Year long Garden Herbalism Course starts October 2014

I'll be back in class with Darren Huckle Lac from October teaching our Garden Herbalism course. If you're in the Santa Cruz area, please do join us - all the details are below or contact me or Darren for further details.

Two Tuesdays/month: 5:15pm - 7:15pm Oct. 14, 2014 - June 9th, 2015 *see actual dates below*

For thousands of years, people have been harvesting medicines from their home gardens for basic family needs. This is a dynamic and hands-on introduction to the art and practical application of garden herbalism. We will spend over half our time outdoors in an herbal garden where we will harvest common herbs and discuss their uses and cultivation. We will then bring them into the herbal pharmacy classroom and learn how to make effective teas, oils and remedies for commonly encountered health challenges including but not limited to stress, sleeplessness, indigestion, and minor wounds.

By effectively preparing and using herbs, we inspire and empower the healer within. This work rejuvenates the senses and steeps us in the wonder of nature's healing powers. Participants will be exposed to an abundance of practical and easily implemented information, and will get the opportunity to bring a sampling of plants into their own home gardens.

Darren Huckle, Lac, DAOM is an instructor and practitioner in Western and Chinese Herbal Medicine with 15 years of intensive study in the use of Western Herbs. Paula Grainger BSc, MNIMH is an English Medical Herbalist who has brought her training and knowledge of traditional and modern European Herbal Medicine with her from London to Santa Cruz. Together they have decades of experience and passion in treating patients and teaching the public about natural medicine.

Class Location: Seabright Class Dates (all classes held 5:15pm - 7:15pm): Oct. 14 & 28 Nov. 11 & 25 Dec. 9 Jan. 12 & 26 Feb. 10 & 24 Mar. 10 & 24 Apr. 14 & 28 May 12 & 26 June 9

Small Class size! Space is limited Registration due September 30th Cost: $400 Pay by cash or check only. Make check out to Darren Huckle and mail to 343 Frederick St., Santa Cruz 95062

Chamazulene alchemy

I just wanted to share this little bit of alchemy. A mom at the school where we do a middle school Herbal Potions elective recently bought the equipment for distilling essential oils. She brought it in for us to experiment with and we did a huge batch of German Chamomile (Chamomilla recutita).

I love showing kids the 'hidden colors' in plants and this is such a great example. The daisy-like white and yellow chamomile flowers conceal minute quantities of lapis lazuli blue chamazulene - a constituent in the essential oil which has wonderful anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties.  The amounts are absolutely tiny and I think it fired the kids' imaginations to realize how  a plant which grows all around can contain something so special and rare.

The Versatility of Chamomile

 

I've grown German Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) for the first time this year and it's a real delight to see the bright daisy-like flowers nodding above the strawberries in my new vegetable patch.

Chamomile is one of those herbs which I think gets kind of overlooked, perhaps because it's just too darn ubiquitous. It's the herbal tea bag you'll find in cafes or smarter hotels. Everyone has heard of it and everyone knows what it's for: it helps you relax and sleep, doesn't it?

Well, yes it does, but there's more to this herb than just a bedtime cuppa. With its slight bitterness and high essential oil content, Chamomile is a fine 'carminative' or soothing digestive herb to reduce gas and bloating when you've overindulged or eaten the wrong of foods. It's also a great quick fix for tension headaches - make a very strong cup of chamomile tea using at least three tea bags or a tablespoon of dried herb to a cup of boiling water. Steep it for at least ten minutes and drink. You'll be surprised at how effective it is.

My teacher used to say that Chamomile is for 'babies of all ages'. It is safe and gentle enough to be used on even tiny ones, I used to make a strong tea of chamomile and lavender to add to my son's bath water when he was little. I'm not a fan of baby washes, which I think are often too harsh and can even make eczema more likely.  Babies are fundamentally pretty clean and the herbs have a gentle anti-microbial action which is helpful round the nappy/diaper area. And and since babies are remarkably porous, the calming and soothing essential oils are absorbed to help reduce colic and soothe and calm the baby. That Latin name, Matricaria translates as 'from the mother' and chamomile is a great herb to use whenever someone needs a little gentle mothering.

