Exciting news: Celebrating Herbs Festival 10-12 September

Chris and I are putting the finishing touches to the Herb Festival which will take place on the Sanctuary fields from 7pm Friday, 10 September 2010 to 5pm Sunday 12 September. Our keynote speaker is Anne McIntyre. There will be other talks and demonstrations throughout the weekend on all aspects of herbs from medicine to dyeing. Chris' kite team, Sky Symphony, will be displaying twice on Saturday and Sunday. There will be a kite workshop and stories for children, along with beginners archery. Each evening we will gather for music and stories, so bring your notebook, instrument and voice! To see the provisional programme go here

More rushing around!

After trips to Rotherham, Sheffield, Doncaster, Sandwell and Warrington over the past few weeks, we spent a wonderful weekend at the Festival at the Edge indulging in storytelling and folk singers. Monday was spent in London followed by two days at the Cruse conference held at the University of Warwick. Tomorrow we're off to Warwick Folk Festival to stay in the grounds of Stephen's old school and listen to lots of great singers, bands, morris sides and other amazing happenings. I shall still be working in my Birmingham office, but travelling to and from the caravan on Thursday, Friday and Monday.

Does such dashing around allow any time for herbs? Well, we had a glorious workshop on July 10th where we harvested nettle seed, white horehound, SJW, scullcap, lemon balm, sage, ox-eye daises, yarrow, meadowsweet, plantain and betony.

Since then I've put up some tinctures, made meadowsweet and plantain oils and given two herbal talks on roses (to the Mercian Herb Group) and summer herbs (to a residential home for older adults). The rain has reduced my picking to the odd sojourne with the garden SJW - adding to the oil infusing on the windowledge and a small jar of tincture tonight.

The ashwaghanda seedlings are maturing nicely in their pots. I know the online advice says they should be planted straight into the ground, but I dont' trust the slugs in my garden so I have ten plants in pots here and a further 6 in the Sanctuary main bed.

One of the interesting happenings this year has been the appearance of a strange root. I thought I'd inadvertantly dug up a marshmallow root, so I put it in a pot and forgot about it. When it started to grow in spring, it didn't look like anything I'd grown before, so I left it alone and watered it occassionally. It was really exciting when I realised that the root was actually butterfly weed or pleurisy root (Asclepias tuberosa). I first saw this plant growing in California two years ago and although I ordered two plants in two separate years, they'd both seemed to disappear. I'm really glad one has decided to re-appear and is flowering beautifully!

Summer is always a busy time, but soon we'll be off to Cornwall for a well-earned rest! Maybe then I'll have time to put together some new blog posts and prepare for the Herb Festival in September

If you're interested in collaborative poetry, check out my latest posting at Mercian Muse

The joys of harvest

After complaining about the lack of time to wildcraft in my last posting, the plants have had the last laugh. Everywhere I look something is either blooming or making its green profusion known for gathering before the flowers bloom.

Harvest began in earnest on 17 June when I wandered around the Priory field picking elderflowers to make into elderflower cordial for the workshop at the farm on June 19th. The recipe can be found here.

Cotswold nettles gathered during my visit on 15 May for tincture and vinegar while Chris was flying kites at the Bidford on Avon Steam Faire, were ready to cut again to make a cold water maceration for workshop participants to drink. I suspect I covered the nettles and a few sprigs of red clover with a little too much water as the resulting infusion was lighter than last year although it did deepen in colour as I reached the bottom of the bowl.

During the workshop we gathered catmint, white horehound, white hyssop, lemon balm and sage which are drying laid out on the sofa of the Sanctuary summerhouse. After everyone left, I picked some beautiful yarrow which was flowering next to the greenhouse.

The plants outside the glass were bright pink while those inside were the usual white of the wild plant. I have no idea what makes the flower change colour. I know the plants are both wild, because they transported themselves to that spot and my parents have never grown cultivars in the garden. I can only think it is something to do with nutrients in the soil. The flowers of farm marjoram is deep pink, almost crimson, while the majoram in my garden on acid, clay soil is always very pale pink.

On the Sunday afternoon, before I left for home, my father helped me pick elderflowers and red clover from the field by the bungalow and I plucked a small handful of dog rose petals – just to feel that I hadn't totally missed out on their beauty. Their scent was glorious!

Once home, the elderflowers were transformed into an elderflower water and a new citrus tincture with the remainder of the harvest were put to dry. The dogrose petals made a new elixir and roses from the garden were added to the garden rose elixir, which has a definite rose scented “kick”.

I used the red clover blossoms which my parents had so carefully picked to make an elixir and tincture and put the whole aerial parts on the table in my garden summerhouse to dry for tea.

