'Herbalist Luv Em'

Actually, herbalist quite like them. Herbalist's husband, on the other hand,  'luv em'.

Yes, it's another find at the Farmers' Market! I keep seeing so many thing there which demonstrate how right Hippocrates was when he wrote 'Let food be your medicine and medicine your food'.  This was in the downtown Santa Cruz market last week and the sign obviously caught my eye, as did the hard, shiny little fruits which looked like miniature Red Delicious apples. To eat, they have the crunch of an apple and the dry, fibrous sweetness of a fresh date. I thought they were quite pleasant, but my husband found them strangely addictive and finished off most of the bowl in a couple of days.

I had never come across 'jujubees' before, so I looked them up when I got home. I discovered that they are usually called Jujubes and that the Latin name is Ziziphus jujuba - which I have heard of. It's not a herb we use in Western Herbal Medicine, but it's familiar to my colleagues working with Chinese herbs. A little more research revealed that the fruits are used medicinally throughout Asia and the Middle East. They are usually dried and, as with most Chinese herbs, prepared as a tea or decoction. The main medicinal use seems to be as an immune tonic, with nourishing qualities and, possibly anti-microbial and anti-fungal actions. They are also mucilagenous, so soothing to the throat.

The jujubes are a timely discovery, as the cold and flu season seems to be starting in Santa Cruz and I haven't come across any elderberries yet (though I'm told they grow up in the mountains).  I plan to look out for more, dry them a bit - which I think they will do pretty much by themselves if I leave them on the kitchen windowsill - and try chopping them and  preserving them in honey. Our local Wholefoods has beautiful untreated local honeys which are kept at beehive temperature in huge serve-yourself tanks. I reckon a spoonful of jujube honey in a tea, with sage for a sore throat or boneset for a fever, could make a good remedy to ward of  the viruses my family encounters. I'll let you know how it goes!

Try a little bitterness

I have to admit this is mostly here because it is just so damn pretty! These bags of salad are for sale in both our local Farmers' Markets and I couldn't resist photographing and buying, who could? The flowers are Calendula, Nasturtium and something called 'blue buttons' according to the salad salesman, which looks like some kind of cornflower to me.

Of these, Calendula is obviously the best known herbally for its anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial effects, though I can't pretend that a scattering of petals will have a lot of medicinal value. However, the salad as a whole contains a great mix of different leaves, including things like rocket (or arugula as it's called here) and raddiccio.

Eating bitter tasting leaves makes a lot of sense from a health perspective, as the bitter taste itself is a wonderful stimulant to the digestive system. The mouth releases additional saliva in response to bitter tastes and this sets off a cascade of digestive juices all the way through to bile from the liver. Consequently food is broken down, and therefore absorbed, more effectively. It's why aperitifs are so popular in Europe: they always contain bitter herbs such as Gentian or Wormwood (the infamous Artemisia absinthum of Absinthe fame), which also gives its name to vermouth.

A lot of commercially produced salad leaves have have had the bitterness bred out over the years, creating sweeter, milder salads such as baby gem or icebergs. I wouldn't want to add their parent Wild Lettuce (Lactuca virosa)  to my salad bowl as it is intensely bitter and rather spiky, not to mention an effective sedative which would risk sending half the table to sleep. But you can add a little bitterness with the wilder greens like rocket and lettuce as well as chicory and artichokes. And if you want to precede it with a stiff martini or deliciously retro Campari and soda, then you can congratulate yourself that you are doing it for the good of your digestion!

Borage for Courage

Something I've been delighted to discover in Santa Cruz is an abundance of Borage - it's in my front yard and all over the beautiful herb and vegetable garden at my son's new school, which is where  I took the photo above. The Borage has bright, star-shaped blue flowers. It's threaded through here with a fabulous orange-flowered climber which is completely new to me, but I'm told is a kind of Hawaiian Passionflower.  I've yet to find out the latin name or whether it has any of the medicinal qualities of the Passiflora incarnata I use. Do let me know if you can enlighten me.

You don't often see Borage growing wild in London, though its rampaging look-alike alkanet splashes many city gardens with blue. Both are members of the boraginaceae family, whose other members include comfrey, lungwort and forget-me-nots. All share characteristic furry, slightly bristly leaves and most have blue flowers.