If you ever come across the essential oil of German Chamomile, you'll discover that it's a/ really expensive and b/ a deep, dark greenish blue. This is thanks to chamazulene, a constituent in the essential oil which is a superb anti-inflammatory. Like other essential oils, it should only be used externally and should always be diluted before you use it on your skin - chamomile may be gentle, but the essential oil is powerful stuff. A few drops added to a cream or salve will turn it a delightful blue and really help reduce redness and inflammation in skin conditions such as eczema, nettle rash and prickly heat.

Incidentally, this is one of those herbs I think you'll need to plant or buy dried - I don't think I've ever come across it in the wild (though I may just be looking in the wrong places - let me know if you've found some). It's  lower growing cousin, pineapple weed with it's petal-less yellow cone flowers and it's pungent fruity, pineappleish scent is found along paths and dry meadows all summer long and is often confused with true chamomile. There are lots of daisy-ish looking plants out there and it can be hard to tell one from another. Look out for the way the white petals curve back away from the dense, cone-like yellow centre and the flowers and feathery green foliage have that distinctive sweet, apple-y, summery scent when lightly crushed.

Lemon Entry

It’s citrus season here in Santa Cruz and the Farmers’ markets are awash with lemons, limes, oranges and a huge variety of satsumas, mandarins and clementines (I can never tell which is which). Not to mention grapefruits and pomelos. It’s kind of a spin out for this London herbalist to see locally grown citrus fruit – I still find myself stopping and staring at the loaded trees in people’s gardens. With their rounded shape and blobs of brightly coloured fruit, they look like children’s drawings rather than living, growing plants.

I was lucky enough on Friday to be given a 10lb bag each of lemons and limes. Some of which are in the picture above. One of the things which fascinates me about being here is how it turns my experience of the world around. Everyone knows that lemons are yellow and limes are green, right? Except these aren’t: the lemons are orange and the limes yellow. The latter are called bear limes and are a lot sweeter than the ones I used to buy in England. They have a beautiful fragrance too.

Lemons are kind of overlooked when it comes to herbal medicine, perhaps because they are so widely used in cooking. But, of course, they are a fantastic source of Vitamin C as well as containing good amounts of potassium and vitamin B1. Everyone knows that a hot honey and lemon will help the symptoms of a cold, to the extent that many pharmaceutical remedies are lemon-flavoured. It is also widely seen as a ‘cleansing’ drink when added to hot water – something I drink most days.

This unexpected bounty made me think about what to do with them. A handful of each have been cut into wedges and popped in bags in the freezer to add a citrussy chill to drinks or have boiling water poured over the make my favourite daily drink. But with the rest I’ve started making a childhood favourite, Lemon Curd. When I was growing up, my grandmother always had a jar on the go, which was spread like jam on bread, used to sandwich a sponge cake or, best of all, alternated with her other homemade preserves to create bright yellow spokes on her dinner plate sized jam tart. A circle of pastry, divided into segments with twists of pastry to create a colourful and child-pleasing desert.

Lemon Curd isn’t really a jam as it contains eggs and butter, although it’s not lacking in the obligatory sugar. Like many women of my generation, I’m pretty reluctant to give my son large amounts of sugar, but there’s no getting away from the allure of sweet things to the seven year old boy’s tastebuds. He’s a huge fan of pancakes for breakfast and as I draw the line at the dreaded syrup, he usually has lemon juice and honey on them. But as we found this morning, a pancake rolled around a spreading of fresh lemon curd makes for an extremely delicious breakfast. And it strikes me that this is a comparatively healthy way for him to fulfil his sweet desires. The eggs (and there are a lot of them – two whole eggs and two yolks to 2 lemons in each 1lb jar makes it more egg than lemon, really) provide omega 3 and protein, which as well as being good for him, also slows down the breakdown of the sugar. And a shot of Vitamin C is never a bad thing, especially in winter. Since lemons are very acidic, it’s probably a good idea to have a glass of water afterwards and not brush teeth immediately (fresh acid brushed into the enamel is not a good idea according to the dentists I know).

