea, you can chop the herbs (either by hand or in a coffee grinder), make the tea with less water than usual but do not strain out the herbal matter and then freeze the liquid in ice cube trays. This is an especially good way of making fresh mint sauce in the middle of winter!
Rotating your stock
Once you start keeping your own herbal supplies, you will need to monitor everything on a regular basis. If you use what you have harvested, the dried herbs will disappear, but if you have collected some “just in case” and you haven’t given it away to friends, family or passing salesmen, it will sit there until you decide to do something about it.
Most herbs, properly dried, will keep for at least twelve months and can be replaced by next year’s harvest. If you don’t gather that herb the next year for some reason then sometimes you can keep using the old stock, but use double quantities. Unless you have real need for a dried herb which is more than twelve months old, throw it out and compost it or give it to your local re-enactment society so they can have real herbs in their apothecary’s booth. Once a herb loses its colour or develops mould, remove it.
The wonderful thing about collecting your own herbal stock is that the herbs you need will be there when you want them. They will be better quality than those you can buy and they will be better for you because they have grown in the same environment in which you live.
So much to do and so little time to do it! After the emotional turmoil of my parents’ frailty and trying to do something to celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary and my mother’s 80th birthday, all I could think about was processing the last of my herbs just in case something dreadful happened to them while I was away.
It struck me, as I was sitting on the patio last Saturday nursing my aching back and diligently transferring dried herbs into glass jars, that I don’t have free weekends. If I’m at home and not committed to public healing or doing some writing, I’m decanting tinctures or vinegars or sorting out dried herbs or making oils or syrups. I made a huge issue last year that it had taken me a whole day in October to process the dried calendula and all the other dried herbs, yet this year I must have dedicated at least three entire weekends to herbal products, not to mention the countless evenings after work cooking double infused oils or finishing off syrup evaporations before adding the honey or sugar.
I’m a terrible one for lists. I make notes of how many words I’ve written per story or story segment and how long it’s taken me to write them. Somehow I find it comforting to notice that a story which was only 5,000 words a few months ago has now expanded to 25,000 and if I add up other portions of each character’s tale, I might have enough for a book if I can just find the time to finish it!
I’ve started doing the same with herbs. Not content with keeping a herbal diary this year, I’ve now put together a spreadsheet to show what I’ve done with each herb. So far this year, out of 85 different plants I have dried 43, made 24 different double infused oils and one sun-infused oil, 33 different tinctures, 14 infused vinegars, 3 infused honeys, and 7 combination syrups. I haven’t made any flower essences for myself, but people who have attended workshops have made 13 different kinds of flower remedy. It’s no wonder there is no room in my larder for food, most of the shelves are completely taken over by herbal products!
If you are thinking of harvesting and storing your herbs, here are some hints and tips to help you make the most of them.
Harvesting
Pick your herbs after the dew has gone from them and before the midday sun has stressed them. Some herbs need to be picked before they flower e.g. lemon balm, mint, while others need to be picked when they flower e.g. boneset, motherwort. Others can be picked whenever you need them such as comfrey, marshmallow, plantain. (see tables)
Drying
Drying is possibly the easiest way to preserve herbs either to keep throughout the winter or until you decided what you would like to do with your harvest. Drying takes some thought and preparation to achieve the best results.
If you have a warm airy room away from the light, you can hang your herbs up in small bunches until they are dry and leave them as intact as you can for as long as you can. If you have a spare bedroom, both the bed and the floor space can be utilised for laying out your herbs on sheets of newspaper or an old cotton sheet. Cover them with another sheet or newspaper and leave until dry.
If you have a warm space to hang your herbs but you can’t keep out the light, put your herbs inside a paper bag and hang the bag up. If you are drying lavender or any other plant which is likely to shed seeds once dried e.g. heartsease, it is much easier to dry it inside a paper bag rather than have the seeds or heads fall off so you lose a significant part of your harvest.
If your herbs might contain moisture e.g. elderflowers, it is much better to dry them flat and separate on a sheet of paper, rather than altogether in a paper bag where mould may grow. It is heartbreaking to lose your entire harvest because it has grown mouldy.
