Herbal gifts & a cupboard full of goodness

Apologies for the long gap since the last post due to various circumstances including being responsible for co-running a week-long camp at  Samhain, at which herbs in various guises played a part including ritual offerings, Mugwort assisted dreaming, cold remedies & a talk about using herbs to help keep healthy over the winter.  I also had my 50th birthday in November, which feels like a major milestone especially as I am in the process of passing through the transition of menopause.  Then in December like many people I was busy with the lead up to the festive season.  I managed to find time to make some herbal gifts of creams & salves for family and friends, using some of the infused oils & tinctures I have made, which was a lovely way to share some of what I have been doing as a herbwife apprentice during the last year.

Skin Cream

I made some skin creams using Christopher Hedley's basic cream recipe:

1oz base cream
1 teaspoon infused oil
2 teaspoons tincture
4 drops of essential oil

- Add the infused oil or oils if using a combination to the base cream and stir until it is all absorbed.
- Then add the tincture or tinctures if using a combination and stir again.
- Add the essential oil & stir in.
- Spoon into small jars with screw top lids & label.

I used Olive Tree Rich Cream Base from Baldwins herbal suppliers http://www.baldwins.co.uk/olive-tree-rich-base-cream for my base cream.

I made a soothing skin cream with 4oz base cream, 1 teaspoon Rose petal infused oil, 1 teaspoon Calendula infused oil, 1 teaspoon Marshmallow infused oil, 1 teaspoon of Elderflower infused oil, 4 teaspoons of Rose petal tincture & 4  teaspoons of Elderflower tincture.  These are moisturising & soothing for dry skin.  I didn't use essential oils, just infused oils.

I also made Rose & Elderflower skin cream using just Rose & Elderflower infused oils & tinctures in equal proportions.

Cream, oils & tinctures for Soothing Skin Cream

 

Mixing cream

Soothing Skin Cream

 

Rose & Elderflower Skin Cream

Back & Joint Salve

I made some Ginger double-infused oil by chopping up a large Ginger root into small chunks then dividing into 2 batches and putting the first batch in a small pan covered with Olive oil and heated over a slightly larger pan of water on a very low heat for 2 hours, then removed the first batch of Ginger and put in the second batch into the same oil to heat for another 2 hours, the oil was strained through a piece of muslin over a sieve into a jar and labelled.

I made a salve for soothing back & joint pain using:

3 fluid oz Meadowsweet infused oil - which has pain-relieving properties

3 fluid oz St John's Wort sun-infused oil - which relieves nerve pain

2 fluid oz Ginger oil - which is walming & soothing for inflamed joints

2 fluid oz Marshmallow oil - which is lubricating & soothing

1 oz chopped beeswax - which makes the salve set & has healing properties

This was heated in a small pan in a slightly larger pan of water on a low heat and stirred until the beeswax all melted.  The salve was then poured into small jars and left to set then the lids were put on and the jars were labelled.

 

 Making Ginger double-infused oil

 

Root Ginger infused oil

 

 Back & Joint Salve

To mark the end of my first year of the herbwife apprenticeship and beginning of the next year I have taken stock of the remedies I have made over the past year and listed them all in an inventory.  This will be useful to help me keep track of my growing pharmacopeia of remedies and to plan for remedies I need to make this year.  I also made a list of the books I have read or used for reference over the last year.  I already have some books lined up to read to continue to deepen my knowledge and appreciation of herbs as allies for health & well-being over this coming year.

 

 Creams & salves in my bathroom cabinet

Oils, salves, flower essences & dried herbs

 

Herbal vinegars

 

Tinctures & elixirs

 

Tinctures, elixirs, glycerites & preserves

 

Herbal honeys

 

Herbal books

I look forward to continuing to share my learning and reflections on my journey as a herbwife with my readers over the next year.  Thanks for all the positive comments I have received over the past year, they are really appreciated.  Please do post a comment if you want to know more about anything I have posted, I am happy to share information with others who share my interest in all things herbal.

