Our Day of Herbal Medicine at Culberry

We had a lovely day in the potting shed on Sunday, despite the rain we made it to the herb garden! Most of the herbs are gone over now but the Phytolacca berries were resplendant in their glory! The Calendula true to its name, stoically flowering bringing cheer to a grey day!

Our group foraged for Rosehips: a great source of Vitamin C and then made a wonderful syrup with them plus Elderberries. The aroma in the potting shed was lovely and the syrup an attractive purpley colour.
We made enough to keep the colds and flu’s at bay this winter for sure!

I do try to encourage the use of herbs that can be easily found and that are seasonal when making preparations at the workshops, this time of year is more for roots and berries: dandelion root, burdock and yellow dock, all very powerful cleansing, liver tonic roots. Valerian Root may also be easily dug at this time. Elderberries and Hawthorn berries and of course Rosehips…
The weather was against us this weekend and we didn’t fancy digging for roots in the rain!

Comfrey leaves are as abundant as always but we chose to make a cream from the leaves of the narrow leaf plantain: Plantago lanceolata. This common ‘weed’ is really a miraculous herb!
The cream may be used for bites, stings, eczema, wounds and scrapes.. it is very healing and nourishing for the skin and often gets overlooked in favour of Calendula or Comfrey. The group found plenty growing and made copious amounts of cream to use and give away to family and friends.

Plantain is such an impressive little herb as I already have enthused, and I feel a blog post dedicated to it coming soon.. watch this space…

I have three spaces left for the workshop on the 24th of October.. maybe some more elderberry and rosehip syrup could be made? If you are tempted please email me as I only take advance bookings for the workshops.