Never be tempted to pick leaves which have even a touch of mildew on them. The mildew will grow during the drying process and your harvest will be worthless.
Some people buy a purpose built desiccators or make one. These can be used to dry fruit as well as herbs.
There will be times when the herbs you pick are wet. You will then need to decide whether you air dry them, by laying them flat somewhere or put them next to or in a heat source. Always try to use the lowest heat setting you can. You are aiming to dry the herbs, not cook them.
If you are collecting seeds, it is worth spending the extra time preparing them properly. Haws can be dried whole. Nettle seeds should be either hung up in bunches whilst still on the stems or laid flat on newspaper. Rosehips should be split in half and the seeds and pitch removed before drying. NB The insides of rosehips are irritating to the skin and used to be used as itching powder!
Both hips and haws need a heat source to dry properly unless you are living in hot country. If you have a hot water tank or a cupboard where hot water pipes run through or radiators which warm up regularly, you can place the seeds there. Leave for a month or more before you remove them to see if they are properly dry.
Roots need to be thoroughly washed (i.e. scrub with a scrubbing brush, wash, scrub and wash again) and cut into 1” sections before drying. If the root is thick, cut it in half. Roots are probably best dried in the bottom of the oven on the lowest heat setting or pilot light, ensuring air can circulate all round them. Leave the oven door slightly open during the drying to allow the moisture to escape. Dry as slowly as you can and turn everything over from time to time to ensure evenness.
Storing
To make sure your herbs keep their “strength”, they should be stored in a cool, dark place in bottles or jars with screwtop lids. Ideally brown or green glass would be the most preferable, but since most jars are clear glass, you can overcome the problems of light by placing the jar inside a paper bag once it is full. This ensures the herb stays colourful and potent for up to a year and sometimes more.
If you have picked and dried the whole aerial part of the plant, you may need to remove the leaves and/or flowers from the main stem, since this might not be as dry as the other parts. Try to keep everything as whole as you can. Once you have crushed a leaf, all its aromatic oils will be lost and so will its efficacy.
Herbs with a great deal of moisture/resin take a while to dry (at least one month). Calendula flower heads are best dried whole, but the only part which is kept are the petals. Each petal has to be plucked from the centre and then stored in a glass jar. If exposed to the light, they will lose their colour very quickly, but if encased in a paper bag, they will still be vibrantly orange twelve months later.
Nettle seeds are best removed from the stem by passing through a metal sieves. This ensures you only get the seed and not the leaves or any other dried inhabitants.
Make sure your jars are labelled and dated correctly. Despite your best intentions, you may not be able to remember which leaf or flower was which and if you don’t have the correct date on it, you will not know whether the herb is 6 months or 18 months old.
Freezing
Some herbs such as lemon balm, St Johns wort and tarragon, have a very short shelf life when dried. It can be easier to store them by freezing the plants fresh from the garden rather than drying them. This also applies to cleavers, shepherds purse, chickweed and possibly heartsease. All these herbs lose vitality once they are dried and should be tinctured or infused into oil when they are fresh.
Place the fresh herb into a plastic freezer bag, remove the air and freeze until needed. If you want the herbs specifically for tea, you can chop the herbs (either by hand or in a coffee grinder), make the tea with less water than usual but do not strain out the herbal matter and then freeze the liquid in ice cube trays. This is an especially good way of making fresh mint sauce in the middle of winter!
Rotating your stock
Once you start keeping your own herbal supplies, you will need to monitor everything on a regular basis. If you use what you have harvested, the dried herbs will disappear, but if you have collected some “just in case” and you haven’t given it away to friends, family or passing salesmen, it will sit there until you decide to do something about it.
Most herbs, properly dried, will keep for at least twelve months and can be replaced by next year’s harvest. If you don’t gather that herb the next year for some reason then sometimes you can keep using the old stock, but use double quantities. Unless you have real need for a dried herb which is more than twelve months old, throw it out and compost it or give it to your local re-enactment society so they can have real herbs in their apothecary’s booth. Once a herb loses its colour or develops mould, remove it.
The wonderful thing about collecting your own herbal stock is that the herbs you need will be there when you want them. They will be better quality than those you can buy and they will be better for you because they have grown in the same environment in which you live.
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