A few photos today, to help celebrate Midsummer’s day with you. I met a group of apprentices at my volkstuin and enjoyed learning about some lovely herbs with them. Didn’t take any photos at the workshop because we were busy with the plants so here are some others from today and last week.

The fragrant rambling rose in my garden. I made a tincture from the fresh flowers today.

Lavender in full bloom outside of local shops today.

Unscented red roses from my garden. They were part of the volkstuin garden when I took it on. I can’t really see the point in roses without fragrance; aren’t they supposed to transport us somewhere magical with their scent? I think so and am sorry that I can’t make medicinal preparations with these but am happy to see the beautiful flowers, none the less!

Last week, had another treat, visiting nature reserves in the Vondel Park for the annual bee walk. Here is their sun hive which is a more apicentric way of housing honey bees. Lovely!

An update on my Japanese knotweed babies – They are doing well; growing steadily until last week when something started to eat the leaves. So the certainly is a natural predator of JKW in my street.

I’ve been growing lots of herb seeds this summer. Here are a few (so far successes): Milk thistle (Carduus marinus)

I think that this last one is Mandrake. I muddled up a few seeds in a tray. Trying to grow Belladonna, Sweet Annie, Henbane and more. It looks and smells like Mandrake so far. Let’s see!