A refreshing retreat in Wales & making the most of spring leaves

I have been 'off air' for a bit as we had a week away at a retreat centre in mid-Wales.  It provided a much needed space away from the busyness of daily life, I purposefully did not use the internet whilst on retreat, to give my mind a chance to relax.  I took the opportunity to read a couple of new herbal books I recently bought. Firstly 'The Book of Herbal Wisdom' by Matthew Wood, which draws on European, Native American and Chinese approaches to working with medicinal herbs, with in-depth information on 40 herbs and how they work to help the body and mind heal themselves.  Secondly 'The Herbalist's Bible' by Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal, about the definitive  herbal compiled by 17th Century herbalist John Parkinson, with Parkinson's original text on the medicinal uses of a selection of plants and a commentary on their use today, including recipes to try out.

I didn't do a lot of practical herbal stuff whilst at the retreat centre, though I did use some rosemary from a glorious rosemary bush in the garden by the kitchen for herb tea and with roast potatoes.  I also made some salads with foraged wild ingredients such as nettles, cleavers & dandelions and herbs from the garden such as fennel tops, parsley & lemon balm.  On the last weekend there was a work party to plant trees and build a fence to protect a new hedge that has been planted along the edge of the retreat centre's land.  We planted a mixture of hedgerow trees including my herbal ally Hawthorn.  We also planted 5 young fruit trees in a corner of the land which is becoming a small orchard.  I look forward to going back in years to come to see how they grow.

Buddha statue in early morning light

 Rosemary bush

Tree planting

Since returning home from the retreat I have been trying to catch up with my apprenticeship tasks.  This month we have been asked to use Nettles for tea, to devise our own Nettle soup recipe and to make an iron-rich Nettle tonic for someone we know who has anaemia.  I picked a nice batch of nettles in the allotment and foraged other plants that are coming up in the allotment to add to salads & soups including Cleavers, Ground Elder, Ramsons & Salad Burnet.  I decanted my first batch of Restorative Nettle tonic (recipe on previous post) and started a second batch with nettles foraged on a visit to the woods.  

I also decanted and bottled the Cramp Bark tincture and Hawthorn bark tincture I started 3 weeks ago, to add to my growing store-cupboard of remedies.  The Cramp Bark tincture will be useful for cramp (it does what it says on the bottle!) and the Hawthorn bark tincture should be useful for diarrhoea according to the little I have been able to find out about medicinal uses of Hawthorn bark.  It is astringent and has also been used for Malaria and other fevers.

 Ramsons aka Wild Garlic

Young Ground Elder leaves

Salad Burnet

Nettle Soup recipe - for 4

1 medium onion chopped

400g parsnip chopped into small chunks

400g potato chopped into chunks

100g celery chopped including leaves

1 large cloves garlic finely chopped

Colander full of fresh Nettles washed

4 teaspoons olive oil

1 litre vegetable stock

1 bay leaves

Salt & pepper to taste

Grated nutmeg to taste

Saute onions in oil, add root veg & celery & sweat for a while while preparing Nettles, add Nettles, stock & flavourings, bring to boil & simmer till veg tender.

I had some left after the first serving so boosted it for a second meal by adding 4 large button mushrooms chopped into chunks, another colander of Nettles and a small amount of other fresh leaves including ground elder, Ramsons & Sorrel, added some more stock and salt & pepper, brought to boil & simmered till heated through.  I grated parmesan on the top for serving, this was very tasty.

 Nettle Soup

Egg, potato & spring leaf salad recipe - for 1

2 hard-boiled eggs - roughly chopped

300g boiled potatoes - chopped into chunks

Small pan of washed Nettle tops - blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes

Mixed spring leaves as available - I used Cleavers, Ground Elder, Salad Burnet, Ramsons, Lambs Lettuce & Sorrel

Mayonnaise to cover eggs, potatoes & spring leaves

Salt & Pepper to taste

Egg, potato & spring leaf salad

Next time I will be posting about visting Springfield Herb Sanctuary, identifying emerging plants and picking herbs to make into remedies.  So watch this space.