Hedgerow Medicine day with Woodland Ways

Last weekend I went on a day course on Hedgerow Medicine & Medicinal Wild Plants with Woodland Ways who run great bushcraft courses in Oxfordshire and Leicestershire http://www.woodland-ways.co.uk/buy-online-hedgerow-medicine-and-medicinal-wild-plants-758.html

Our friendly and knowledgeable course instructor Danny led the group on a plant identification and foraging walk along the verges of a quiet rural lane, along woodland rides and along the edges of fields adjoining woodland.  He then led us to the base camp in Appleton woods where we ate a packed lunch while he got the fire going for tea for which some of us used fresh herbs we had picked along the way, in my case a pleasant tasting sprig of wild mint.

Danny showing us Cleavers

 Ground Ivy

 Burdock

Plantain flowers

 Ribwort Plantain leaf

Comfrey leaf

Cutting a Willow branch

 Wild Mint

 Base Camp

After lunch it was all hands on deck making various preparations with the herbs we had gathered.  We made Cleavers ointment, Burdock & Comfrey liniment, Plantain Cream, Elderflower, Ground Ivy & Bramble shoot tea blend, dried Hedge Woundwort for wounds & stripped Willow bark to make natural painkillers.   During the afternoon tea break Danny went through the law on foraging and showed us some useful reference books on plant identification and use to encourage us to go away from the course and carry on finding and making our own hedgerow medicines.  We finished the afternoon by dividing everything we had made into jars & packets to take home our own hedgerow medicine kits.

Making remedies on the outdoor work surface

Burdock & Comfrey liniment

The Burdock Comfrey leaves were chopped up and divided in two lots.  One lot was put in a billy can with distilled Witch Hazel and set by the fire to make a decocted water extract.  The other lot was put in a bowl with surgical spirit to make a strong alcohol extract.  Surgical spirit is used rather than vodka as it does not evaporate as quickly when applied to the skin.  These were left for about 2 hours then strained and mixed together to make a liniment.   This is for external use for bumps, bruises, breaks & sprains.  

Comfrey leaves for chopping

Chopped Burdock & Comfrey leaves decoction with distilled Witch Hazel

Chopped Burdock & Comfrey leaves steeping in surgical spirit

 Straining the steeped surgical spirit

The Burdock & Comfrey decoction & tincture mixed together

Burdock & Comfrey liniment in jars 

Cleavers ointment

Large quantities of Cleavers were gathered.  These were pounded and then wrung to extract juice.  The juice was added to lanolin and worked in till it combined to make an ointment.  This was hard work at first but got easier as the juice was absorbed.  It made a nice pale green ointment for chapped skin, eczema and similar irritated skin conditions.  Caution some people are lanolin sensitive.

Squeezing Cleavers juice

Mixing Cleavers juice with lanolin

 The mixed Cleavers ointment

Filling jars with Cleavers ointment using improvised piping bag

Jars of Cleavers ointment

Plantain cream

The Plantain leaves were chopped up.  Half of these were put in a pan and covered with olive oil and left near the fire to extract fat soluble constituents.  The other half was put in pans with hot water and left by the fire to steep to extract water soluble constituents.  The infused oil and water were strained into a bowl into which grated beeswax was added.  The mix was whisked to make a cream which was poured into jars and left to set.   The cream is good for inflamed skin such as stings, bites & thorns as Plantain has a drawing action.  

 Chopping Plantain leaves

 Plantain leaves ready for decoction

 Straining the Plantain infused oil

Whisking Plantain decoction & infused oil with beeswax 

 Plantain cream in jars

Elderflower, Ground Ivy & Bramble shoot tea blend

We stripped off the dried leaves & flowers from Elderflower heads, Ground Ivy stems & Bramble shoots Danny had collected previously and left to dry.  These were mixed together to make a tea blend which will be useful for colds & flu.

Fresh & dried Ground Ivy

 Elderflower, Ground Ivy & Bramble shoot tea blend

Willow bark pain killer

Danny cut a branch from a Willow tree along the route.  The outer grey bark was scraped off with the back of a knife then the inner green bark was cut and peeled in sections which can be cut into 1 centimetre squares which can be chewed as a natural painkiller or added to tea blends for colds & flu.  Willow bark contains Salicylic acid which is the active ingredient in aspirin.  Caution don't use if allergic to aspirin.

Stripping Willow bark

Hedge Woundwort for wounds

Hedge Woundwort has a coagulating agent in it so is very good for wounds.  The plant can be used fresh, crushed or chewed and put on wounds or used dried to make a decoction to put on wounds to stop bleeding.  The plant can be laid out on sheets of newspaper to dry over a few days and crumbled into powder for use when fully dry.

