Sometimes It's Plant-based

Before.... and after! (Spring planting)

2011-04-21T20:40:00.027+01:00

I nearly didn't do any planting this year. Every time I went out to the field, I was focusing on the house build and the veg beds were running wild, apart from some very tasty broccoli that I planted last summer:

And of course the ubiquitous rhubarb which grows all by itself so magically:

But then a beloved gardening friend said she'd like to come and see how we were doing, which spurred me on to start doing something! And here's the result.

Bed four was full of red cabbages that had gone to seed. I wish we'd harvested them and used them/ given them away, but when that needed doing we were definitely otherwise engaged.

So I got the fork in and pulled everything out, then fed it with wood ash/ compost and planted some peas and beans.

I built these deep beds into the hillside when I was pregnant with my fourth child nine years ago, and have never regretted it. I had visions when I was doing that work, of her running around the pathways in future years, playing while I worked. This does happen, especially now she's got a younger sister to run with, but it took a while!

Mostly the beds are good because I hardly ever have to stand on them, so the soil doesn't get compressed, and because of the hill they're at table-top height for working when you stand on the lower path. I also find them to be a manageable space - any bigger and I'd feel overwhelmed by the size of the weeding/planting/digging jobs involved. I get overwhelmed anyway, but at least with beds this size (roughly 10ft x 2½ft) no job is going to take longer than an hour or two, however intense the work. In theory, it means I can keep up with jobs like weeding. In practice it means I sometimes do! The main drawback to these beds is the slugs that hide/breed in the walls. I'm thinking of mortaring the stonework to both stabilise the walls and to give the dreaded slimy things fewer hiding places. Last year they ate all of my peas and beans! It's just too far from the house for me to be constantly monitoring them and picking them off, and I won't put poison down.

Bed three on the left in this picture contained onions last year:

It's dug out now, fertilised with composted manure and planted with potatoes.

Not seed potatoes though. In previous years I've bought those and carefully chitted them in egg boxes on windowsills. Then one year I planted some extra that I had in a veg basket from the supermarket, which were starting to sprout and they grew just as well as the seed potatoes I'd bought. So this year I've just used the kitchen surplus and haven't bothered with seeds at all. This year is all about efficiency for me, about which more later.

I think this one is my favourite. This year's leaf bed (number two):

Before...

And after:

Those are some Brussels sprout seedlings in front and I've seeded more broccoli behind, because we've enjoyed that so much this year and it was so easy to grow. It's fertilised with the contents of one of the kitchen compost bins - the one that was filled last year and has been left alone to break down since then while we filled the other one this year. After a year of being left alone, the contents are black, crumbly and odourless. Also because of where they are and the crop rotation system I use, the bin I'm emptying is usually right next to the bed it's scheduled to feed - which certainly makes things easier!

Something else I did this year was make creative use of our council wheely bin. They delivered it in all its glory and at first I didn't know what to do with it. I certainly don't want to be worrying about what day to put my rubbish out and so on, or dragging the big ugly thing around the driveway all the time. In days gone by when we used the rubbish collection service bags would get torn and rubbish strewn, so we haven't used it for years, preferring to take it to the recycling centre ourselves when we're driving past. (Did you know that you have to have a car to do this and that according to the rules, you're not allowed to use the recycling centre as a pedestrian? Monstrous!)

But then I realised I was short of a big container in which to make my nettle plant food. Stinging nettles contain a lot of nitrogen as well as sulphur, magnesium, iron and other minerals. And our field has lots of them. I use them fresh myself as a tea to help keep anaemia at bay, but in the course of land clearing I pull far more than I can use that way and hate leaving them to 'waste' on the dry midden. So last year they all went in the council bin, and I left the lid open so that rain water would collect in there too. (Beware: this concoction gets very smelly! It was useful to be able to shut the lid sometimes!)

Anyway, after about nine months of mashing, here it is:

No way did it need nine months - about three weeks usually does the job - but I was only ready to use it this week and I don't think the extra mashing time did any harm. I fished out the solid stuff and put it in a wheelbarrow.

And used it to top off the second kitchen compost bin (the one we've been filling this year):

Then that bin was put to bed for a year. (We need stones up here - the wind blows plastic bin lids away. And the bins themselves, if they're not weighed down with stone.)

I used the remaining 'tea':

to water in the peas and beans I'd planted in bed four. I don't think any other seeds would take such a strong feed, but for peas and beans it's probably exactly what they needed. There's some left: I'll dilute it down and use it on bigger plants. I loved the efficiency and relative ease of this: we have no water supply in the field, so in previous years I've had to carry buckets of water from the house with which to irrigate seeds. This was so much easier. I've got plans for collecting the run-off from the new house drainage and channeling it to the crops, or at least keeping it stored in the field for filling buckets, but meanwhile the council bin will do the job well enough.

Finally, the other half of bed one - the one with the broccoli - needed digging and planting. Here it is - I've just put some beetroot seedlings in there for now. Might transplant some carrots and onions across later, which I'll probably start off in peat pots on the driveway near the house. They need more fussing over than they'll get in the field.

Beds one and two look like this now:

and I just need to mow all the paths today. And the play area over there...

And the sitting area here...

And the little garden here...

And, and, and.....

To keep us warm this winter

2010-10-08T19:09:00.005+01:00

A chilli plant from my dad's allotment. :)

Midsummer growth

2009-06-22T12:37:00.013+01:00

Well, the broad beans are doing well (despite the slugs' best efforts):

As are the potatoes, which I think I've now finished earthing up:

And the cabbages:

but the peas and the carrots didn't appear this year at all. I don't know why this is, but I know other local gardeners have had the same problem with theirs. Slugs have eaten all of the cauliflowers, but gardening organically without living right on-site is bound to result in some of those kinds of casualties, I think. Two fields away is just too far where slugs are concerned, but perhaps we could have done more with beer traps etc.

In the field I didn't have space to plant pumpkins, garlic, asparagus or artichoke, which I plan to remedy in time for next year by making some new terraced raised beds.

In the garden room, we've got cucumbers:

And tomatoes, setting nicely:

- both of which are getting a lot of liquid feed at the moment.

And some squash/pumpkins (not sure which) waiting to go outside:

I'd have liked to have got some aubergines in there as well this year, but space and time didn't allow for it. Hopefully next year they will.

On the drive there are more pumpkin/squash kind-of-things:

I'm not quite sure how big these are going to grow, or where we'll put them if they grow beyond a certain size but I don't think they will, in pots.

Also strawberries, which are now struggling to find enough sunshine to get ripe:

And the usual old dustbin full of potatoes:

- which I've actually planted up properly this year, layer by layer, so hopefully we'll get a better crop than we got last year. Actually, all of the crops should be better this year because we've put so much more effort in.

We've worked out a good watering system for the field, with the help of a kind neighbour's hose pipe and water supply and everything on the drive and in the garden room is having good care taken of it too. The only problem for the crops on the drive is the wind, which gets channeled through there in a kind of tunnel effect, between the house and the garage.

The key thing is to plant lots, I've found, so there are always more to take the place of the slug-eaten and the wind-blown.

