Summer lushness

Well, what a lovely summer we're having! I have lived in Swansea for twenty years now, and I love it, but never have we had so long without rain. I've been amazed at how the plants have loved it and are flowering their hearts out. We have had precipitation this week and I found it very restful but one day was enough and I'm ready for some more sunshine now, thank you very much.

The fine weather has been ideal for making home tinctures and sitting in my garden one day I reflected as I looked about me that all the medicine we need is growing right in our own back yard.

Within twenty feet of my garden lounger I could see meadowsweet, dandelion, nettle, cleavers, hawthorn, yellow dock, plantain, horsetail, self-heal, sage, marjoram, rosemary, melissa, vervain, comfrey, elder, mints, parsley, rocket, fleabane, butterbur, St John's wort, berberis, willow, artichoke, camomile, fennel, olive - and I could go on! Then there were the fragrances of jasmine, roses, lavender, honeysuckle and sweet peas. I won't list the vegetables and fruit but you get my drift. I thought of all the conditions these plants can heal and wondered why I buy in so much from suppliers from around the world when all the pharmacy I need is right here in my garden.

The most usual method of using herbs, apart from infusions or teas, is from tinctures. Tinctures are preserved in alcohol and, if you get the ratio of plant material to alcohol right, will keep in a stable condition for many years. This makes them very useful for the home herbal medicine cupboard. Making tinctures is easy. The most tricky thing is to recognise your plant correctly. If you are a gardener, you will probably have planted it yourself and can be in no doubt of your quarry. So on a fine sunny morning, after the dew has evaporated, get a basket or cotton bag (not plastic) and some scissors and clip away at the aerial parts of your herb of choice. (Some herbs are better gathered at the root in autumn, such as dandelion but all of those listed above are best collected from their leaves, flowers and fruits). Fill your basket with the foliage and weigh it. To five parts of vodka have one part of herb. Steep the plant in a widenecked jar in the vodka and set it in sunlight (a windowsill will do) for at least 2 weeks, shaking daily. At the end of that time, strain off the plant material and put it on the compost, where it will activate it nicely, and bottle the tincture liquid. Remember to label it with the date of harvest, where you sourced it and your 1:5 ratio of plant to liquid. Keep it dark and cool (an amber glass or PET plastic bottles are best) and it will keep for years. The standard dose is 5 mls 3 times a day, but check with a good herbal book about uses and doses. Or buy my ebooks from Serenity Healing for further infomation and pictures of these beautiful plants. There you will read about folklore, history, methods of use, doses, applications and see good photos for identification purposes.

Empower yourself and your family by growing your own medicines. Always check a reliable book for safety guidelines and be sure you know what you are picking. Many plants in the garden can be reliable friends in times of stress and illness and will cost you no more than a bottle of vodka!

Happy harvesting.

Alexx

spring cleaning

Well it's still cold and dull here in Wales but Nature, bless her, is springing up regardless of the long cold winter we've endured. Normally frosts are unusual wonders to tut at so close to the Atlantic coast but this year they've been routine - and damaging. Our dear friends the weeds don't seem to mind and the hedgerows are greening up everywhere though the trees are yet to leaf up.

Chickweed, dandelion and sorrel are just beginning to sprout. It's all the encouragement we need to get out for a good long walk to clear the cobwebs and bring some home as green treasure. Try this tasty salad with them:

Equal quantities of chickweed and dandelion young leaves

Half as much of sorrel

Some other greens - lettuce, rocket of choice

Add thinly sliced oranges or cherry tomatoes

Half a pressed garlic clove

1 Tablespoon of good olive oil

Some croutons, preferably sourdough, baked with olive oil and a little seasalt

Some softly crumbled oh so white feta cheese

Tumble together with clean hands and enjoy. Mmm feel all that goodness sorting you out after a winter of starchy carbos. The readily available chlorophyll is incredibly nutritious and gives a quick fix of minerals, vitamins and energy.

honeysuckle honey

Kiss me, honey, honey, kiss me ...

