Slightly sunnier photos today, of a mini Dandelion in the crack between a house and pavement…
And this deep green plant, which looks like Hairy bittercress at first glance but is most likely to be White Mustard (Sinapis alba) or Hedge mustard (Sisymbrium officinale). I think it’s most likely the first mustard but it will be easier to tell of it gets a chance to flower.
Not much chance for herb hunting today but I did see lots of Chickweed (Stellaria media) looking very tasty in various dog-free locations. Chickweed is a great wild winter food and a useful medicinal herb. It helps combat itches, skin heat conditions, winter nutrient deficiency and much more. Look up Susun Weed’s commentaries on this wonderful plant for further information.
Here’s one patch, a little too dark for seeing details but yummy none the less…
I’ve been nibbling on yellow Winter Jasmine flowers this afternoon. They don’t have much of a taste to shot about but they are palatable, very mildly astringent and could liven up a winter salad. Winter Jasmine seems to do well in Amsterdam geveltuinen (pavement gardens) and certainly looks attractive (if you like yellow). The flowers are easy to identify and easy to pluck.
I thought that this is Malva sylvestris, Common Mallow though it more likely could be a stunted Lavatera arborea (must look at it again this week), growing in one of my neighbour’s roadside planters. This plant seems to offer flowers all year long! The whole plant is edible and soothingly medicinal – if it’s Malva. If it’s a Lavatera then the leaves and flowers are also edible though the medicinal qualities are far less than Mallow.
I believe that this is Slender Speedwell (Veronica filiformis). Its a pretty little plant with forget-me-not style flowers, which is edible and medicinal. The ladybirds were having a field day on it, munching through aphids, not yet killed off by cold weather. Here’s a useful and inspiring blog post about Speedwells, which may be of interest.
And here is one of the easiest and most useful herbs to grow in Amsterdam. Calendula officinalis. You can save the seeds and they’ll reward you handsomely next season, add the flowers to cooking pots (it’s called a pot herb for this reason) for colour and bitterness, make healing oils, ointments, lotions, lip balms, dyes, soaks etc from the leaves and flowers. It’s a magical plant. Here it is still flowering along my street, in another neighbour’s pavement garden pot. If you’d like something very simple to grow and safe (well, within reason of course) then I’d go for Calendula.
Back to plant watching today. After a nice lunch in Merkelbach restaurant, I found these interesting edible and medicinal herbs in park Frankendael…
Herb Robert (above).
Garlic mustard.
Viola sp.
Greater celandine (note the bright orange toxic (externally therapeutic in ways) sap).
Copper beech, leaves lost finally.
Hairy bittercress
Comfrey.
Rosehips and winter Jasmine (I’ve no idea of the Jasmine of this sort is useful).
Young and often misleading hedge parsley (toxic)
We’re back home and the weather in Amsterdam is mild (10 °C) but dull. This photo of my geveltuin, sort of reflects that. It needs a new year spruce up.
Whilst I have been away Dana Marin has kindly taken some Amsterdam herb photos and sent them to me for the 365 project. Many thanks Dana, I’ll be back home very soon so the project will resume fully then.
Here are some for the lovely photos which Dana took in park Frankendael and along Bertrand Russelstraat over the recent days…
Chickweed (Stellaria media)
Ivy (Hedera helix)
A Brassica, not sure which at the moment, possibly BarbaraKruid, possibly not!
Hedge parsley, toxic. It may be an edible member of the carrot family (I’m looking forward to finding Sweet Cicely very soon, but most likely Hedge Parsley).
Whilst away from Amsterdam, I’ve taken some photos of just a few beautiful Tenerife herbs. So many here are familiar to me and extremely useful. Many are available in Amsterdam as well at present. Some clearly not but most are probably familiar to readers of this blog.
Pennywort above. I remember this from my years in Somerset.
An extraordinary plant which looks quite like a type of Chicory or Dandelion. I need to look this one up. It grows all around the lush North of the island and is generally found alone, massive and growing out of cracks in stone walls and rocks.
Above is Chickweed. We’ve been feeding it to local chickens.
Above an unusual Mallow species, growing beside the Wine museum.
A familiar site, African Marigolds, Tagetes, non edible but an extremely potent herb and one used by many as a garden companion plant. They spread like a weed here, at the edge of the vineyard where we are staying.
Hibiscus. I can’t stop thinking about the usefulness of Hollyhock, even here. This plant has similar looking flowers and is also a useful herb. More about it later.
Pelitory of the wall. Growing prolifically. I look forward to seeing how out is fairing up I the Netherlands at the moment.
Beautiful, peppery and healing Nasturtiums. Growing wild and prolific. An old use of these on Tenerife is to use a leaf fresh as a natural substitute for toilet roil. It can cure hemorrhoids when used in this way.
That’s it for today. Time to get back to the plants and the sunshine.
This is my last post from Amsterdam for a little while. If you see any herbs in the city, which you would like to photograph and email to me, then please feel free to do so. I’d really like to keep this project alive whilst I’m away – to show that there really are edible and medicinal herbs growing in cities like Amsterdam, every day of the year.
Here is a young Hollyhock plant, spring up most likely from seeds shred from nearby plants.
Here is Hairy bitter cress, it makes a tasty peppery addition to winter salads or is very nutritious when lightly cooked a leafy vegetable.
A photo of a herb I’ve never used but one with many apparent uses (when used in the appropriate way – it’s not one for the table!). I got all excited about this shrub early in the year and then forgot to use it at the appropriate time. Maybe next year.
It is Oregon Grape, (Berberis aquifolium) growing near my local shopping precinct.
Urban Herbology 