Planting out

2009-05-03T08:45:00.013+01:00

- is mostly what I've been concentrating on in the field for the past few weeks.

The beans sprouted, but so did the weeds around them and I realised that plot needed thoroughly digging over, so had to pot up the beans and do that! This is the end result, with marigolds as good companions:

There are peas planted in there too, and hopefully enough support and protection for them and the beans. I only grow broad beans, because I find them the easiest to grow and the tastiest! I'm not a runner- or French-bean fan at all, and I don't think the children are either.

The other beds are looking too boring to post photos of, but two are dug and planted (potatoes in one and carrots, onions, leeks and beetroot in the other) and bed no.3, the cabbage patch, is still to dig over and plant. The brassicas are doing well in the garden room, meanwhile:

- as are the pumpkin/squash seedlings, of which I have planted far too many - before reading that they need up to four feet of space each!

So I'm creating another terraced, raised bed - at least one more. I've got to somehow turn this bit of hillside:

- into something that more resembles this bit:

And this bit:

- though I'm not sure how quickly that will happen! I'll hopefully have something ready for at least some of the seedlings before they die, anyway.

Back in the garden room, we've got chilli peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers growing:

Those little frog things are supposed to supply a steady feed of water for the ever-thirsty cucumbers, but they don't work very well.

We've got potatoes growing the the old dustbin as usual, and strawberries in the old bathtub:

- which are probably just about ready to have their straw laid under them.

A good salad

2009-04-14T09:41:00.007+01:00

I made a good salad the other day - all wild field produce again, just from some sorrel ("Culpepper tells us: 'Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness or fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues: to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs: For it resists the putrefaction of the blood, kills worms, and is a cordial to the heart, which the seed doth more effectually, being more drying and binding..."):

plus some young shoots of rose bay willow-herb ("The roots and leaves have demulcent, tonic and astringent properties and are used in domestic medicine in decoction, infusion and cataplasm, as astringents"):

And some young dandelion leaves which are a little too bitter for my taste, even this early in the season, but ok when mixed with the sweetness of the sorrel. Anyway, the whole thing was very good, dressed with some extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and black pepper.

I was starting to clear our carrot patch:

when I got sidetracked by the herb-gathering, so of course we had to have some roots for dandelion coffee:

- which tasted much better this time. I roasted the roots longer and slower, and used more of them.

Well, the carrot patch still isn't dug, because of a certain tiny (but very healthy-looking) willow sapling:

- that seems to have decided to make its home in there. I wanted to move it, not kill it (willow being so useful and all) so I looked around for a better position for the new tree, and found one right in the middle of a huge bramble patch. So I decided that the brambles also needed moving and the sapling transplanting before I could dig the carrot patch (still with me?!) and you can see some photos of that over there.

Next job: carrot patch. Really.

Field to table - already!

2009-04-07T06:36:00.004+01:00

We managed to make a whole meal the other evening, from food we'd picked ourselves. (Well OK, we had to add bought potatoes, stock cubes, sunflower spread, flour and sugar - but the main ingredients were ours!)

First, the ubiquitous nettle soup:

Next, rhubarb crumble. I've been looking forward to this for weeks, ever since the tiny corms appeared:

It's just a pity we haven't found a custard tree yet. Still looking..

Potting on...

2009-03-28T06:21:00.006Z

... is very therapeutic. When the baby went for her afternoon nap yesterday I left one of the teenagers listening out for her and then went to shut myself in the garden room with a radio, a flask and my laundry basket full of seed paraphernalia (John Innes No.1, a box of seeds, canvas gloves, a little trowel, some tiny pots, a water spraying bottle, etc.)

It's really just the brassica that I'm bothering with potting on, because that's the only crop family that likes to have its roots disturbed on a regular basis. So I had some cabbage, cauli and brussels seedlings

to move up a size:

I must be getting old, for such a job to give me so much pleasure.

Anyway, then I just stuffed new seeds back into their places, shock horror. Is that the gardening equivalent of being a slutty housewife, I wonder? Sweeping all the dust under one's sofa? If so, guilty as charged. These plants should consider themselves lucky I'm going to the trouble of potting them on. I'm certainly not about to throw trays of good compost away and sterilise everything to start again with the next lot.

Oh dear, perhaps horticulture isn't my forté after all. Well, I've always been a bit hit and miss with it all. The main thing, in my opinion, is that it should be rewarding and enjoyable. When it starts being a pain in the neck, it's gone too far I think.

The tomato, courgette and butternut squash seeds aren't doing a thing yet. I think it must be too cold out there for them to germinate, so we'll just have to wait for the weather to warm up I suppose, because to try and heat our garden room would be like heating the sky.

Planting progress

2009-03-17T08:29:00.005Z

So far we've got tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, spring onions, cabbage, cauliflower, beetroot and brussel sprouts planted indoors, in the garden room. (The garden room is the back two-thirds of our old Grimston garage, with a new[ish] perspex roof and doors, the back of which opens out into the little garden behind, hence its name.)

The cabbages have sprouted already! We're just running out of space in there now, because it has to house so much else besides plant pots:

We also put a raspberry cane in the old bathtub, to go with the strawberries already in there:

And on the house windowsills we've got potatoes chitting, just waiting for the last of the frost (who knows when that might be..?) to go into the field, where we planted some much hardier broad beans with friends a couple of weeks ago. We'll intercrop peas with those, devote a whole plot to potatoes then plot three will take the leaf crops when we've done all the fussy potting on that they like so much. The carrot seeds, beetroot seedlings and onions will go straight into the fourth bed - when I've finished digging it! I'm terribly late with that one, but have torn a 'digging' muscle in my calf, so am putting it off for yet another week or two. I can't do much to condition the soil in that except add some sand and some bonemeal and hope for the best.

Finally, I treated myself to some globe artichoke and asparagus plants, which need a special perennial bed building for them in the field. "Will you be able to protect them from the wind?" asked a visitor at the weekend. The short answer to that is "No." They'll have to take their chances, with everything else out there. Only the tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and whatever else is found space for in the garden room will be protected from that. We're nothing if not hopeful.

"If the law below is passed it takes away our our fundamental freedom of choice with respect to the food we eat."

2009-02-15T08:22:00.001Z

Dear friends

If the law below is passed it takes away our our fundamental freedom of choice with respect to the food we eat. Please help to prevent this happening.

Codex is due to be passed on 31st Dec 2009 and we have to stop this. If codex were to be passed then all nutrient supplements would be banned, which means that vitamins would be illegal in the same way heroin is illegal. This would not only would affect us, but would have a disastrous effect on developing countries. Also, all natural herbs would be banned and alternative remedies would no longer be available...anywhere!

The pharmaceutical companies are behind this. Under codex it would also become law that ALL foods would have to be sprayed with harmful pesticides and ALL animals for food would have to be injected with growth hormones and antibiotics that then end up in our bodies. This is very real. Below is the link with all the information.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5266884912495233634&ei=IE9FSdO8BorMwgPNp93TCQ&q=codex+alimentarius&hl=En

Below is the petition. It takes 10 seconds! This is for our health and wellbeing and the health and wellbeing of our children and the planet.

