There’s so much green around at the moment, many of the plants seem to merge into one and it can be difficult in places to see which herbs are around. Especially along the water edge. 
Here is a plant which does stand out along the waters edge – Cat’s Tail (Typha spp.). More about this one another time, buts it’s edible, delicious and very useful. However, what a shame it would be to take it from a location where so many people can enjoy its striking appearance.
This pretty yellow flowering plant is Wild Turnip (Brassica campestris). A useful way to eat more health giving members of the cabbage family perhaps?
Category Archives: Wild herbs
Amstel to Frankendael Herb Walk
Because there’s a waiting list, for the Monday 21st May walk, I would also like to offer an extra UrbanHerb Walk the weekend after:
Sunday 27th May 2012,
Amstel to Frankendael Herb Walk,
11.00 – 12. 30,
€8 per person,
Includes comprehensive handout,
Booking essential.
You will learn about local wild herbs, along the route from Amstel Station to (and within) Park Frankendael.
You will learn:
How to identify local culinary and medicinal herbs,
How some people use them,
Related herbal folklore and
How to harvest & use them with safety and the environment in mind.
The walk will take about 90 minutes and will go ahead come rain or shine. We will look at herbs growing alongside roads, buildings, in woodland, hedgerows and parkland.
The date I have chosen is also Puur Maarkt in Frankendael, so you will be able to check out the cheap herb stall, local & organic produce and perhaps Restaurant De Kas or Restaurant Merkelbach, after the walk if you like.
Please contact me via lynn.shore@gmail.com, if you would like to book a place or would like further information.
365 Frankendael day 16
It’s been a busy day as I went with my little girl to the Cryptoforest foraging expedition in Sloterdijk. We met some great people and plants there!
So today’s entry for 365 is mainly photos…
First up, Forget me not – yes it’s edible! I need to do more research but here’s a link to get your mouth watering if edible flowers interest you.
Next is highly toxic Taxus baccata, Yew tree; The plant symbol of death and yet giver of life to many with terminal cancer. Equally contradictory, it’s deadly seeds are surrounded by the most delicious fruit I have ever encountered. They are truely bewitching.
Above is Horsetail, looking great at the moment. It makes a great tonic tea for weak nails because it is high in the mineral silica.
Here’s a snail getting acquainted with a rose bush. It’s a good time to seek out your neighbour roses, ready for the flowering season.
Crypto Forest Walk
Thank you to Cryptoforest for a great foraging exploration of Sloterdijk today. I really enjoyed meeting other urban foragers and learning about food plants which I don’t usually notice. The photo shows Theun and a wild carrot which was found in the central reservation of a main road!
Here’s a selection of the food species we found today. I think you’ll 
agree that there is more to edible Sloterdijk than meets the eye when you travel through by car or train:
Wild lettuce, Burdock, Beech, Hawthorn, Hairy bitter cress, Chickweed, Wild carrot, Plantain, Horsetail, Mugwort, Sorrel, Stinging Nettle, Dead Nettles, Rocket, Ground Elder, Elder, Comfrey, Raspberry, Hazel… There was far more, which I can’t recall right now.
I’m sure Cryptoforest will post details soon. Hopefully they will organize another Foraging expedition on the first Sunday in May 2013. It was great fun and I liked the Pac Man random sampling edge, certainly different to my usual excursions!
365 Frankendael day 15
Today a dusk walk through the woods. The Hawthorns of Frankendael are finally opening their flowers, Lily of the Valley flower stems (poisonous look alike of Ransoms) arch elegantly above their neighbours, Moorhen chicks shelter beneath Meadowsweet and beloved Motherwort is growing bigger and bolder by the minute.
Motherwort is an extremely useful perennial herb which grows in compact clumps, rather like Mugwort but is a little more modest. Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca, NL: ). Since learning about it through Susun Weed, I always have a bottle of tinctured Motherwort close to hand. This plant is a member of the Labiate family (mints) but tastes completely different to the mint most of us are used to. It has a very strong scent when you brush your hands up through the plant, has square stems, as with all Labiates. It is extremely bitter and distasteful when taken as a tea. All parts of the plant are medicinal. It has an age old reputation for its heart strengthening abilities and for its value in calming nerves, restlessness and irritability. It is an emmenagogue so shouldn’t be taken whilst pregnant, thought it has much value to women postpartum, to mothers in general and to women with period pain. The tincture is the easiest and most palatable way to take it.
Motherwort instills a feeling of groundedness. Ten drops of tincture, in a glass of water, can bring me back down to 
Earth in a few minutes when I feel the world is spinning out of control. Historically, Motherwort was used as a common treatment for heart problems such as palpitations and for fevers where the body & mind needed to be kept calm. It is now almost forgotten for such purposes but, thanks to our ancestors, many garden escapes have naturalised throughout Europe. This plant in Frankendael is possibly a garden escape from the old Landhuis. I am very pleased it is there.
365 Frankendael day 14
Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria, NL: Moerasspirea) is a waterloving perennial herb which contains an active ingredient called Methyl salicyclate, which when taken in combination with tannins and mucilage within the plant can bring about stomach healing. In contrast, when methyl salicyclate is used alone (Aspirin) it causes stomach bleeding. As with most herbs, it is the natural combination of chemicals which work so well together to bring about healing.
Here’s a link to an extract from a wonderful book called Hedgerow Medicine, by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal. It is one of my favourite and most consulted books. This extract explains how to make a useful and tasty, Meadowsweet glycerite. Meadowsweet is also traditionally associated with love, peace and harmony. There is an old custom of tossing a Meadowsweet flowerhead into water if you are seeking the identity of a thief. If it floats the thief is a woman, if it sinks it is a man.