The star of all this profusion has to be St John's wort. The first two flowers appeared on midsummer's day and I've picked a bowlful of flowers most days since then. Two full 2lb jars of oil are infusing on the kitchen window sill, two similar jars of tincture sit in the larder - the first one has already turned an amazing shade of red! - and a small jar of honey is infusing next to the oil. I can't remember harevsting so much St John's wort in so little time any other year!

Sean Donohoe inspired me in his article on restoration following heat stroke to make some Lemon balm elixir last weekend . It was one of our hottest days and I spent most of the time sitting in the shade under the apple tree. I've already gathered enough for two jars of tincture and Sunday's harvest was enough for both the elixir and a further jar of tincture.

I can thoroughly recommend a soothing cup of yarrow, plantain, lemon juice and St John's wort honey tea. I made one for myself using leaves growing in between our patio flagstones following a visit to the dentist for a large filling last Friday. As I get older, I find such visits more and more traumatising and normally I am laid out for the rest of the night once the anaesthetic wears off. Maybe it was the skill of my new dentist, but I had absolutely no pain or suffering at all! I think my herbal tea helped too!

So, what are the rest of you out there in the herbal world doing with your herbs at the moment? Are the plants flowering earlier or later than usual? Are they more or less prolific or do you feel the season is moving as it should?

Wildcraft frustration

There are times I envy those who dedicate their entire lives to herbs; who do not face the frustration of other commitments which eat up time and opportunity to respond as seasonal harvests approach.

My first panic attack occurs when pink-tinged hawthorn blossoms appear in hedges. Will there be time to seek out flowers and leaves to make tinctures or flavoured brandy or dry for teas? Things have been easier since we allowed part of our hedge to grow into unruly trees in our back garden. Each May sees them covered with pure white flowers and a small branch makes enough tincture to keep me in medicine for over twelve months.

It only takes half an hour to sit in sunshine and strip everything from the wood into two large glass jars to be covered in vodka and left to mature on the bottom shelf of the larder. This May I wandered into the garden one Sunday morning, still dressed in nightclothes to commune with my hawthorn before getting dressed and leaving to deliver training in Newcastle. Unfortunately we were too early for rose petals below the Angel of the North and no spare time to explore suitable hedgerows for anything else.

At the beginning of June we travelled to Exmouth for the annual kite flying festival. All the way down the M5, I caught tantalising glimpses of white elderflowers, waving ox-eye daisies and pink dog roses, but you can’t stop on a motorway and there are never any places to park a caravan along a quieter road, so I have learned not to remark on any abundance during a journey.

It’s the same if I pass a farm shop, craft market or pottery while we're on holiday. If I mention them to the driver, he will affect that seasonal disorder, “holiday deafness” which means he won’t affect to have heard me until we are at least two miles away from the facility when he will say, “Oh, did you want me to stop?” Of course if there is anything signposted for steam trains, kites, golf or chocolate factories, he will immediately stop the car, turn around and go back! (Before you ask, I’m not really interested in chocolate!)

At least in Exmouth, I knew I could gather some wild fennel and harvested yarrow and burdock leaves to tincture as well. There were no signs of elder trees on the estuary and I’d forgotten the bush overlooking the car park until we drove away, but I wouldn’t really have wanted to gather there.

Last Thursday saw me on a journey from London to Taunton gazing out of a train window at all the beautiful elder trees and dog rose bushes. I even noticed the deeper pink of briar rose bushes. At one point a huge buzzard rose up over a field with a freshly plucked rabbit in its talons! A wonderful reminder of the wild, secret life which continues as we pass by.

My plan was to scour our caravan site near Dunster for elderflowers and rose petals the following day while we prepared for my sister in law’s medieval wedding in the Tenants Hall at Dunster Castle on Saturday. I’d forgotten that most large caravan sites are heavily manicured - not an unruly hedge in sight and no sign of either an elder tree or a rose bush – very frustrating!

It didn’t help that Chris could only think about football and the wedding, so I was left to wander around gathering ivy from oak trees and willow fronds from beside the stream to make myself a circlet to go with my medieval costume for the evening banquet.

Now I will be shut up in my office for a week with piano pupils to teach after work and no time to explore the highways and byways until next weekend. Waiting for the train this morning, the elder tree in the hedge looked decidedly green after all the recent rain, so I can only hope there will be some blossoms left to harvest at the farm next weekend!

June Blog Parties - Calls for submissions

I don't know where May went to. Well, I do - a lot of it was spent on the M1 travelling "up north". The two weeks we were away seemed to stretch into at least a month of events and experiences. I missed both blog parties, which was upsetting as I had worked out what I wanted to write for both, but had no time or energy to transfer the words from my head onto the computer. Maybe those of you who read this blog could let me know if you would like to read my thoughts on speedwell and "Keeping yourself alive: sexuality in maturity". If so, I might post them later in the year.