Please click on this link below...

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Vitamins/

Need I say Please forward?

Thank you!

Planting: I've finally got a plan

2009-02-03T11:49:00.007Z

This is our twelfth year of living here, and it's taken me so long to come up with a cohesive planting plan. The key, I think, is to try not to over-complicate the issue, and to keep each plant family in its own place, mostly within an annual crop rotation scheme, of course.

The crop rotation we've had for a long time, ever since I built the four raised beds as stone-walled terraces into the hillside. They're a good size: big enough to get enough plants in; deep enough to allow fairly close planting, and yet narrow enough to not have to walk on them. Most of them are about 15 feet long and 3 feet wide, and I had to build them as horizontal terraces in the steep hillside because the sun comes from the back - i.e. the top of the hill behind them, so they need to grow on flat beds to make best use of it. I think they'd be starved of sunlight if I'd tried to grow them on the slope instead.

We're 210m above sea level, on an exposed site, so water is essential, as is soil condition. And the land is in full shade from October to March, so the growing season is limited. I'm hoping there will be roofs out there by summer collecting water, so that I'm not having to transfer it all across both fields from the house in buckets. I think this has been our main problem with food production in years gone by.

So the four rotating deep beds are quite easy to organise between:

Legumes: (peas; beans) Deep bed #1 is almost ready for these. It got a bin full of well-rotted kitchen compost back in Autumn, and has been well-dosed with woodash, though I think it needs even more.

Potatoes: These get their own bed because of their specific soil requirements (loads of manure, immediately before planting) and because we eat a lot of them. Deep bed #2 is ready for them, having been covered in about 6" of manure since Autumn.

Leaf crops: (cabbages, brussels, cauliflower, broccoli). Bed #3 is for those, but it's nowhere near ready. I need to get hold of something with which to condition the soil there, as soon as possible; and

Root crops: (carrots, parsnips, turnips, beetroot) will go into the 4th deep bed, which isn't ready either. It needs a lot of conditioning too, but even more carefully than the third bed, because manuring immediately before planting causes carrots and parsnips to fork. I'll be adding a bit of woodash and lime to this bed, and possibly something concentrated like blood and bonemeal. I wish I could get hold of some seaweed, but can't see how, without driving to the coast. Lucy sent me some green manure seeds last year, and I never did get them planted, though I really wish I had now. This year, Lucy! I will manage it, I promise. They're there in my seed box, waiting to be planted.

I need to clear out the garden room in Spring and do an intensive tomato and cucumber planting session in there. It works like a greenhouse, with its clear perspex roof, and we've had a lot of success in the past when it's been used for this purpose though again, it's in the shade for all but the summer months so the timing is imperative. I've brought some seedlings on in a sunny house window instead, to go out there in the past.

And for strawberries and herbs - the bathtub!

I'm going to have two of those on the driveway this year: there's another one out in the field, hiding behind the remaining old shed.

We're still short of an apple tree. My neighbour gave me one a few years ago, but sadly it didn't survive the move. I think we might need to invest in one from a garden centre this year.

I did treat myself to some asparagus and globe artichoke plants for this year though, and will need to build a new perennial bed somewhere for those. It will need to be another deep bed, smaller than the others, and with maximum sunlight. Near the bottom of the field somewhere, I think - that gets more sun than the top.

And I'd love to build a root cellar, but I don't think we'll manage that this year, on top of everything else.

One thing is certain though: this year we will produce a significant amount of our own food. I reckon we stand a good chance, now that we've got a proper plan.

Red shoots

2009-01-18T14:22:00.004Z

Spring is coming! I know, I was the last to admit that summer was over, but look!

Do you see that tiny spot of red on the rhubarb korm there? That's spring growth, that is.

Just call me an optimist.

Jelly fungus

2008-12-07T16:19:00.005Z

- also known as "jelly ear", is mostly found on dead bits of elder trees, of which we have many.

The above is a picture-link to the relevant Wikipedia page. Below is my own, much less clear picture of the ones we found in our field yesterday:

Most years I harvest some of this delicious and nutritious food - it tastes great in stir-fries after it's been gently boiled for ten minutes or so to soften it. I've also sautéed it in butter and eaten it on toast. I think the taste is similar to that of the shiitake, but a bit stronger.

Medlar fruit taste test

2008-11-16T08:29:00.003Z

Back in early summer I blogged about our Medlar tree, though we still weren't 100% sure about its identification.

It's bright red now (see picture above) - the leaves turn a beautiful colour, and there's quite a lot of fruit left on it.

Anyway, according to Wikipedia, "Medlar fruit are very hard and acidic. They become edible after being softened ("bletted") by frost, or naturally in storage given sufficient time. Once softening begins, the skin rapidly takes a wrinkled texture and turns dark brown, and the inside reduces to a consistency and flavour reminiscent of apple sauce."

We've certainly had frost now and we tasted the fruit again a few days ago and it is completely different! A really unusual taste, that's hard to define. But yes, not unlike apple sauce. It's a bit like eating sweets.

I think that confirms its identity.

One potato, two potato...

2008-10-07T13:23:00.008+01:00

etc..

We grew potatoes in a dustbin in our front yard this year:

and yesterday was harvest time:

There's something primevally satisfying about searching amongst the dirt for those little pale gold nuggets, isn't there?

Lyddie's not usually one for grubbing in the mud, but she absolutely loved it.

We've had stawberries, herbs and tomatoes from pots in the front yard too, but we're planning to get serious next year and start growing in the field again. We'll have a water supply out there by then, which will make all the difference.

Re-post: The real free (healthy) health service - Dec 06

2008-06-21T16:20:00.002+01:00

Today's blog post was going to be another negative rant about the NHS, specifically the new Spine database, along the lines of 'NHS Consumes Itself', because there was a piece in the newspaper this weekend about Helen Wilkinson, the NHS practice manager who was falsely labelled as an alcoholic in her medical notes, went to the House of Lords to have her files erased from the system and is now barred from using the service for which she works. The Daily Mail version of the story, an online copy of which bizarrely does not exist, concludes as follows:

"What of the trusting relationship between doctor and patient? Will that disappear when Tony Blair's Brave New World with its giant health computer is up and running? Helen, who has worked for the health service for 20 years, thinks so. 'Patients will begin to lie. They won't tell the truth if they have been sexually promiscuous, or overdosed on drugs or even smoked a few cigarettes. They won't want it on their records if they know those records will not be kept secret. I can see patients turning their back on the health service completely,' she explains. It is a chilling prediction, but one that Helen Wilkinson believes with all her heart."

Well it's only a chilling prediction, in my opinion, because we have all been taught to believe that the only alternatives to the NHS are either expensive private healthcare or no healthcare at all. None of us can remember a time when we managed without a hierarchically structured, official healthcare system because we weren't alive then. Abdicating responsibility for our healthcare to the professionals is now so much the norm that many people simply would not accept there is any other way of living.

So I think we need to start talking about the real free health service. The one in which you only have to invest a small amount of time and thought: no cash outlay, not even National Insurance payments. The one laid on gratis by our planet upon which, last time I checked, we really do still live although it's sometimes easy to forget this in our concrete and tarmac enclaves.