 Hedge Woundwort for drying

For more photos of the day see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153484273967938.1073741900.657002937&type=1&l=2aa3ec9cdd

Planting, picking & processing

I am getting into the rhythm of the herbwife role through growing, harvesting and making things from herbs to store and use for common health conditions for myself, family and friends.

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to the National Herb Centre near Banbury http://www.herbcentre.co.uk/ to buy herb plants to add to the herbs already growing in pots in the patio outside my house and in our allotment.  This is a wonderful specialist garden centre for all kinds of herbs, far more varieties than normal garden centres.  The weekend after they were all planted out in the allotment, I filled up the existing herb bed and started a new herb bed in a previously unused patch of soil as well as putting some of the new plants in odd corners where there was a bit of space.  I look forward to seeing them grow as the year progresses.   The plants that are already there are going strong, many are coming into flower as the spring reaches its peak.  

Allotment table covered in plants to find room for

 New herb bed

 Raspberry plants setting fruit

 Valerian

 Mullein

 Thyme

I picked some Greater Plantain leaves to go with some Ribwort Plantain I had picked previously.  The leaves and flower heads were blended with a hand blender and some vodka to make a tincture, to use for coughs, bronchitis, earache, tinnitus, sinusitis, toothache, irritable bowel & haemorrhoids in doses of half to one teaspoon three times a day.  I used the Plantain double-infused oil made at last month's Springfield Herb Sanctuary workshop to make a salve with beeswax, the oil was measured in millilitres, then the beeswax was weighed out in grams to 1/8 of the amount in millilitres.  The oil & wax was heated in a small pan in a larger pan of gently simmering water then poured into jars and left to set.  The salve can be used for cuts, scrapes, bruises & insect bites. 

Ribwort Plantain & Greater Plantain

Measuring oil & beeswax for making a salve

 Plantain salve

I also made Hawthorn leaf double-infused oil and then made up a salve of Lesser Celandine double-infused oil with a little Hawthorn leaf oil, to use for haemorrhoids.  I used soya wax to make up the salve as I had run out of beeswax, I had to add more soya wax to a total of 1/4 proportion of grams to millilitres of oil as the salve did not set at 1/8 proportion.  Lesser Celandine, also known as Pilewort, is traditionally used for haemorrhoids.  I added some Hawthorn leaf oil for its astringency which should help stop bleeding from haemorrhoids, this is an experimental use based on the properties of the plant, it is not a traditional use. 

 Lesser Celandine oil & salve

I also strained and bottled lots of tinctures & vinegars that had been macerating for a few weeks in a dark cupboard, using a sieve, a jelly bag, a large measuring jug, a funnel and some clean bottles.  I poured the fluid out and squeezed out as much as I could from the left over plant material through the jelly bag.  I picked bottles to decant the strained tinctures & vinegars into depending on the volume produced after straining.   The tinctures & vinegars I decanted were: 

- Immune-boosting vinegar containing chopped fresh Turmeric root, chopped Garlic cloves, chopped root Ginger, chopped Chilli peppers & some Rosehips, 1 teaspoon to be taken in hot water whenever feeling that an infection is starting.

- Dock root tincture for sluggish bowels, constipation, anaemia & poor absorption of nutrients, skin problems, liver congestion & general tiredness to use in doses of half a teaspoon once or twice daily.

- Dandelion root & leaf tincture to be taken as half a teaspoon twice daily for general health maintenance, half to one teaspoon in water three times daily for digestive problems, recuperation from illness, sluggish liver, arthritis, gout, eczema & psoriasis, 10 drops in water frequently for acute skin conditions, 10 drops in water every hour until feeling better from overindulgence in food or drink.

- Ground Ivy tincture 1-15 drops to be taken 1-3 times a day for sore throats, earache, ear congestion, tinnitus, sinusitis, diarrhoea, kidney problems, urinary tract infections & heavy metal poisoning.

- Cleavers tincture for lymph congestion or swelling such as tonsillitis or glandular fever.

- Hawthorn leaf tincture (see last week's post).

Straining & bottling Immune-boosting Vinegar

 Bottled tinctures & vinegars

I also picked some Horsetail tips and have been using these in infusions with hot water with some dried Couch Grass roots for a urine infection, which both these plants are traditionally helpful for.  There are various plants that can be used for these but these were the ones I had on hand fresh or dried.  This is as it would have been for the herbwives of the past who used what they had growing and what they had preserved from the plants in their gardens and foraged from the wild. 

  

References:

'Hedgerow Medicine' Julie Bruton-Seal & Matthew Seal.

'Practical Herbs 2' Henriette Kress.

'Wild Drugs' Zoe Hawes.