Vegetable glycerine
Several people have contacted us to say they have had trouble sourcing vegetable glycerine. We have now found a bulk supplier, and will soon be offering 1 litre bottles on our web shop. If you need any in the meantime, please contact us.
Posted 23 Aug 2010. Permanent Link.
Kitchen Medicine
In researching our new book Kitchen Medicine, we found out all sorts of interesting things about where spices and condiments come from, and the importance they have had in history.
Our grandmothers used to treat minor ailments with household remedies, and perhaps you do too. Most of us have made hot lemon and honey drinks for colds or used a salt water gargle for sore throats, but there is much more in your pantry pharmacy.
Many of the herbs and spices we use for flavouring our food also have beneficial effects on our digestion. Aniseed, fennel and dill seed are effective for gas and griping pains. They are warming aromatic herbs which stimulate our secretion of digestive juices, improving digestion and increasing absorption of nutrients, helping relieve indigestion. They also help freshen the breath – another reason why Indian restaurants often offer these seeds after meals.
Did you know that chillies infused in olive oil make a really good pain-relieving rub, useful for aching muscles or sore joints? Or that eating parsley can clear cystitis? Or that bicarbonate of soda is an effective deodorant and turmeric powder can be used for fungal infections?
Kitchen Medicine will be published on September 9th by Merlin Unwin Books.
Posted 17 Jul 2010. Permanent Link.
Upcoming Workshops
Autumn 2010
The next workshop on Hedgerow Medicine Making is on Saturday 2nd October. We will begin with a herb walk, then make elderberry glycerite, a hawthorn berry tincture and other seasonal medicines.
The following day will cover Kitchen Medicine, on Sunday 3rd October. We will look briefly at the amazing history and origins of common kitchen cupboard basics, then make a variety of remedies to take home.
Join us on Saturday 6th November for Making Herbal Christmas Presents. Make salt scrubs, bath bombs, herbal vinegars, infused oils and other goodies to give as presents or keep for yourself.
The following day, Sunday 7th November we will focus on Chocolate Making, using raw cocoa powder and other natural organic ingredients to make delicious but healthy chocolates. if you don't eat them all on the way home, these make wonderful Christmas presents too.
The cost of each workshop is £60, which includes a vegetarian lunch, teas and cakes. Detailed notes will be given for each workshop, with recipes and resources, and raw materials will be available for purchase.
Special offer: Book a full weekend for only £110
Each workshop is limited to 8 participants, so book early to avoid disappointment. To book, phone (01508 489 256) or email (info@hedgerowmedicine.com) to check availability, then send a deposit of £25 to confirm your place.
The workshops are in Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk. Saturday workshops are from 11am to 5pm, and Sunday workshops are from 10am to 4pm. We can meet anyone coming by train at Wymondham station; 2 hours from London Kings Cross via Cambridge. We can recommend local B&Bs for anyone who wishes to stay overnight.
If you'd like to come on a workshop but can't make any of these, please contact us and we'll notify you of future dates.
Feedback from the workshop on 28th June
We had a wonderful summer's day together on Saturday. If anything it was too hot, but we had sufficient floppy hats to go round (note to selves: next time it's hot we should supply bottles of water, because all of us became a bit dehydrated and it's best if people have their own supply). The garden at Red Squirrels was in its best shape ever, with several species of roses in flower, with mullein, ox-eye daisies, elder, calendula, honeysuckle, cleavers, chickweed, ribwort, opium poppies, motherwort and others. At the front door was a heady mix of entwining roses, jasmine and sweet peas. The first St John's wort flowers appeared on the day. The back garden raised beds had a vigorous blend of vegetables, companion plants and wild plants that most people would call weeds but which we like to keep alongside.
We began with a herb walk through the garden, covering about half of the plants we had listed (see end of this article), with Julie identifying and explaining the herbal uses of each. We started with honeysuckle and saw how to pull out the filament and enjoy the nectar, moth-style. We noted how mullein has a strong, supple and flexible spine, and discussed using mullein poultices for back problems, as well as the leaves for emergency hygiene in the countryside and the flowers for treating earache. Plantain leaves came in handy for more than one person's nettle stings. And so on, using Hedgerow Medicine as our reference point, along with Blaimey and Fitter (our favourite field botany guide) for plant IDs.
After a salad lunch, eating plants from the garden as well as bought stuff, our own balsamic dressing and homremade spelt buns, we poured off the elderflower cordial made on Tuesday (we followed our recipe from the book and did a four-day steep), and shared that to general enjoyment. Julie explained the basics of making tinctures and glycerites, and invited people to gather the flowers or leaves they felt an affinity with. Everybody made their own mixture using alcohol or glycerites we supplied and labelled their jars. Julie demonstrated a meadowsweet ghee (using last year's base to which we added dried meadowsweet flowers gathered the day before) and then unvelied the rose and elderflower cake that Matthew had been agitating for all day. This went down very well, in all senses.
A special word about Miyuki, our furthest-flung visitor, who came from Japan. Well, to be totally honest, she was here alrready on a week's exchange and staying with a family in Grantham. Perhaps our attendees from Leicester and London travelled further on the day! But it was great to hear that a copy of Hedgerow Medicine was being used in Japan, and we were very grateful for Miyuki's gift of a Japanese field guide to medicinal plants, which luckily had the Latin names. There's a surprising degrtee of overrlap in the two floras. We were grateful too to Rie, a Japanse girl who is doing WOOFing on a local smallholding and who agreed to be a translator for Miyuki.
Carol took pictures, and we attach one for information. Here are a few comments from those who attended.
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Comments
Thank you both so much for a fantastic day on Saturday, I spent much of yesterday while exercising the horses peering into the hedges and verges to see what I could recognise and trying to remember what I could do with the plants. This morning I made a batch of elderflower cordial so hopefully it will taste as good as yours :o)
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Your generosity and beautifully gentle pace and humour made for a truly special day. I came home to nerve-jangling noise from the alcoholic barbecue going on next-door but I’m just about over that now. It happens rarely but not good timing for me, especially when it’s hot and I had to close my windows to sleep! So, the contrast was a shock…. However, the memory of my time with you and the lovely group got me through! And I’ve let go of too much weeding!!! Hurrah!!!
Do keep me informed of any future workshops.
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Really enjoyable, relaxing and inspiring. Much gratitude.
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Lovely and enriching.
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Posted 28 Jun 2010. Permanent Link.
Backyard Medicine
A North American edition of Hedgerow Medicine was published in the USA as Backyard Medicine in spring 2009. It is a smaller paperback book, and has been updated to reflect North American distribution of the plants etc.
$14.95 ($19.95 Canada)
Paperback | 7 1/2 x 9 5/8
Color Illustrations : 416
Published: May 2009 www.skyhorsepublishing.com/details.php?TitleID=295
ISBN: 9781602397019
Posted 17 Jun 2009. Permanent Link.