But we are still part of the planet's natural systems, however much we try to divorce ourselves from them. We breathe locally produced air and most of us still drink locally produced water even if we don't eat locally produced food any more. The substrata of geological substances beneath our feet, unique to every locality, tries its best to create soil and plants in synergy with its animal (including human) inhabitants, who are (albeit unconsciously) constantly synchronising their own biological structures and functions in synergy with their home environments.

What all that means is that nature provides the perfect medicine for all our ailments in the neighbouring vicinity. Free of charge. The irony is that instead of learning about and making use of this free medicine, we view it all as weeds and we pay council workers to kill it with toxic sprays.

Glossing over this collective insanity, I'll move swiftly onto practicalities. To work with this system, you have to know and understand your local habitat.

The land around here, for example, on a bed of hard stone and clay subsoil, makes for quite an acidic growing substance. The area is hilly, so we're subject to quite a lot of rain and chilly dampness in winter, so chest complaints are common. That the perfect medicine for our local typical ailments grows in abundance around here is evidenced by the old names of some of our towns and villages. The name Hebden comes from 'hip dean': the valley of the rose hips. Heptonstall was 'hip town stall': the dairy farming village where the rose hips grow. The places themselves became known for the lifesaving medicines that grew there.

When you look around here in autumn and early winter there are indeed rosehips all over the place. The plants grow easily and healthily of their own accord wherever they're allowed to, each one producing thousands of natural (not plastic!) capsules of the perfect medicine to help people survive a Yorkshire winter. Full of vitamin C, the seeds of the Dog Rose are astringent, strengthening to the stomach, useful in diarrhoea and dysentery, allaying thirst, 'good for coughs and the spitting of blood'. Culpepper described them as being 'grateful to the taste and a considerable restorative, fitly given to consumptive persons, the conserve being proper in all distempers of the breast [lung disorders] and in coughs and tickling rheums.' The seeds were gathered and used as both food and medicine throughout the winter and the leaves were dried and infused in boiling water to make tea.

Nettles grow in abundance here as in so many places, much to my neighbour's annoyance. To him they're a scourge on the planet: to me they're an incredibly useful medicine and food. Gathered in the spring, they can be dried and taken as tea which is the perfect remedy for anaemia. Nettles contain a lot of vitamin C as well as iron, and our bodies need vitamin C to enable us to absorb the iron. This is why iron tablets alone (as commonly prescribed by the NHS) often don't cure anaemia and only cause constipation. Nature's truly free medicine does the job properly. Nettles are also helpful in gout and arthritis, again often ailments related to cold, damp climates - which is where the nettles grow!

The chemical constituents of nettles include histamine, formic acid, acetylchlorine, serotonin, glucoquinones, many minerals including iron and silica, vitamins A, B and C and tannins. Its actions are astringent, diuretic, tonic, nutritive, stops bleeding, circulatory stimulant, promotes milk flow, lowers blood sugar levels, prevents scurvy. So this plant is the perfect natural cure for many of our local, common, niggly and more serious ailments and yet we call it a weed and choke it to death.

Dandelions, commonly growing here and throughout the UK, are nature's solution to the common problems of fluid retention and other urinary disorders. They promote bile flow and are mildly laxative and antirheumatic. They can also be used to treat boils and abscesses.

The Elder tree, which chooses to grace our hilltop field in great numbers, produces berries rich in vitamins A and C, which were made into wines and syrups and taken to prevent winter colds. Elder flowers are anticatarrhal and encourage sweating, so are an ideal treatment for feverish colds and flu. They are also helpful for hay fever, taken as a prophylactic early in the year to strengthen the upper respiratory tract before the pollen count rises. Topically anti-inflammatory, they are also used in skin creams and for chilblains.

The Rosebay Willow Herb, which springs up in great healthy clumps here wherever land is cleared or changed, is very useful as a intestinal astringent. It has been recommended for its antispasmodic properties in the treatment of whooping cough and asthma.

Plantain, which the Anglo-Saxons knew as Waybread, was used in first aid to treat bee stings. This poor plant, much maligned by lawnsmen, tries valiantly to grow wherever there is grass and if you look closely, it's very common. The leaves soothe urinary tract infections and irritations and ease dry coughs. They can be applied externally for healing sores and wounds. They are anti-catarrhal, useful in allergic rhinitis and gastric inflammations. The seeds ease and can cure the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

Within the square mile in which we live, there are also wild bilberries (natural antibiotics and a cure for dysentery,) red clover (a bronchitis and cancer remedy,) chickweed (helpful for eczema and skin irritations, the root useful for preventing heaving menstrual bleeding,) comfrey (traditionally called knitbone - containing allantoin, which encourages bone, cartilage and muscle cells to grow - both my mother and I have used this for broken bones and astounded medical staff by our rate of recovery) and hawthorn, which was traditionally used for diarrhoea, heavy menstrual bleeding and in first aid to draw splinters. In the last century hawthorn flowers were found to improve coronary circulation, reducing the risk of angina attacks and helping to normalise blood pressure.

All this used to be common knowledge at one time, passed down from parent to child to help ensure the survival of our species. Food was used as medicine and medicine as food, both taken liberally from the local environment where nature was largely allowed to flourish as she saw fit. People saw themselves as products of their natural environment, dependant on and interactive with it in a way that we seem to have lost now.

This is the real, effective, truly free health service in which, if our interest is rekindled by the NHS losing our trust we may look forward to a much healthier and happier future. A cheerful, altogether unchilling prediction in my opinion.

7 Comments:

Louise said...

Wow Gill, that is one brill informative post. I'll see what we have even here in the city...we have a lovely lane nearby called hawthorn that is lined with hawthorns, nettles, elders etc. Nature truly beats everything doesn't it :o)
3:41 PM, December 13, 2006

Rosie said...

I have been letting the nettles and dandelions grow, but haven't used these, or any other herbs medicinally for a long time. I suppose it's down to the confidence of knowing you've got the right plant.
I friend of mine was recenly going to make something with rosehips when I pointed out that the ones she was after were from cultivated roses- I didn't know if you could use these.
I suppose the last wild foods we had were the blackberries and bilberries, but there's loads more out there. It's just so wild up here at the moment it's difficult to drag them all out to even find firewood ;-)
I like the idea, though- plants growing localy must be the right thing to have.
O, I know where I heard this recently- I was reading an Alison Uttley story last night (of Little grey rabbit fame), and also another story about blackthorn or sloe berries? Something about them ripening after the first frost and the tea/juice being good to keep the cold out? I'll have to go and find it now...I think it might be just what we need...
12:07 AM, December 14, 2006

Gill said...

Lou, it's great that your Hawthorn Lane still has hawthorns on it!

Rosie, yes identifying can be a problem but there are some great books to help with that. I don't think medical use of cultivated roses would cause any severe problems, but it probably wouldn't be as effective as the wild dog rose, just because the cultivated roses have been selectively bred for other purposes, so any remaining nutritional/medical value will be only there by accident.
5:44 AM, December 14, 2006

Rosie said...