The next UK Herbarium blog party will be hosted by Lucinda over at Whispering Earth. Her chosen subject is “Leaf and Blossom, Bark and Berry: My Favourite Tree Medicines“. Lucinda is flexible as to her definition of ‘tree’and shrubs such as crampbark and blackberry can be included. This is actually a good time to talk about crampbark because it is probably the only bark collected while the tree is flowering, usually, bark is harvested when trees are asleep.

If you haven’t joined the UK blog party before but would like to it’s easy; write a piece and add it to your blog and send Lucinda the link before the 20th June and she’ll add it to the list on her blog on the 20th. If you don’t have your own blog, if you send your post to Debs Cook as a word document to debs at herbal dash haven dot co dot uk. She will then add it as a guest post to the UK Herbarium blog.

The Herbwifery Forum International blog party for June is on the subject of "Beating the heat of summer" and will be hosted by Kristine Brown on her blog Dancing in a field of Tansy I might have trouble with this subject as I can't remember the last time we had a hot summer!

A fairy tale

Some of the folk over at Down to Earth Forum have been discussing anxiety - when it occurs and what can be helpful in managing the emotion. I asked if they knew the story of the soldier, the inn and the axe. It was one told me by my mother when I was a child - the moral being that it is never worth worrying about something which might never happen. Some people asked to be told the story, so I have written my own version from what I can remember and have posted it here.

April blog party: Herbs for aches and pains

This post is a belated addition to the April UK Herbarium blog party - better late than never!

It took me years to appreciate the subtleties of pain. My first insight came from discussing different methods of pain control during labour with an anaesthesiologist as part of a year long study of parentcraft classes offered by our local community midwifery services. We talked about relaxation techniques, drugs, tens machines and an innovative offering of acupuncture.

I knew about gas and air – it was my only pain relieve when my three children were born. Later I learned that pethidine was also a common form of pain relief offered at accident scenes and in ambulances with the dangers of addiction. Individuals would be blacklisted by the service if they appeared to be asking for the drug for very minor incidents.

Later, I became involved with facilitating patient feedback from a pain clinic. Once more there was a hierarchy of distraction, relaxation and acupuncture before the drugs and nerve blocks were offered. It is interesting that my sister has gained great benefit from the acupuncture offered at her local pain clinic in Derby, something she wasn’t expecting when it was first offered!

Some years ago I attended a lecture on pain management from the medical director of our local hospice when I started to become involved in the development of end of life services. He talked about the two different pain trees – aspirin and paracetamol /opiate derivatives and the importance of understanding the source of the pain before offering something to help the individual cope.

He also stressed the involvement of emotional and spiritual aspects to pain – something you don’t expect to hear about in a post-graduate lecture theatre – but which hospice doctors are often adept in discovering and helping with because they take time to talk to their patients and are not afraid to discuss the most difficult subjects. Even more importantly, they take time to listen.

It really should come as no surprise to learn we hold emotional pain within different areas of our bodies. This is very evident from research done on back pain. I remember a talk from a skilled osteopath, who told the story of a lady who came to him with chronic back problems. As he worked on her back, she told him how unhappy she had become since her husband retired. Their time together was nothing like she imagined it would be and his invasion of what had been her personal space and activities because he no longer had anything else to do, was proving intolerable.

Once she identified her “real problem”, her back pain disappeared, helped not only by the osteopath’s skills but his ability to listen and support her in talking about her situation.

Aches and pains should never be ignored. They are messages from the body to tell us something is happening or needs to happen. Hopefully those messages allow us to act before pain becomes so intense we lose the ability to function. Everyone is different. Everyone responds to pain in a different way.

Having observed the difference in response to pain in my family and Chris’ family, I have come to the conclusion some of it is neurological – some people’s nerves are closer to the surface and are more vulnerable – and some is learned behaviour. It is much easier to deal with pain with a calm demeanour rather than rushing around shrieking as if the world were ending!

So where do herbs come in to all this?

As always, herbs can be fantastic allies within a regime to support the whole person. Where aches and pains are concerned I would actually extend the whole person concept to the whole family. Being emotionally attached to someone in pain can be the most difficult thing anyone has to endure. You cannot bear their pain for them, however much you wish to.

The guilt and concern of being pain free when someone else is hurting also needs to be addressed and supported. Nervines can be helpful in this situation – chamomile, lemon balm, motherwort, skullcap and even St John’s wort as either teas or tinctures can be helpful in stressful situations. Remember that children are able to cope much better with either their physical or emotional pain if the person who cares for them is perceived to be strong.