If you can lay your hands on some lemons, and this recipe only uses two so you don’t need a whole bowlful, then why not make some of this yummy preserve yourself? It’s best kept in the fridge and I’d give it a life of a month or two, though chances are you’ll have finished it up long before then. The recipe below is shamelessly nicked from Nigella Lawson. If you can’t think what to do with the extra egg whites and have a bit of time on your hands, then why not throw health to the wind and use it to make the Lemon Meringue Cake from her book Feast? In my house, even the most hardened healthy eater or desert denier has never refused a second slice!

Lemon Curd Recipe 2 Lemons, zested and squeezed 2 large eggs 2 egg yolks (from large eggs) 150g caster sugar 100g unsalted butter

1. Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together. 2. Melt the butter in a heavy based pan and when melted add the juice and zest of the lemons. 3. Keep it on a gentle heat and stir. You really don’t want to have the heat too high as that will diminish the Vitamin C content of the finished spread. You also don’t want to end up with lemony scrambled eggs! 4. Keep stirring, don’t give up when it seems like it will never thicken. 5. When it eventually does thicken (so that a little smeared onto your finger from the spoon – careful, it’s hot – goes sticky and thick as it cools). Take it off the heat. 5. Pour into a clean and sterilised 1lb (500g) jar. 6. Allow to cool. Lid and label and pop it in the fridge. If you have any seven year olds around the place, allow them some time with the (cooled) pan and spoon. They will really love you!

Tell Them About The Honey...

I was excited to come across this stall at the Farmers' Market last weekend. Medicinal honeys! Bee Humble Apitherapy are collecting honey from their bees and infusing it with herbs, to create some really interesting products.

The proper term for a herbal honey is an Oxymel, and I'm finding myself more and more drawn to them. The Jujubes I immersed in honey have been in the fridge for some weeks now, and the jar is almost empty, after a nasty flu bug went round my son's class and he started finding it drizzled over his porridge, spooned into herb teas to take cold to school and poured onto pancakes.

Honey on its own, of course, has some very interesting anti-microbial properties and has been held in such high esteem that since pre-history, people have risked their lives to collect it. It's human nature to be drawn to sweet things, but there is a big difference between a high quality raw honey and a spoonful of sugar. The sugars in honey are highly complex and it also contains anti-oxidants.

The honeys at the market were infused with a variety of herbs. I was particularly taken with the Elderberry one, which is an excellent idea: combining the anti-viral properties of the berry with the anti-bacterial honey has to make for a very useful winter spread. Likewise  Sage makes a lot of sense - my quick remedy for a sore throat is sage (of whatever type is growing nearby) tea with a good dollop of honey. I also really liked their Ginger and Siberian Ginseng honey, which I think would make a great pick-me-up for anyone who has been unwell or under stress. I was intrigued by the Yerba Santa version - it's a new herb for me. The Spanish name means 'Holy Herb' and it was prized by the native peoples and settlers as an expectorant - it's a local herb here and one I want to get to know.

Local honeys are very helpful in preventing and treating Hay fever and seasonal allergies. The idea being that the bee-processed flower pollens 'inoculate' against inhaled pollens, many people find it very effective, especially if taken ahead of the allergy season. I often recommend it alongside herbal tinctures of Elderflower and/or Plantain and Nettle. It would be interesting to infuse a honey with some or all of those herbs to create a kind of all-in-one hayfever prevention remedy. I shall try it next summer.

If you want to make a herbal honey yourself, simply chop up the herb, preferably fresh, though dried will work too, as finely as you can and pour enough honey over to cover the herb. Then let it infuse for a few weeks. Garlic makes a pungent version which will see off any winter bugs (not to mention vampires and most of your friends and family).  If you use a fresh herb, it's best to keep it in the fridge (as I did with the jujubes) as water in the herb can dilute the honey reducing it's 'supersaturatedness' and therefore making it more likely to go off.