The saying 'Borage for Courage' comes from a belief that Roman soldiers took the herb before heading into battle. I don't know whether that's true, but it's informed my prescribing on a number of occasions, I really do feel this herb can help people when they are unsure whether they can face the task ahead. I feel there are many aspects to Herbal Medicine. We are taught the science and pharmacology at college and it's crucial to understand those, of course. But as I have said before, I think there is a lot more to the relationship between the plant and animal kingdoms: ways in which the spirit of the plant can interact with our own unconscious.

I would certainly say Borage is an adaptogen, or herb which supports the adrenal glands. And robust adrenals help us face things with courage and fortitude, since they are responsible for  the stress hormones adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol and can become depleted over extended periods of  stress. The best known adaptogens are exotic and expensive herbs like ginseng, I love that there is a very good one which grows perfectly well in gardens, here in California and in England too.

Since I couldn't bring my dispensary with me, I am creating one for myself here, using the herbs I can beg and borrow from kind Santa Cruzians. And thanks to the generosity of Caprice, the doyenne of the school garden, I'm delighted to say that the very borage plant in this photo, as well as a few of its brothers and sisters, are hanging up right here in my house ready to be tinctured tomorrow! A good borage tincture often has a dark blueish tint from the flowers, I'll let you know how it turns out!

Dancing Dandelions in Santa Cruz

My family and I are now getting settled into our new home in Santa Cruz, California. There is a great tradition of herbal medicine here and the mild Mediterranean climate is bliss for a huge range of plants. I'm very excited about getting back to blogging so I can share my observations and discoveries, and a little about how I'm finding being An English Herbalist in Santa Cruz.

To kick off, here is a photo I took at our local Farmers Market last weekend. I wasn't that surprised to see dandelions being sold in this land where salad is almost a religion - after all they are cultivated in France where they know a bit about food. But I wasn't expecting to see such big leaves being sold at this time of year. The small, tender spring leaves are more usually used in salads. I'm wondering whether these are intended to be steamed, like spinach. We're off to the market again tomorrow, so if they are there again, I'll ask the farmer and report back.

I always think dandelions suffer in the UK from their sheer ubiquity and (to be fair, deserved) reputation as a tenacious weed. We all spend money buying rocket from M&S, when an equally delicious bitter leaf is in every garden, park and country lane. But if you do decide to munch on a few dandelion leaves, you may want to remember their French colloquial name: pis en lit (trans. pee in the bed). They have powerful diuretic qualities, so I wouldn't recommend eating a big bunch before a long car journey or trip to the cinema.

Herbalists take advantage of this diuretic property to treat water retention and high blood pressure*. And I love the fact that they are high in potassium - something which is lost when water is passed. A lovely example of how plants so often balance the body's systems.

* Obviously, if you have high blood pressure, please see your doctor or a qualified medical herbalist.

Midsummer Melissa Madness

It's Midsummer's Day! Well, technically today is the summer solstice though many of my more hippy-leaning friends would argue that true Midsummers is the 24th, St John's Day (after whom the wort is named). Either way, it's Midsummer and that is big news for us Herbalists, as it's the time when so many incredible plants are at their best. I love the way the whole of nature seems pregnant with green right now, the air is warm and heavy, and there's so much growth and vigour all around.

It's a busy time for anyone who likes to harvest herbs, but my priority today is to pick my Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis). It grows well in my garden and years ago I got into the habit of rising early on Midsummers morning and going out to harvest it, before sitting at my garden table for some chopping. Crumpled into a kilner jar and topped up with vodka it makes a beautiful golden tincture, preserving the amazing medicinal qualities of the herb for use all year round.

I love to create seasonal rituals, but I like to keep it flexible, with a little variation so that each year feels unique and creates its own atmosphere. I remember one midsummer morning when my son was a baby. I carefully chopped the herb sitting on the lawn, with him lying next to me chewing on a Lemon Balm leaf. Another year it rained all day so I waited for drier weather, as it's never good to pick herbs when they are wet. This morning I picked my Lemon Balm from my friend the Cranio-Sacral therapist Katherine Rigg's garden, as i was there for one of her amazing treatments. I don't know what energy she has created in that garden, but the Lemon Balm grows waist high and is so densely branched that just a handful of stems more than filled my Kilner jar with chopped leaves. It's out there in my garden now, macerating away. I'll check tomorrow evening and as soon as the liquid is golden and heavily scented with the musky citrus of the herb I'll bring it in, carefully strain it through muslin and bottle it for the year ahead.