Meadowsweet will flower later in the year, from around midsummer. The flowers produce a scent which is one of my favourites, a strong and heady sweet almondy aroma which really pleases my spirits. As you can see in the photo. Meadowsweet can be found in the watery regions of Frankendael park. It’s spikey leaves are difficult to miss as you walk across the modern wooden bridge, in the woodland area.
365 Frankendael day 12
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale, Symphytum uplandicum) is just coming into flower here in Amsterdam. It’s easy to identify now due to it’s broad, furry, fast growing leaves, it’s dropping purple or white flowers and it’s standout appearance as it towers over many neighbouring wild plants.
If you keep any plants, outside or in, I urge you to learn how to make the easiest liquid feed from nourishing Comfrey. If you don’t know about it’s deep and rapid healing effects on the body, I urge you to learn about them too and to keep some form of this plant in your herbal first aid kit.
Most of the Comfrey found wild and is gardens, descends from garden escapes of purple flowering, Russian Comfrey (S. uplandicum). It works just as well externally and as plant feed and its leaves don’t contain the toxins found in the roots and all parts of cream flowering, Wild Comfrey (S. officinale). The toxins are harmful when ingested. Because it’s hard to tell the two plants apart when they are not in flower, I suggest you always air on the side of caution and don’t use it internally. Today I photographed a white flowered Comfrey, the colour suggests it is Wild Comfrey but most plants in the park are purple flowering and the two are very interbred, so this may be a white flowering mutation of S. uplandicum. Either way, it is beautiful, useful and I will only use it externally or for my plants.
Comfrey can be applied directly as a poultice (for sprains for instance) made into a heat infused or a cold infused herbal oil which can be used for massage or blended with beeswax to make a healing salve. Worth mentioning, is that sometimes Comfrey may speed healing faster than you’d like, such as when infection is present in a wound. Ensure wounds are clean and healthy looking, not infected, when you begin using this herb. This will help to ensure the wound heals cleanly, a well as quickly. Comfrey also has a reputation as the herb to prevent or remove scars, both internally and externally by please remember my warning about internal use.
To make a superb and cheap liquid plant feed, simply immerse a couple of Comfrey leaves in water, in a bucket or similar. Leave it to ferment for a few weeks. You should see that the water becomes a dark and rich brew. Store this “Comfrey tea”in a suitable container and dilute well before feeding to your plants. A plastic bottle cap full, in a home watering can of water, should suffice. Use regularly, throughout the growing period, for pleasing results.
Here’s a link to an online Permaculture Magazine video article, about why we should all have a Comfrey plant on our patch. Be prepared, the video is ten minutes long and contain lots of info for people with vegetable gardens – If only! I don’t have space for one at home but I know where plenty grow! I hope you’ll have a look around and find some near your home also.
Comfrey is an essential herb to become well acquainted with, your plants will thank you and so will your body, when it needs to heal quickly.
365 Frankendael day 11
Here’s a Mayday Hawthorn bough, happily still 
attached to it’s tree! I’m sure that last Mayday the Hawthorns of Frankendael had opened their flowers by now. They certainly haven’t today and the weather is still not exactly encouraging the plants to grow as they could. None the less Hawthorn looks beautiful at the moment is most trees I see are loaded with green buds, ready to explode into a froth of white/pink blossom. Hawthorn is a spiky, irregularly shaped shrub or small tree which is easy to spot in hedgerows around town. It has unique, small, deeply lobed leaves, a froth of flowers around this time of year and bright red berries come autumn. It is long associated with heart medicine and Mayday country frolics.
Hawthorn is a renowned tonic for the circulatory system. The leaves, berries and flowers can be used to treat angina and several other heart conditions – obviously under the guidance of an experienced medical practitioner as heart disease is always a serious and often life threatening, condition. Hawthorn can be used as a preventative tonic, to guard against future heart problems. It can lower blood pressure, help dissolve cholesterol and calcium deposits.
Happy Beltane!
The 1st of May is Beltane, an important date in the Pagan calendar. It marks the end of the cold months and welcomes in the warmer months. Here’s a link to a post, I wrote last year, about the folklore and herbal customs attached to Beltane.
Come dawn, it will be time to rush out and wash my face with Hawthorn dew. Happy Beltane!
365 Frankendael day 8
It’s very cold, damp and windy here today, well relatively speaking, so not the most pleasant day for a walk in the park with a toddler. Of course, I did see some beautiful plants but most photos were rather windswept. I think that this one clearly represents the last days of April. Ramsons in flower, Ground elder swallowing up other plants, Cowslip standing tall, yellow and delicate and at the back, a wild Ribes bush (could be black current, white current, raspberry etc. but its too early to tell). I
One of my favourite city herbs is really coming into flower at the moment. Wild geraniums (Wood geranium, Cranesbill) are often used in urban planting schemes because they bulk up nicely as the spring and summer develop. You can find geraniums in city tree pits where they receive lots of nutrition from passing dogs. If you can locate relatively clean plants, perhaps try them in the summer when they have had a chance to grow and will withstand a little harvesting.
All geraniums and all parts of them are said to be edible, but some varieties are hairier than others! This variety is prevalent in the park, the pretty purple flowers are fragrant and taste good in a salad, the leaves add an interesting dimension to raw food and cooked they blend well with other spring greens. I prefer to thoroughly wash any that I harvest and then to cook them, like spinach. I reserve geraniums growing at home, for salads.
Now is a good time to learn the differences between the many members of the Carrot family, which grow wild in Amsterdam. The most prevalent and obvious at this time of year is Sweet cicely. It is a good faraging food, makes pleasant aniseed flavoured drinks and is sometimes used as a tonic herb. But beware! There are some extremely toxic members of the Carrot family and all look quite similar until you know how to differentiate them. At present Sweet cicely is in flower.
Urban Herbology 