Pain often comes from muscle tension or spasms. Anything which eases the tension either through warmth, relaxation or massage can be extremely helpful. No household should be without a hot water bottle and/or a wheat pillow which can be heated and laid over the affected part.

Fomentations and poultices can also be used in the same manner – chamomile, mustard, horseradish, ginger – always remembering to check the area regularly to prevent skin blistering.

Many herbs can provide relief when administered in a soothing massage oil or salve.

Dandelion flower oil is useful for a light muscle massage. Last year I went to give a herb talk at a sheltered housing complex. One of the women asked if I had anything for the pain in her shoulder. The only oil I’d taken with me was dandelion flower, so I gave her the salve and told her to rub it in and see what happened. She reported the pain eased considerably.

Rosemary is a favourite for soothing back massages. A German friend of mine is a professional oboist. His orchestra pit is very cramped as it is almost underneath the stage and he has to hold the same position for long periods whilst he is playing. He suffers with severe back aches and pains which have been greatly helped by his wife massaging him with rosemary oil. I made them a selection of St John’s wort, angelica and rosemary oils to take home with them one year and before we met the following year, they requested another batch of rosemary oil!

Golden rod infused oil can be another help in deep muscle massage.

Where pain has a nerve component such as sciatica, St John’s wort and rosemary oil blended together can bring relief. If there is also an inflammatory element, St John’s wort and meadowsweet can bring relief.

Pain from inflammation also needs to be treated internally. I’ve found plantain, calendula and turmeric to be especially helpful here. Sage and elderflower can often be used for their cooling effects.

Where muscles are actually spasming, crampbark can be helpful. When dealing with period pains, Howie Brounstein pointed out that menstrual pain is a bit like having bitters in our diet - you want to know our abdominal muscles are working at maximum capacity to ensure they are removing the womb lining in the most efficient way. To remove the pain entirely, to lose any efficacy of their function is actually counter productive.

If you do suffer with monthly or occasional problems, I would suggest reading the relevant chapters of Carol Wood's book, "The Woman's Guide to Herbal Medicine" which is available online. Her chapter on menstrual problems is very comprehensive, giving ideas for dietary changes, exercises and herbal supplements which can help with PMT and menstrual pain. She suggests cutting out wheat and wheat products for a month if you have a tendency towards bloating and says that severe pain can sometimes be cause by lack of calcium which can be helped with calcium supplements.

If the muscle spasms are in your legs, then crampbark tincture and magnesium supplements can be helpful. If the spasms could be of a nervous origin, you may want to try a gentle nervine. A friend of mine was suffering with spasms in her upper abdominal muscles recently. She came to one of the talks I was giving for the Mercian Herb Group where various tinctures were handed round for people to try. She liked the motherwort tincture so much, I gave her the bottle to take home with her and she told me recently the spasms are much diminished.

Pain can also come from joint damage or disintegration. Matthew Wood and Jim Macdonald have been doing a lot of work with using mullein root for straitening the spine and solomon’s seal for supporting the regeneration of mucous membranes and cartilage around joints. You can find Jim’s excellent discussion papers on the two herbs here

During the February workshop, one of the participants created a salve for her frozen shoulder with Solomon’s seal root, plantain and St John’s wort oil. She emailed me later in the week to say she had used it and been able to sleep without pain for the first time for weeks.

One of my apprentices also created an arthritis salve during the previous year’s salve workshop. He used plantain, ginger, SJW and meadowsweet. He gave it to his father for the arthritis in his hands. His father reported the salve had been the most effective pain-resolver he had ever used. His mother in law also tried it and found it helped her arthritis as well.

Children can also suffer joint pain. Most parents will be woken in the night at some stage of their child’s development by screams relating to “my knees hurt”. In my pre-herbal days, I soon learned that wrapping the offending joint in firm bandages was just as effective as a dose of Calpol and today I would also massage with St John’s wort oil. Some children also benefit from physiotherapy to help them stretch their limbs, especially if they have excessive “growth spurts”.

This has been a long post, but aches and pains are a complex area of study. I haven’t mentioned using Californian poppy or our own field poppy which will soon be gracing the fields. I have not used them yet, but maybe, one day, I shall have stories to share about these plants.

In conclusion, the next time you find yourself or your loved one in pain, it may be helpful to answer the following questions.
How did this pain arise?
Will it feel better if I rub it, warm it or cool it?
Will it feel better if I gently stretch or move around?
Who might be my herbal ally at this point in time?
How can I help myself relax/rest?
And when the pain is diminished, ask yourself what you have learned!