Unlike pretty much every other tincture I make, which are slowly macerated in a cool, dark place for a few weeks, I like to expose my Lemon Balm tincture to the brightest sun possible for as short a time as I can. In practice, this means that if we are blessed with a hot, sunny midsummer, I leave the tincture outside all day, moving it around so the sun stays on it. On a day like today, when the solstice sun is ducking and diving behind clouds, I'll probably leave it out there for the next two to three days, depending on how the weather shapes up.

The reason for this unconventional method is that what I mostly want to capture in my tincture is the herb's volatile oil. Melissa essential oil is one of the most expensive you can buy, but in my view it has almost magical properties. Applied as an essential oil or a good quality fresh plant tincture, it is a great antiviral. I add it to a lip balm to treat cold sores and it for other viral skin lesions such as herpes, chicken pox or shingles. The tincture or tea can also be taken internally to ward off winter cold and flu viruses.

Like many other members of the vast mint family, Lemon Balm has a great reputation as a digestive herb, so makes a nice tea when you've overindulged. Historically, Lemon Balm was linked to longevity and mental health and there is some interesting research being done on its use to prevent, and maybe even treat Alzheimer's. I'm not sure it's proven as yet, but I can't seen any reason not to suggest my older patients have a little Lemon Balm in their mix or a daily cup of tea. Not least because of the property which i value most highly in this, my favourite herb. And this is its remarkable ability to cheer people up! Despite a pretty scientific training as a herbalist, I can offer no chemistry-based explanation for this. But I have seen this effect time after time. I'm not talking about treating serious depression here, but rather giving a happy little lift to the day. I use it in this context all the time, for myself as well as the people I treat. In fact I'm off to run my Midsummer's herb walk in an hour or so and will be having a glug of last years harvest on the way out the door, to add an extra spring to my step.

This tendency to cheer makes Lemon Balm the ultimate party herb. Chill the tincture in the freezer and serve tiny shots to your guests as they arrive (make sure non-drinkers know it has alcohol) or add a glug to Pimms for an extra lemony dimension. Even the most reticent guest will be in animated conversation before you know it.

Get Them While They're Green

They say smell is our most evocative sense, and every time I've stepped out of my front door this week memories have wafted up to me along with the sweet fragrance of Lime Flowers. It's the scent that gives Paris its famous springtime air, but for me the associations are all with London. The streets of our city are crammed with these tall trees with their heart shaped pale green leaves, some left to grow as they are, some pollarded and others trimmed into arches or hedges. If they are growing on your street, you might spot them by looking for gaps in the rows of parked cars. As well as their strange-looking flowers, the trees drip with a sticky sap-like substance which bonds to your car's paint work and attracts dust and dirt, leaving your car looking like a dog which has been rolling in a puddle. It's evil stuff and i always think car wash guys, who already seem to have a pretty rough deal, must curse the trees at this time of year.

I’m not sure where the name Lime came from; perhaps from the bright green colour of the flowers, it certainly isn’t related to the citrus family. The trees go under various aliases including Linden and the Latin Tilia europa. In France they call it Tilleul and it's a hugely popular tisane, famed for its light, floral taste as well as its ability to calm feverish overexcited children - and adults, for that matter. I love this herb and use it a lot in my herbal practice, including in my 'Happy Tea' where it combines with Lemon Balm, Rose, a little Lavender and a touch of Liquorice to create a very pretty brew which is uplifting and calming.

If you live in London, this week is the time to get picking to secure your supply of this lovely herb - absolutely free. Finish reading this blog, take a good look at the picture above to ensure you're identifying it correctly and then off you go! Take a paper bag or a colander with you. If you can go to a park, that's ideal, but if you are picking on the street, look for a tree which isn't too close to the road. It will also be very helpful if it has a few low sweeping branches, as the only problem with harvesting this herb can be the huge crop of lime flowers you can see waving around 10 feet above your head. You may notice that there is some variations from tree to tree. Leaves on one tree will be as small as a matchbox, on another they can be larger than an iPhone (I'm sure that's how Culpeper described it...). And some flower earlier, though only by a couple of weeks. I usually expect to pick mine around midsummer, so it’s definitely blossoming early this year.