Ok, cheers, Gill, and thanks for this post- it's really got me thinking :-)
I think I had a bit of a revellation about Sloe berries and my homeopath has advised me to go with it ;-)
12:03 AM, December 15, 2006

Lindsey said...

Hi Gill, we just received a birthday card from the NHS this morning which I thought you might like to see. I've scanned and blogged ;)
9:49 AM, December 15, 2006

Gill said...

Rosie, did you blog your revelation? I'm fascinated! Off to check out your blog to find out ;-)

Lindsey, will swing by yours too, you have me intrigued!
10:47 AM, December 15, 2006

Rosie said...

urm no, Gill, but I might do later if it still seems to be right ;-)
mm... off to see Linsey, too- intrigued!
11:47 PM, December 15, 2006

Tree identification

2008-06-16T07:27:00.005+01:00

What kind of a tree do you think this is?

I think it might be a medlar, but the fruits are only tiny so now I'm wondering whether I'm wrong.

If anyone recognises it, please let me know.

Cosmic supply company pudding

2008-06-09T08:14:00.003+01:00

We've been clearing the land in our field to enable us to access the sheds we need to rebuild for our off-grid project and yesterday afternoon I was wondering what we'd have for pudding, as the fruit I'd bought to make crumble with had been eaten. Then I cleared the tall nettles and brambles from around a tree and found this ~~little~~ big treasure hiding behind it:

Rhubarb crumble! Perfect.

Dandelion coffee

2008-06-03T10:47:00.005+01:00

We dug up some dandelion roots yesterday to make coffee. A brilliant diuretic, dandelion root also stimluates the liver and cleanses the system.

So we washed the roots, diced them and roasted them in a warm oven.

Then tipped them into the coffee grinder and ground 'em up:

The thing is, I don't think we roasted them for long enough, because they got a bit ground up in the grinder and we ended up taking them all out and roasting them some more on a lower heat. Finally, we got grounds, then coffee, which I'm drinking now with rice milk.

It's good stuff, easily as tasty as real coffee, but we needed more roots to make a decent amount. This site recommends a 5-gallon bucket of roots! That's some serious dandelion-growing.

A little corner of hippy paradise

2008-05-22T08:37:00.006+01:00

What do you do with your old bath when you have a new one fitted? Well, I'd been wanting a deep planter for the drive, in which to grow some herbs and small food crops that were more accessible from the kitchen than the field, so I couldn't resist:

The CDs aren't just to enhance its eccentricity. They're also to scare birds off the peas, which I'm hoping will cover the trellis at the back. To the left we've got mint, parsley and strawberries:

There are some peas and corander to the right..

And I think this is rocket:

- though we planted so many seeds in there that we won't know what's what exactly until we can see, smell and taste it all. Which is half the fun!

It makes me smile anyway, every time I look at it.

Planting query

2008-05-03T07:24:00.005+01:00

Seed packets rarely advise the planting of solitary seeds. The advice is usually to plant two or more, then select the strongest and thin out when they've become seedlings.

What I want to know is this: do they give this advice because they expect some of their seeds to fail, or to do less well than others?

Or... is it that seeds produce stronger plants when they have to compete?

I've got some pots of pea seedlings to illustrate my question:

Does anyone recognise this?

2008-04-21T22:59:00.003+01:00

Just on the off-chance?

It's a very low-growing plant and is sprouting out of a shady bank in our field. I want to put a name to it, but can't think what it might be.

Well, we did some planting...

2008-04-10T19:56:00.004+01:00

Just flowers though, so far. Night-scented stocks in some window boxes:

We're working out a decent planting place for the vegetables, still - if not more than one, including planting boxes. More on that later, as soon as there's more to tell! Hmm, I want to start harvesting seeds this year too. Anyone else do that? Have tried over the years but been let down by chaotic storage and labelling systems. Must try harder!

Frivolity and a plea

2008-04-08T13:28:00.011+01:00

First, some pretty pictures of some stuff we planted earlier:

My ex-sister-in-law bought me these hyacinths and their pot for Christmas. Beautiful pot, no? I'm really looking forward to the flowers.

And here's what we've got growing outside the front door:

Enough frivolity! Here's the plea, for advice from anyone reading who knows more about gardening than I do. Because we want some pretty flowers, yes, but also some food this year.

We're planning to put some potatoes in the field, but it's full of rabbits over there. Anyone know what other crops they don't like, besides potatoes? Because everything else I've ever planted over there has been eaten.

We need to keep rabbit-tempting crops closer to the house really, and are getting some big wooden deep planting boxes for the driveway soon. So we've got all these old seeds, from years ago:

Now please tell me: do seeds need using within a certain time frame? I'm sure I heard someone on Gardeners' Question Time the other day saying they actually improve with age. Some of those packets are 8, 9, 10 years old! What do you think, should I use them? And if so, which should I start off indoors first, before the planters are ready? I'm thinking, peas... courgettes, maybe...

Root crops don't like being moved, right? Or is it that they do..? Sigh, I forget now. Will have to get some gardening books out..

Spring comes to Yorkshire

2008-03-09T13:43:00.005Z

Boing!

Took its time, huh? ;-)

The east wall of Bolton Priory

2007-09-13T11:15:00.000+01:00

We went to Bolton Abbey on Monday and, while the woodland and river banks around the Abbey contain a wealth of useful plantlife, I was especially interested in the east wall of the Priory:

We've been to Bolton Abbey many times in the past, but have never bothered to look inside the Priory. When we did on Monday I was taken aback by these huge plant pictures, which cover the whole of the east wall behind the altar. The shock, for me, was that somebody sometimes associated herbs with Christian religion to such an extent: the paintings totally dominate the small priory. I came home determined to find out more, and found this excellent site which breaks the image down into sections and explains each one.

But these 7 plants are useful and relevant in many more ways than their appearance in the Bible.

The Madonna Lily has the following uses, as identified here, in Mrs M. Grieve's brilliant Modern Herbal:

---Uses---The bulb, only, is now employed for medicinal purposes, having highly demulcent and also somewhat astringent properties.

Bulbs are collected in August, and used both dried and fresh.

Each bulb is composed of imbricated, fleshy scales, lanceolate and curved, about 1 1/2 inch long and rather less than 1/2 inch broad in the centre. It is without odour, but has a peculiar, disagreeable, somewhat bitter and mucilaginous taste.

To dry the scales, strip them off separately and spread them on shelves in a kitchen or other warm room for about ten days, then finish off more quickly in greater heat over a stove or gas fire, or in oven when the fire has just gone out.

The bulb contains a great deal of mucilage and a small proportion of an acrid principle, but the latter it loses by drying, roasting, or boiling; when cooked, the bulb is viscid, pulpy, sweet and sugary and is eaten by many people in the East. The Japanese are said to specially esteem the bulb of this species served with white sauce.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Demulcent, as tringent. Owing to their highly mucilaginous properties, the bulbs are chiefly employed externally, boiled in milk or water, as emollient cataplasms for tumours, ulcers and external inflammation and have been much used for this purpose in popular practice. The fresh bulb, bruised and applied to hard tumours, softens and ripens them sooner than any other application.