Honeysuckle flowers surprisingly late in the year and with this beautiful Indian summer the flowers are pristine and ripe for the picking. Pick a few blooms - say about a dozen - and immerse them in a jar of honey. Set the jar in the sun for a couple of weeks on a south-facing windowsill. Strain off and you will have a perfect cough syrup ready for the colds and flu season. And it will taste yummy too.

INFLUENZA

That headcold turned nasty. By Friday I was running a temperature but it's only Monday and I'm already on the mend. Out came all the remedies. Blues and flu's tea worked just as well as Paracetamol to bring down my temperature but tasted much nicer. The elderberry based flu tincture also tasted nice and cut through the gunge nicely. Potter's Vegetable Cough Remover was brilliant with the tickle. Eucalyptus, Thyme and Lavender oils inhaled over steaming hot water completely soothed my inflamed chest - always a weak spot with me. Eucalyptus oil on my pillow helped me to breathe through the night. Chest rubs with the same oils brought antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties to my lungs through my skin. I didn't smell of Chanel No 5 - my favourite perfume - but it was better than a chest infection or antibiotics. They bring you so low. Necessary sometimes but only if the above fail. Well - was it swine flu? How are we supposed to know? All the advice seems to be stay home, especially stay away from doctors, get yourself well and go back to work. They've even withdrawn the blanket Tamiflu. So thank goodness, yet again for herbs - hurrah! I'm on the mend and on the up. Damn that means I can no longer justify watching old swashbucklers in the daytime.........

Headcold? Try French Onion Soup

My blessed daughter, fresh from yet another night on the tiles, forgot her toothbrush. She then shared with me the privilege of using my own. As a result I now have her head cold and not a little resentment! Apart from lots of raw garlic (yes I do stink but am unrepentant), fizzy Vitamin C tablets (more digestible - always take with food for better absorption) and my own magic herbal flu/cold formula, my own favourite traditional remedy is home-made French onion soup.

We've had a particularly good harvest of onions this year, despite the monsoon in July and although the stems rotted so they can't be hung on strings in the kitchen looking pretty, there are plenty of them sunbathing in serried ranks in our greenhouse. Make this soup yourself, if you are still standing, and inhale the gutsy aromas. This will disinfect your lungs, throat and nose very effectively and is also highly therapeutic and if your eyes and nose run - that's GREAT! They are being sluiced out by all those wonderful antiseptic aromas.

Recipe:

Take at least 8 good sized onions and dice finely. Sweat (now this is the secret of a good French onion soup) for 20 minutes - yes TWENTY! in some good olive oil. Don't use butter at this stage as it will burn. Keep the lid on so they get really soft and watch for the sugar caramelising. You want them to colour up but not burn. A little (but not a lot) of stickiness is perfect. Take the lid off occasionally and inhale - it will do you the power of good. When they are soft and golden and almost mushy, add as much garlic as you can spare - up to one bulb (yes BULB not CLOVE). Also add, preferably fresh but dried (in which case halve the quantity) will do, about 5 sage leaves, 10 marjoram leaves, 20 little thyme leaves. Swirl about briefly and then add about 1 and 1/2 litres of good stock. The French use beef, you could try chicken or vegetable or even yeast extract is nice too. Now bring to the boil (inhale again) and then simmer gently for about an hour. Serve (without the stringy cheese bit as dairy will NOT help your cold) with lots of fresh parsley and chunky granary bread.

A variation on this is my late lamented but very wise grandmother's cough recipe. She had 10 children and died at 98 so I have plenty of faith in her. She only gave up work in her 88th year. Put some onions in some brown sugar in the lowest setting of the range overnight. Mash up the gloup in the morning and bottle. The resulting syrup is an ideal cough medicine with enough syrup to coat the throat and plenty of antibacterial properties in the onions. The above soup recipe further adds the effectiveness of sage, thyme and marjoram to the garlic and onions and these are all strongly antibacterial and antiviral. Trust me - it works!

Sloe, sloe, quick, quick, sloe - gin!