I picked a big bagful last afternoon from the trees at the bottom of my garden, which I have kept the tree surgeon away from to ensure plenty of those low slung, flower filled branches. You'll see from the picture above the unique structure of the flower: you want both the long, papery tongue-shaped bit and its little seventies-style starburst flowers. Timing is very important here - before the flower is ready to pick there are three lime-green buds, immediately after flowering the seed pods start to form and these look remarkably similar to the buds, except they are fully spherical and brown. You'll rarely get a flower where all three of the starbursts are blooming at the same time so I try to pick the flowers which have two starbursts and a bud. But as ever with herb harvesting, follow your nose and pick the flowers which have the best smell!

You can use them fresh, but the flowers are easy peasy to dry. Put a handful in a paper bag, packing them not too tightly and tie the bag tightly at the top, trying to catch plenty of air in there. You want a plump looking bag in which the flowers rattle when you shake it. Now hang it somewhere warm and dry - an airing cupboard is ideal - for a couple weeks. Commercial herb suppliers scrunch the flowers up once they are dry, but I leave mine whole as they dry beautifully, keeping their form and colour. I use a round clear glass teapot with an insert, as it magnifies their crazy shape and shows off the unexpectedly deep pinky shade of the tea. Once dry, I keep them in a tightly sealed kilner jar on my kitchen herb shelf and hoard them for the winter. There is nothing like scooping out 3 or 4 flower heads for my teapot on a winter’s afternoon and finding myself momentarily back on the streets of London (or Paris) on a sunny midsummer’s afternoon.

The sun is shining, so go on! Take 10 minutes out of your day to accept nature’s (and the local Parks Department's)  free gift to you.

Regents Park Herb Walk

 

First thing last Monday morning I found myself in Regents Park. There is is something very special about being in such a popular place when everyone else is at school or work. A sense of bunking off, which appeals to the teenager in me. And of course, very few people were there so i enjoyed the rare feeling of having the park to myself on a sunny day in London.

I was meeting a friend at the Garden Cafe, which is in the Inner Circle near to the Rose Garden, so I took a detour and wandered through the fragrant beds filled with roses of every colour. Rose is one of my favourite herbs. The wonderful herbalist Christopher Hedley always says it is like 'a hug in a bottle' and I've found him to be right again and again. It's wonderfully uplifting and you only need a tiny amount of the tincture in a mix or a handful of dried petals in a tea to work its magic.  The essential oil is terribly expensive, but there is nothing like a few drops in a bath - except perhaps a wander through a rose garden on a sunny blue early summer morning, with the evaporating dew carrying this heavenly scent from the petals into the air.

The rose beds are pretty traditional and formal, but there are high posts encircling the main garden, with loops of rope slung between, supporting great swags of climbing roses. If you can tear your senses away from the roses and look around the base of each gatepost, you'll find herbs planted all around. I rather love this photo I snapped of a climbing rose blossoming low on the stem veiled by  a haze of Bronze fennel. Bronze Fennel is very decorative and has just the same medicinal and culinary properties as the more usual green variety. In my Herbal practice I use the seeds, as they are a great carminative, easing bloating and digestive discomfort. I also give them as a tea to new mums as they help stimulate milk production and reduce colic in the baby. Growing fennel to harvest seeds means growing a lot of it, but whichever part of the plant you use, those aniseedy oils will promote good digestion. If you have some in your garden, the feathery leaves make a pretty garnish and the bulbs make one of my favourite summer salads, sliced and roasted in the oven with fresh tomatoes and plenty of olive oil and rock salt.

Anyone who has been on one of my herb walks will know I am enchanted with the diversity of medicinal plants growing in Regents Park. From the St Johns Wort growing wild at the back of the zoo to the hawthorn hedges and the Lime trees which will be dripping with their fragrant linden flowers in just a few weeks time. But did you know there is a hidden corner of the park where a remarkable medicinal herb garden flourishes? The Royal College of Physicians' is the large modernist building tucked in at the South Easternmost corner of the park, a couple of minutes from Great Portland Street tube.  I'm delighted to say they have agreed for me to host a midsummer herb walk (a stroll really, it's quite small) to celebrate Herbal Medicine Week. . Details as below:

Tuesday 21st June 2011. Meet at 6pm  in the forecourt of The Royal College of Physicians 11 St Andrews Place, London NW1 4LE. £10 per person (£5 concs). Contact Paula at lemonbalmonline@mac.com