Wild things .. my heart sings

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Making Hawthorn Berry & Honey Jelly or Syrup

These past few weeks I have often been out foraging for the last of autumn wildplants for my winter herb store, including several picks of wonderful red Hawthorn berries, to make into Hawthorn and Honey Jelly (or syrup). I have also picked wild crab apples to make crab apple verjuice.

I use master herbalist Julie Bruton-Seal's recipe for Hawthorn Jelly or Syrup from her wonderful modern British herbal "Hedgerow Medicine" http://hedgerowmedicine.co.uk/?page=2. She reccommends it for a gentle, supportive and safe heart and circulatory system tonic - a tsp a day. It can be made with sugar instead of honey - but I prefer honey, even if it means I need to keep the jelly or syrup in the fridge.

My first batch made perfect jelly - my second and third batches turned into syrup but I don't mind as they will all keep well, especially in the fridge and they are all equally delicious stirred into my morning porridge with lots of cinnamon. Here are the pictures from my last batch and the recipe instructions..

Pick over your freshly collected hawthorn berries to remove any blackened or damaged fruit and any leaves - (you can leave the stalks on). Wash the berries, and then put in a pan and cover with water.

Bring to a boil and then simmer gently until the fruit has lost its colour - it may smell a bit fishy at first, but this smell goes. I mash the fruit with a potato masher after about 15 minutes of simmering, and then continue to simmer until the colour has gone.

Spoon through a muslin or jelly bag and then squeeze out as much of the juice as you can...

Pout into a jug to measure the volume - then return this juice to a pan and gently simmer till reduced to half its volume - Keep an eye on it because it can suddenly simmer down very thick if not watched!

While the juice is simmering, sterilise jar lids by boiling or steaming and sterilise glass jam-jars by putting them on a rack in a cold oven, turn on the oven to 180 and leave for 15-20 mins.

Drain sterilised lids, remove hot jars from the oven. Pour reduced juice into a glass measuring jug, add equal volume of liquid honey (if adding sugar, weigh liquid and add equal weight of sugar) - Pour back into pan, bring to boil and pour into hot sterilised jars. Add a wax jam sealing disc to the top of each jar and screw on lids. If it's going to jell, it takes a couple of days to set - if not, it's going to stay syrup!

Label and store in the fridge if made with honey. Enjoy! This is delicious medicine! YUM!

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Making Cleavers Succus

I've just been out foraging for a last big pick of Cleavers before the forecasted cold weather really hits us.

This is my third autumn picking of the lovely green Cleavers (Galium aparine), which I have been making into Cleavers Succus - a wonderful green lymphatic, kidney/urinary and gland tonic, made from fresh Cleavers juice, mixed half and half with liquid honey, bottled, and then stored in the fridge.

The recipe I use is from Julie and Matthew Bruton-Seal's wonderful modern British herbal, "Hedgerow Medicine" http://hedgerowmedicine.co.uk/?page=2. It is the fresh juice of Cleavers that has all the active ingredients, so you can juice some daily to add to other juices, make tea from the fresh leaves, or for autumn storing of the fresh juice - make Cleavers succus, which is delicious!

Here are the photos from when I made my last batch of Cleavers succus...

First, pick through all your fresh Cleavers to remove roots and any dead or damaged leaves or dead stems, wash and drain...

Next, chop very finely with a super sharp knife and put in a jelly bag or muslin over a measuring jug. Squeeze the jelly bag very hard, twisting and squeezing until you've got out as much juice as you can.

To this green juice add an equal part of liquid honey and mix well...

Then pour the Cleavers/honey mix into a clean glass bottle and store in the fridge.

Take one to two teaspoons, one to three times a day. I mix mine into a little water as a delicious sweet green drink. The first few times I drank this I felt like I was drinking the most crystal clear, cold cleansing mountain stream water.... beautiful!

Cleavers can generally be found growing in clumps at the dry base of hedgerows. It's most prolific in springtime, but also in autumn when a second regrowth appears.

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Last Pops of Autumn Flower Colours in My Garden

The garden is already going dormant, with a just a few final bright pops of flowers .... such beautiful jewels of colour before the winter. I just had to post them here for a last 'fix' of flower power before the garden sleeps throughout the long winter months.... and we dream of the first gems of spring to come....

The radiant glowing orange Calendula........

and the oh so BLUE, BLUE, BLUE little cornflowers......

the last of the Echinacea.... sweet eye candy!

verbena bonariensis.......

and beautiful fire-red Salvia....

one last clove-scented Pink.....

pink Argyranthenum daisies.....

white Cosmos....

self-seeded pansies....