As a professional herbalist, I will always prefer tinctures for their efficacy, ease of blending and convenience of use. But for the home herbalist, and particularly for mums and dads, I think honeys should definitely have a place in your herb cupboard. Children love them, they have no alcohol and they're a really effective way of using nature's medicine chest to keep you and those you love healthy.

If you'd like to take a look at Bee Humble's website, it's at http://www.beehumbleapiaries.com.

When the Herb Finds You

Studying herbal medicine at university you are encouraged to take a very clinical and scientific approach to the subject. But anyone who goes through the system and starts practicing, soon discovers that there is a lot more to the relationship between plants and humans than can be readily explained scientifically. Many herbalists report examples of the right plant presenting itself just when it is needed.  And I had a lovely instance of that recently.

A good friend had developed a skin condition. Underlying psoriasis plus what looked, to his doctor and me, like something viral and/or stress related. I wanted to give him some internal herbs to bolster his immune system, deal with any viral element and help with some liver issues. But I also knew that as long as the rash was intensely itchy and inflamed, he would get no relief. So I wanted to make a cream to reduce itchiness, inflammation and extreme dryness.

My go to herb to form the base of such a cream is Chickweed (Stellaria media). It's a herb I love and which grows profusely in London. It tends to prefer areas where there is little competition - under trees, in cultivated areas and along streets. And it is intensely juicy with an incomparable ability to reduce itchiness and bring moisture to a dry skin condition. In London in grows best in early spring and late autumn, drying out and disappearing in the summer and colder winter months. I spent a morning searching the well-stocked herbal stores around Santa Cruz trying to buy some infused oil, assuming there would be no chance of finding any growing at the end of the long, dry Santa Cruz summer. By the afternoon, I had given up: nowhere had any and I was trying to think of alternatives as I went to pick my son up from school.

Arriving at the school, my son was having fun playing with his friends so I left him in the playground and wandered into the herb and veg garden, which they call the Life Lab. Many of the plants and flowers which were blooming when he started school in late August had been cleared for winter planting, including the pumpkin patch which had been stripped for the Fall Festival a week before. As I strolled around, thinking about nothing in particular a tiny plant, alone in the middle of one of the pumpkin beds, caught my eye. I went closer and there, growing all on its own, was a small but perfectly formed chickweed plant. Not where it should be, and despite a subsequent proper hunt, the only one of its species in the vicinity. I thanked it, picked it and carried it home, the next morning reverently warming it in almond oil to form the basis of my cream.

Once infused I had a beautiful, deep green oil which I melted beeswax into, added some Berberis aquifollium tincture and combined with an infusion of chamomile and liquorice. I stirred in some lavender essential oil at the last moment and then poured it into clean pots before sending it on its way to the person it was intended for. Initial reports for it's efficacy have been very positive.

Chickweed is such an unassuming little plant, but one which never fails to delight me. To the extent that my son knew it's name at a very young age and could enjoy joining in with my husband's affectionate exasperation as I pounced on every plant during trips to Hampstead Heath and in the streets around our home in London. Its Latin name, Stellaria, means 'star' in Latin, which makes sense when you see its tiny sparkling white star-like flowers open on a sunny day. It closes them tight at night and when it is cloudy. When I take people on herb walks, we usually come across it and I always enjoy encouraging everyone to squish and squelch a few leaves in their fingers, releasing a flood of bright green juice, far exceeding what would expect from a few tiny leaves.

The name Chickweed comes from its popularity as chicken food. It's highly nutritious and was one of the wild plants which kept people fed during the early spring months when food preserved from the previous harvest was running low and new crops had yet to produce.

I had a lovely picture which I have just realised is not on my computer here, so if  you'd like to pick some,  have a google and you'll see how it looks. In the meantime, here is a picture of the lovely green infused chickweed oil. Gorgeous!

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.