Made into an ointment, the bulbs take away corns and remove the pain and inflammation arising from burns and scalds, which they cure without leaving any scar.
The ointment also had the reputation of being an excellent application to contracted tendons. Gerard tells us:
'The root of the Garden Lily stamped with honey gleweth together sinewes that be cut asunder. It bringeth the hairs again upon places which have been burned or scalded, if it be mingled with oil or grease. . . The root of a white Lily, stamped and strained with wine, and given to drink for two or three days together, expelleth the poison of the pestilence.'
In the fresh state, the bulb is also said to have been employed with advantage in dropsy, for Culpepper (1652), besides confirming the uses of the Lily bulb which Gerard gives, tells us 'the juice of it being tempered with barley meal baked is an excellent cure for the dropsy.'

Combined with Life Root (Senecio aureus), it is recommended in modern herbal practice for healing female complaints generally.

---Dosage---Of infusion, in water or milk, 3 tablespoonsful.

Country people sometimes steep the fresh blooms in spirit and use the liquid as a lotion for bruises in the same manner as Arnica or Calendula.

The bulbs of several other species of Lilies besides those of L. candidum are eaten, as those of L. Kamschatcense, L. Martagon, the Turk's Cap, and L. Pomponium, the Turban or Yellow Martagon, in Siberia. The Chinese and Japanese eat regularly the bulbs of L. tigrinum, the Tiger Lily and the Goldenrayed Lily of Japan, L. auratum.

Barley is a well-known staple crop of course, but it too has medicinal uses. Margaret Grieve again:

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Pearl Barley is used for the preparation of a decoction which is a nutritive and demulcent drink in febrile conditions and in catarrhal affections of the respiratory and urinary organs: barley water is used to dilute cows' milk for young infants, it prevents the formation of hard masses of curd in the stomach. Malt is produced from barley by a process of steeping and drying which develop a ferment 'diatase' needed for the production of alcoholic malt liquors, but in the form of Malt Extract it is largely used in medicine. Vinegar is an acid liquid produced by oxidation of fermented malt wort. Malt vinegar is the only vinegar that should be used medicinally.

---Dosage and Preparation---Barley water. Pearl Barley washed 10 parts, water to 100 parts, boil for 20 minutes, strain. Dose, 1 to 4 oz.

Olive is used in its distilled essence as one of Bach's Flower Remedies, in particular to treat

Those who have suffered much mentally or physically and are so exhausted and weary that they feel they have no more strength to make any effort. Daily life is hard work for them, without pleasure.

And, according to Mrs Grieve:

The leaves are astringent and antiseptic. Internally, a decoction of 2 handsful boiled in a quart of water until reduced to half a pint has been used in the Levant in obstinate fevers. Both leaves and bark have valuable febrifugal qualities.

The oil is a nourishing demulcent and laxative. Externally, it relieves pruritis, the effects of stings or burns, and is a good vehicle for liniments. With alcohol it is a good hair-tonic. As a lubricant it is valuable in skin, muscular, joint, kidney and chest complaints, or abdominal chill, typhoid and scarlet fevers, plague and dropsies. Delicate babies absorb its nourishing properties well through the skin. Its value in worms or gallstones is uncertain.

Internally, it is a laxative and disperser of acids, and a mechanical antidote to irritant poisons. It is often used in enemas. It is the best fat for cooking, and a valuable article of diet for both sick and healthy of all ages. It can easily be taken with milk, orange or lemon juice, etc.

---Dosage---As a laxative, 1 to 2 fluid ounces.

Vine is another Bach Flower Remedy, for:

Very capable people, certain of their own ability, confident of success. Being so assured, they think that it would be for the benefit of others if they could be persuaded to do things as they themselves do, or as they are certain is right. Even in illness they will direct their attendants. They may be of great value in emergency.

And Mrs Grieve has this to say about the medicinal uses of the vine:

Grape sugar differs from other sugars chemically. It enters the circulation without any action of the saliva. The warming and fattening action of grape sugar is thus more rapid in increasing strength and repairing waste in fevers but is unsuitable for inflammatory or gouty conditions.

The seeds and leaves are astringent, the leaves being formerly used to stop haemorrhages and bleeding. They are used dried and powdered as a cure for dysentery in cattle.

The sap, termed a tear or lachryma, forms an excellent lotion for weak eyes and specks on the cornea.

Ripe grapes in quantity influence the kidneys producing a free flow of urine and are apt to cause palpitation in excitable and full-blooded people. Dyspeptic subjects should avoid them.

In cases of anaemia and a state of exhaustion the restorative power of grapes is striking, especially when taken in conjunction with a light nourishing diet.

In cases of small-pox grapes have proved useful owing to their bi-tartrate of potash content; they are also said to be of benefit in cases of neuralgia, sleeplessness, etc.

Three to 6 lb. of grapes a day are taken by people undergoing the 'grape cure,' sufferers from torpid liver and sluggish biliary functions should take them not quite fully ripe, whilst those who require animal heat to support waste of tissue should eat fully ripe and sweet grapes.

Dried grapes; the raisins of commerce, are largely used in the manufacture of galencials, the seeds being separated and rejected as they give a very bitter taste. Raisins are demulcent, nutritive and slightly laxative.

Of the Passionflower, she has this to tell us:

---Medicinal Action and Uses---The drug is known to be a depressant to the motor side of the spinal cord, slightly reducing arterial pressure, though affecting circulation but little, while increasing the rate of respiration. It is official in homoeopathic medicine and used with bromides, it is said to be of great service in epilepsy. Its narcotic properties cause it to be used in diarrhoea and dysentery, neuralgia, sleeplessness and dysmenorrhoea.

---Dosages---3 to 10 grains. Of Fluid extract, 10 to 20 minims.

I've written about the Rose before here, but its medicinal uses are well-known.

The rose also forms a Bach Remedy, for:

Those who without apparently sufficient reason become resigned to all that happens, and just glide through life, take it as it is, without any effort to improve things and find some joy. They have surrendered to the struggle of life without complaint.

According to Wikipedia, the Palm is mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible, and at least 22 times in the Quran, and:

Arecaceae [palm] has great economic importance including coconut products, oils, dates, ivory nuts, carnauba wax, rattan cane, raffia, etc..

The type member of Arecaceae is the Areca palm, the fruit of which, the betel nut, is chewed with the betel leaf for intoxicating effects. Also belonging to the family of the Arecaceae are the Date Palm, harvested for its edible fruit; Rattans, whose stems are used extensively in furniture and baskets; and the Coconut. Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil produced by the oil palms in the genus Elaeis. Several species are harvested for heart of palm, a vegetable eaten in salads. Palm sap is sometimes fermented to produce palm wine or toddy, an alcoholic beverage common in parts of Africa, India, and the Philippines. The Palm Sunday festival uses palm leaves, usually from the Date Palm, hence the name. Dragon's blood, a red resin used traditionally in medicine, varnish, and dyes, may be obtained from the fruit of Daemonorops species. Coir is a coarse water-resistant fiber extracted from the outer shell of coconuts, used in doormats, brushes, mattresses, and ropes. Some indigenous groups living in palm-rich areas use palms to make many of their necessary items and food. Sago, for example, a starch made from the pith of the trunk of the Sago Palm Metroxylon sagu, is a major staple food for lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas. Palm leaves are also valuable to some peoples as a material for thatching or clothing.