'Hot Lips' Salvia and pink single floribunda rose.....

pink linaria (toadflax) 'Canon Went'....

and purple linaria....

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Here's a blog post about a one-acre wildflower meadow that we sowed near here at Flixton in Suffolk two years ago. It is wonderful the diversity of wildflowers that have established themselves there and watching it change. Click heading above to go to the Wild About Bungay website...

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Herbs in the Garden

I have gradually been increasing the number of wild plants and herbs in my garden.....

(in the pic above - white Oxeye Daisies and Red Poppies and behind them tall 2nd year Teasel with St John's Wort underneath the Teasel, but not quite in flower)

(above: Anise Hyssop in flower, and the airy plant behind is Vervein)

Sometimes wild herbs sow and spread themselves, like the numerous Dandelions and clumps of Winter Purslane, Iris foetida, White Dead-nettle, Foxgloves, Wild Strawberries, Plantain, Dyers Rocket and Self-Heal...

Ribwort Plantain growing out of a crack in my paving..

first year Mullein also seeded itself into my paving.....

Self Heal flowers....

Others I introduce like Teasel, Mullein, Primrose, Yarrow, Anise Hyssop, St John's Wort, Hemp Agrimony, Purple Loosestrife, Vervein, Calendula, Borage, Echinacea, Wood Betony, Lemon Balm, Sweet Cicely, Rue, Red Poppies, Ox-Eye Daisies, Pink Campion, Wild Carrot, Black Medick, Marsh Marigold and Yellow Flag.... as well as all my kitchen herbs....

above 2 pics: Echinacea purpurea - my third attempt to grow this!

all bring a special magic to the garden and the insects, butterflies, moths and bees love them....

There's something about the names of many of these plants that has always taken me back in time. As a child I loved the description of the wise woman's garden in Rosemary Sutcliff's book "the Armourer's House" which was set in Elizabethan times.... and later as an adult (and recently re-read) the descriptions of the wise woman Froniga's garden in Elizabeth Goudge's powerful and moving book "The White Witch", set in the time of the English Civil War....

This is my favourite shady nook to sit on hot sunny days, looking out over my pond and my favourite Purple Loosestrife plants, stripping dried herbs to jar for the winter or just sitting and breathing and BEING..

Our beautiful cat Bella loves to lie under the herb bushes by the pond... Here she is in one of her regular sleeping spots - and also playing 'roll over and PURRRR' in the sun....

She gets as blissed out being in the garden as I do!

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How the wind it hoots and whistles....

Yesterday I remembered this song whilst chasing my 20 month old giggling grandson round our windy garden - one of those magic seasonal children's songs, from raising my own kids...

" Autumn wind comes out to play, dancing chasing leaves all day. Twirling up and twisting down, russet red and golden brown.

How the wind it hoots and whistles, tearing through the flowers and thistles, Lifting roofs, uprooting trees. Oh you wild unruly breeze!"

words and music by Hilary James and Simon Mayor - from the BBC Song Tree radio series

(there's another 3 verses - but this first verse was always my favourite)...

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I guess it's an age old store cupboard thing - but I do so love the comfort and satisfaction of gathering and drying herbs for the winter and making simple oils, tinctures, ointments and glycerates for us and for sharing.

Dried herbs in the top picture (right to left)... white deadnettle, anise hyssop, lemon verbena, purple sage, lavender, self-heal and ground ivy.... in the trays - lavender and self-heal flowers.

Drying bunches in my sunroom - of my now favourite tea herb: anise hyssop - that my friend http://markinflowers.tumblr.com/ turned me onto.. another plant and herb-mad person!

Mark and http://charlotteducann.tumblr.com/ seed endless plant and wild inspiration, living so close to earth and wild..... and (haha) have just turned me onto Tumblr - hence my first post - cheers folks!

Windowsill jars (left to right)... St John's Wort macerating (Hypericum perforatum flowers in organic olive oil); strained Plantain oil; strained St John's Wort oil; Plantain, St John's Wort and Lavender ointment with beeswax; strained Red Poppy glycerate (Papaver rhoeas petals macerated in vegetable glycerine and honey)...

My absolute herbal inspiration these days is Julie Bruton-Seal's wonderful book "Hedgerow Medicine", which to my mind is the best British home-use herbal ever written - such a beautiful, inspiring and empowering book!