Just felt like posting a few photos today, of herbs grown, found or harvested recently. Also to mention that I now have more availabilty to run workshops and walks, so have set some new apprenticeship dates for September – October and will soon be setting some Amsterdam herb walk dates.
This summer, I have been spending lots of time at my volkstuin. Teasle (Dipsacus fulonum) is a tall wild flower, not best known in gardens because it tends to do its own thing, growing exactly where it likes, often at the edge of where humans would like to walk, and as the plants develop the often lollop over paths and catch on humans clothes. Clearly, this is not always desired (although this makes/made teasleheads perfect for carding wool – the Dutch name for the plant is Kaardebol – literally carding ball). Anyway, I love teasles and tend to encourage visitors to work around them and admire them in my garden, rather than pulling them up. They don’t transplant so well for me. People transplant with far more ease.
I love watching these plants develop through the year, from their characteristic sturdy seedlings in spring to tall summer beauties. They always get me excited – in a herbalist kind of way. How tall will they grow? How many flowerheads will each plan bear? Will they make it through possible summer storms? Will I tincture the root of a two year old this autumn? How many bumblebee species will visit them this year? Is there a way to encourage more flowerheads on one plant? and so on..
Last week, each morning that I woke at the gardenhouse, I pulled back the curtain and lay in bed admiring the bumblebees as they worked the teasle flowerheads. As you can see here, the flowerheads are made up of tiny pale purple flowers, apparently around 2000 per flowerhead, arranged in a phenomenally pleasing arrangement which seems to me to match the Fibonacci series. They open in sequence, as a ring, starting low on the flowerhead and day by day this ring to move up the flowerhead. Sometimes several rings are progressively ripening, moving up the flowerheads. The cause of this is progressive maturation of the tiny flowers, from the base to the top of the flowerhead. I looked up how this happens. For those of you interested in this, here’s an interesting research paper about the patterns of development in teasle flowers.
The bumblebees are essential to the process of pollinating those tiny flowers. They busy about, over the purple rings, from about 8am, each day that there is sun. As they wander around the flowers, burrowing in for nectar, they also kick off the dead flowers of the day before. They do literally seem to kick them off. If you manage to watch a teasle being “worked” one morning, you may be lucky enough to see the tiny purple flowers falling to the ground, as a bumblebee wanders around the flowerhead either biting or kicking them off. This appears to be pure symbiosis and is a great pleasure to observe. It puts the day to come in perspective and I recommend it!
Next is Meadowsweet. I adore this herb. She is the absolute Queen of the Meadow in my eyes. She smells sweet and dreamy, is as tall as many teasle plants, is slender, takes away pain, eases the stomach and aches and pains of joints. She is oh so light and yet strong, effective and intoxicating. I make my mead when Meadowsweet is in bloom. I see these flowers as an essential ingredient in any mead. Perhaps that’s just me. This year, the fruits of my previous Meadowsweet planting labors have been rewarded as I now have several garden areas where the meadowsweet is flourishing. Meadowsweet is also beloved of bees, hoverflies and many other insects. The OBOD Seedgroup which I run, is also called Meadowsweet. We met amongst the flowers this weekend, to celebrate Lughnasadh, Druid-style.
These beautiful berries are growing throughout the beds at my volkstuin. They have almost no flavour and belong to the wild flower Potentilla indica (Schijnaardbei). It creeps between other plants, has trifoliate leaves and small 5-petalled yellow flowers, At this time of year, they may develop into bright red achenes which are fruit, covered with tiny seeds. The leaves, flowers and fruit of this plant are edible. The leaves are quite medicinal and can be added in small quantities to soups but in my opinion the best way to eat this plant, is to preserve the ripe fruits
in local honey or in a Rumtopf.
From September this year, I will be working only three days a week at school so will have far more time for running herbal workshops and walks. Many dates are already booked up, but if you are keen to book a walk during the autumn or winter, let me know and I hope that we can organise a green exploration together. I also offer private consultations. Please see my events page, or join Meetup.com for Urban Herbology happenings. Apprenticeship meetings are already listed there until end October. Meadowsweet OBOD Seedgroup gatherings are not listed there. Please contact meadowsweet.amsterdam@gmail.com, if you would like to be informed of open gatherings, for those interested in nature-based spirituality, and the closed gatherings which are only for OBOD members.
Urban Herbology 