It's hard to know about how much of the above mural artist Thomas Bottomley was aware when he decorated the Priory altar wall in 1880, but for centuries, the inhabitants of Bolton Abbey derived their income from sales of wool and from tithes and rents of farm land, mines and mills given to or purchased by them. They would have grown and used herbs for medicinal purposes - in fact the Priory housed an infirmary within its grounds.

My dad's allotment...

2007-08-17T18:22:00.000+01:00

... is producing a lot more food than our field! The difference between the valley bottom and the hill top is phenomenal, from a plant-growing POV. This is what he brought for us this week:

The rhododendron

2007-08-09T14:33:00.000+01:00

My next-door neighbour has just taken delivery of 50 rhododendron bushes, which are going to become a part of our lives here because they're going in his field, through which we walk to get to ours. So today I'm researching this plant and blogging my results here.

From Wikipedia, "Rhododendron (from the Greek: rhodos, "rose", and dendron, "tree") is a genus of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. It is a large genus with over 1000 species and most have showy flower displays. It includes the plants known to gardeners as azaleas."

Rhododendrons are acidic soil-loving plants, so they'll be quite comfortable here on our Millstone Grit.

Medicinally, they're used in the homoeopathic remedy Rhododendron, which is mainly used to treat rheumatism and gout. Constitutionally, the patients responding well to this remedy are hypersentitive to thunderstorms.

According to Richard Thomas's review of Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare, in the Ancient World, by Adrienne Mayor:

...both Xenophon's and Pompey's soldiers .. encountered the naturally toxic honey native to the region of Pontus, the product of the concentrated toxins in the rhododendron plants of the region. While the idea of hallucinogenic honey sounds funny, even modest amounts of the honey could cause powerful hallucinations and painful death. Twice in ancient history, the local population remained silent about the deadly honeycombs, waiting for the hungry soldiers to forage to their own demise among the rhododendrons.

A flower essence remedy can be made from the plant, "For those who lack flexibility and keep trying to push through blind alleys."

The Yew

2007-08-04T13:54:00.000+01:00

My next-door neighbour has just taken delivery of 50 yew trees, which are going to become a part of our lives here because they're going in his field, through which we walk to get to ours. So today I'm researching this plant and blogging my results here.

yew n. 1 any dark-leaved evergreen coniferous tree of the genus Taxus, having seeds enclosed in a fleshy red aril, and often planted in churchyards. 2 its wood, used formerly as a material for bows and still in cabinet-making [OE iw, eow f. Gmc]

The leaves, seed and fruit are poisonous.

From my Modern Herbal, by Mrs M Grieve FRHS:

A tree 40 to 50 feet high, forming with age a very stout trunk covered with red-brown, peeling bark and topped with a rounded or wide-spreading head of branches; leaves spirally attached to twigs, but by twisting of the stalks brought more or less into two opposed ranks, dark, glossy, almost black-green above, grey, pale-green or yellowish beneath, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches long, 1/16 to 1/12 inch wide. Flowers unisexual, with the sexes invariably on different trees, produced in spring from the leaf axils of the preceding summer's twigs. Male, a globose cluster of stamens; female, an ovule surrounded by small bracts, the so-called fruit bright red, sometimes yellow, juicy and encloses the seed.

No tree is more associated with the history and legends of Great Britain than the Yew. Before Christianity was introduced it was a sacred tree favoured by the Druids, who built their temples near these trees - a custom followed by the early Christians. The association of the tree with places of worship still prevails.

Many cases of poisoning amongst cattle have resulted from eating parts of the Yew.

---Constituents---The fruit and seeds seem to be the most poisonous parts of the tree. An alkaloid taxine has been obtained from the seeds; this is a poisonous, white, crystalline powder, only slightly soluble in water; another principle, Milossin, has also been found.

---Uses---The wood was formerly much valued in archery for the making of long bows. The wood is said to resist the action of water and is very hard, and, before the use of iron became general, was greatly valued.

And from The Druid Network's Notes on the Yew by Geoff Boswell:

The Yew : Taxus baccata
As honoured by The Druidic Order of The Yew

The yew tree played an important role in the formation of human culture and consciousness. It provided wood for shelter, tools and weapons, foliage and bark for every medicine bag. Its greatest influence on culture, however, was its myriad spiritual associations with the goddess, the grave, afterlife and immortality. Although the yew tree was revered in nearly every culture of the northern temperate zones, yew trees were destroyed for their utility. Gone from Greece and Rome by the time of Christ, gone from Europe by the 17th century. Today, the remnants are threatened throughout the world because yew bark and foliage provide taxol, the most promising new anti-cancer drug in 30 years. In yew's modern dilemma there is a lesson for all of us to consider as we contemplate our own earthly survival....

... And this essay contains a lot more fascinating information about the yew's name and distribution, longevity, its connection with Druids...

The yew tree is held sacred by the Druids because of its symbolism of death and rebirth. The yew tree's branches grow into the ground. Thus when the central trunk dies, the tree lives on, as the branches become trees. It symbolizes transformation, great age, and reincarnation. Yew wood is good in any rituals that use the preceding symbolism. Yew holds and conducts energy very well, and yew is a good shield for magical energies that directly hit the wood is reflected...

... its long history and uses:

Because it is a slow-growing tree, it has a tight-grained wood, tough and resilient, used in the past for spears, spikes, dagger handles, staves, and its elasticity made it excellent for small hunting bows and eventually the famous longbows of the Middle Ages. The arrows were tipped with poison made from the Yew...

Its association with churchyards:

The Yew is sacred to the goddess Hecate, and the Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess; both are guardians of the Underworld, death and the afterlife. A lot of our ancient Yews are found in churchyards but there is no doubt that they were there before the churches were built. Many churches and churchyards once stood in a circle of Yews, which were probably a legacy of the Druids' sacred groves.

... and its connections with shamanism, magic, the Celtic Ogham, death and rebirth, remedies and dowsing and propogation, amongst other things:

Shamanism and Magic

The Yew is considered to be the most potent tree for protection against evil, a means of connecting to your ancestors, a bringer of dreams and Otherworld journeys and a symbol of the old magic. In hot weather it gives off a resinous vapour, which shamans inhaled to gain visions. Yew wood was regarded as especially magical to the Celts, due to its connection with the dead and the ancestors, which were deeply respected. Archaeologists have recently found well-preserved Yew woodcarvings at ancient sites of springs and wells that were probably votive offerings. Yew would have been idea for this purpose, as it was already magically associated with the Goddess and the Gods. It was the most durable wood of the European forest, and more practically it is said to sink, as it is a dense and heavy wood. It is fairly easy to carve and the most beautiful of our native woods, a deep golden orange, with a deep red core which polishes up well. It was used in the past for making wheels and cogs, spoons, handles, bowls and any turned items, and the body of the lute, but it is a perfect wood to use for sacred carvings. It should be noted, though, that even the dust produced from sanding Yew wood is poisonous, and great care should be taken where you work and how you work.