Chestnuts roasting by the fire, Nat King Cole on the stereo, Great Aunt Nellie asleep on the sofa, new noisy toys for the children and the batteries not yet run down, the tree lights already on the blink ....and a little toddy of sloe gin clasped in your desperate hand. A great softener for the claustrophobia of the traditional Christmas. Make it now as your personal insurance and insulation against the cold and the tension! It's so easy.

Above are all the ingredients you'll need. Pick ripe, slightly squeezable sloes in September. 2009 has been a cracking year for them in Wales - they must like rain! If you have 3 lbs of fruit, as here, you will need 1 lb of sugar and about half a bottle of gin. Give the sloes a sluice in cold water and prick them all over. Traditional recipes say use a darning needle but I find a sharp vegetable knife more comfortable because it has a good handle to grip. Pour the fruit into a wide necked jar, add the sugar and pour over the gin. Seal and resist for at least 3 months. Strain off the fruit, savour the aroma and decant into beautiful decanters - if you're richer than me cut crystal would be absolutely ideal and very pretty. Drink in sherry glasses - this is a liqueur - not a wine.

I once gave a dinner party to friends and at the end of the evening two of the blokes accepted my invitation to a little sloe gin as a liqueur to round things off. I put the decanter on the table with two sherry glasses, everyone else having migrated to the log fire in the other room. They looked askance at the tiddly glasses and I gave an altogether too gentle warning of the strength of the purple sweet liquid. "Mmmm, this slips down easily," said one of them, a respectable and usually teetotal doctor. I left them to it and joined in with the lively chatter in the other room. When we all came back some time later, the decanter was virtually empty and beatific smiles emanated from our two male companions, now truly bonded and replete. Alas, when they went to stand up and take their leave, their legs had turned to rubber. I am reliably informed their lives did not exist for a further two days when normal duties could be resumed. The fact that they seem to resent this just made me cross when I looked at the empty decanter. Lesson? Only ever pour guests out one glass and then hide it!

Elderberry winemaking

It's my favourite time of the year - elderberry time. There is nothing more delicious than the smell of elderberries boiling and all the merriement that heralds. Today I slogged through deep mud to find the meagre pickings of elderberries that are found on Gower. It is not elderberry territory. And yet I love it and I love elderberry wine too. I was famous for it when I lived in the rich soil of Wiltshire. Here the Atlantic saltwinds prevent the flowers from setting fruit - so we're okay for elderflower wine but the berries do take some finding. However I would encourage everyone who has access to an elderberry bush to make some of this nectar.

Here's the recipe:

In old money -

4 lbs of elderberries, stripped from their stalks (takes time -use music and contemplation)
3 - 4 lbs of sugar (bog standard but I'm using soft brown organic this time) depending on ripeness and sweetness of the fruit - taste it
wine yeast (according to label instructions)
1 gallon of good water (not so daft as it sounds London water is crap and will ruin your wine)

Put the stripped berries in the water and boil for 10 minutes - this is bulky and you'll probably need a preserving pan for the volume

Pour into a fermenting bucket (sterilised)
Add yeast when lukewarm.

Leave for saliva inducing week as you smell the fermenting must and stir once a day if you remember. Decant into a sterilised demi-john with a bubble cork and put in the airing cupboard for at least 6 weeks or in my case until xmas when I suddenly have a passion for it. Rack off into another clean demijohn until no sediment appears in the bottom - prob about March and then decant into sterilised bottles. Try and save it until the following Xmas but you probably won't make it. I never do.

This year I couldn't get 4 lbs of fruit (which leads to a rich and porty wine) so I've made do with 2 lbs and added 3 black peppercorns for spice, ginger (a thumbsized piece) for warmth and a chopped lemon for extra Vit C. I 'll let you know if it works. You could also try a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, star anise - any of the usual flavours for spiced wine.

IN the meantime, I shall harvest more and make a conventional gallon.

For the unitiated not only is this wine truly and utterly blissful on the palate but it is extremely good for you, being rich in vitamin C, and anti-viral. It is a heavenly flu, cold and misery remedy for winter and is a general standby in times of frugality, famine, illness and boredom. I rely on it to get me through til I can pick its sister, the elder flower which makes a champion champagne.

Elderflower is the queen of wines and Elderberry the king. Enjoy.