The Yew and Tree Ogham

The Yew tree is the last of the 20 trees in the Tree Ogham, a Celtic system in which the Druids encoded their wisdom. Each spiritual insight is represented by a tree, the first letter of which creates an alphabet system. Each letter is written as a line on, or crossing, a central stem line. These symbols can be found on the edges of some standing stones in Ireland and Wales, but they were probably, for magical and communication purposes, carved on staves of Yew. It was used as a silent communication system by the Druids, and is recorded in some medieval manuscripts. The place of Yew, or Ioho, I, was at the base of the Mercury finger (the little finger) at the line which separates it from the palm. The connection of the Mercury finger with the Yew is made by Mercury's conducting of souls to the place presided over by the death Goddess, Hecate, alias Maia, this mother, to who the Yew was sacred. The Ogham symbol could also be communicated silently by using the shinbone as the central stem line and laying five fingers horizontally across it.

The Yew tree, or Yew wood, the Tree ogham Ioho, is the link to spiritual guidance through your ancestors, guides and guardians in the Otherworld. The Yew is here to remind us that there are other levels of existence beyond this material plane. By understanding the illusionary nature of the life we have created for ourselves, we can live our lives more consciously. Often death is fraught with a sense of loss, but the Yew can teach us to see death as a form of transformation and that it is never final.

The Yew, Death and Rebirth

The knowledge we gain from the Yew makes it an extremely important tree for healing. It can help us overcome our fear of our own death and, by freeing us from this fear, bring us a greater stillness in our lives. Death heralds the ending of something. It may be a physical death, or the death of our old selves, an old way of life or an old way of looking at things. Each end, each death, is a new beginning, hope, future and transformation. Sometimes things need to end or die before the new can begin, and understanding rebirth always requires seeing beyond our limitations.

The Yew can be used to assist Otherworld journeys and to increase openness of communication with the Otherworld, through an increased ability to understand and receive the messages, which are being given to us by our guides and helpers. By opening ourselves to intuitively interpreting these messages, and trusting our intuitions to act on what we receive, we can make some real progress as the wheel turns and the death of one situation heralds the birth of another.

Magically the Yew is used for summoning spirits and any Otherworld communication. It is linked to Samhain, when entry to the Otherworld is easiest, dreams are most potent and access to the ancestors is most possible. The Yew is linked to the runes yr and eolh, both ruled by Jupiter and the positive benefits of transformation. According to a modern encyclopaedia of magical herbs, the Yew is feminine, its element is water and its planet is Saturn. However it seems to me that Pluto would be a much more appropriate planet as it is the planet of death and change, transformation and rebirth. The Yew also connects through Samhain and the water element, to Scorpio, ruled by Pluto.

Remedies and Dowsing

Because the Yew is poisonous, there are no herbal remedies, although it was sometimes called the forbidden tree as it was used to stimulate abortions. In the north, the Yew was used for dowsing to find lost property (enlisting the help of the ancestors?). The seeker held a Yew branch in front of him or her, which led them to the goods, and turned his hand when he was near them. A strange belief in the north of Scotland concerning the Yew was that a person, when grasping a branch of Yew in the left hand, may speak to anyone he pleases without that person being able to hear, even though everyone else present can. This may have been useful if someone wished to prejudice the clan against a chief without receiving punishment for his insults.

Propagation

A friend of mine's personal "crusade" is Yew trees, and planting as many as possible along the great Michael and Mary leylines which run from St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, up through Glastonbury, Avebury, Bury St Edmunds and ending at Hopton on the Norfolk coast. Yew trees can be propagated through cuttings, seed, graftings or layering. It is also possible to find small trees growing near bigger trees, which transplant well. They prefer a moist, fertile, sandy loam soil, but will grow well in most soils except waterlogged ground or sticky wet clay. They also grow well on chalk. They resist pollution and can flourish in the shade of taller trees, but little will grow in the shade they themselves cast.

Yew has been found to be beneficial in propagating other species. Cuttings soaked in an infusion of crushed Yew and water produce quicker and healthier root growth, though I have not tried it myself. Cuttings of Yew taken from lateral branches generally produce shrub-like plants, while those from erect topward branches are more likely to produce a tree...

According to the Plants for A Future database:

All parts of the plant, except the fleshy fruit, are antispasmodic, cardiotonic, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, narcotic and purgative. The leaves have been used internally in the treatment of asthma, bronchitis, hiccup, indigestion, rheumatism and epilepsy. Externally, the leaves have been used in a steam bath as a treatment for rheumatism. A homeopathic remedy is made from the young shoots and the berries. It is used in the treatment of many diseases including cystitis, eruptions, headaches, heart and kidney problems, rheumatism etc.

Very tolerant of trimming, this plant makes an excellent hedge. The plants are often used in topiary and even when fairly old, the trees can be cut back into old wood and will resprout. One report says that trees up to 1000 years old respond well to trimming. A decoction of the leaves is used as an insecticide. Some cultivars can be grown as a ground cover when planted about 1 metre or more apart each way. Wood - heavy, hard, durable, elastic, takes a good polish but requires long seasoning. Highly esteemed by cabinet makers, it is also used for bows, tool handles etc. It makes a good firewood. The wood is burnt as an incense.

According to Wikipedia:

a passage by Caesar narrates that Catuvolcus, chief of the Eburones, literally "farmers of the yew", poisoned himself with yew rather than submit to Rome (Gallic Wars 6: 31). Similarly, Florus notes that when the Cantabrians were under siege by the legate Gaius Furnius in 22 BC, most of them took their lives either by the sword or by fire or by a poison extracted ex arboribus taxeis, that is, from the yew tree (2: 33, 50-51). In a similar way, Orosius notes that when the Astures were besieged at Mons Medullius, they preferred to die by their own swords or by the yew tree poison rather than surrender (6, 21, 1.).

Also:

In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, Beleg Strongbow uses a bow made of yew.

In Tolkien's The Hobbit, the eagle king complains of the men of Wilderland using bows made of yew to shoot at his people.

In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Voldemort uses a wand made of yew.

In Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series, both the wizard Ged and the Master Summoner carry staves of yew.

The murderer in Agatha Christie's mystery A Pocket Full of Rye uses taxine (taxol), a poison derived from yew, to kill the victim. The victim lives at Yewtree Lodge.

These 50 trees will be very interesting for us to live with then, I'm sure.

Eye strain

2007-07-08T09:30:00.000+01:00

Euphrasia (eyebright) springs to mind, but my books tell me it grows on chalky soil. Not much hope of finding any around here then! Most of this area sits on beds of Millstone Grit, which makes for a much more acidic soil than chalk does.

The eye strain is Tom's, because he's using computers just about every waking hour.

If I think about it, there'll be dietary things we can do for it, and other herbs. I'm loathe to buy anything unless we get desperate - I prefer to use locally grown stuff whenever possible.