A quick tram stop hunt for herbs today as I ran the Honey and Herbs workshop this afternoon.
Here’s a lovely little Hazel tree growing in the lowerparts of a beech hedge.
Here’s a very vibrant Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis agg.) growing in a dirt filled pavement crack above a bridge.
I harvested lots of Plantain (Plantago major) today, from close to de Kas restaurant. I’ll be dressing the leaves as I haven’t had time to make a succus with it and I don’t want to waste them.
I’ve been to Proef in Westerpark today to have a look at their organic garden, which City Plot tend. It is another inspiring example of how to grow lots of food and herbs without a garden. The site is next to the old gas factory storage tanks and hence the soil is deemed unsuitable for directly growing crops. City Plot have overcome the problem by using raised beds. They look great, house hundreds of very healthy plants and are quite a haven for wildlife. The Growing and Using Exotic Herbs Workshop on Sunday October 14th will take place there. Myself and Suzanne from City Plot will run it.
On my way back home I found this exciting sight… A fully ripe Elderberry spray!
So the time has arrived. Get your paper bags and recipes ready, these berries are packed with nutrients and can be cooked and preserved to deliver them when needed, through the winter.
Beautiful weather today and a lovely stroll through the park.
Day Lilies (Hemerocallis fulva), beautiful, edible flowers, not to be confused with standard Lilies which are highly toxic. Please scroll through the photos on day 75 to see what they look like.
Garlic mustard (Aliaria petiolata) growing out of some dirt on a woodland bridge.
Garlic mustard seedlings, coming up for a second edible crop of the year. This is a biennial plant so although there is not enough time for these seedlings to mature and set seed before the frosts, they should survive and flower next year. Probably best to forage only from the second year plants (which are now almost over, foraging wise).
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) is setting seed and what spiky seed heads they are proving to be! If you need to harvest some, it’s probably best to have gloves on and shake the seeds straight into a paper bag. I gave up trying today and threw the few I collected into nearby soil.
It’s still going strong in some areas: Ground Elder (Aegopodium podograria).
First year Burdock (Artica lappa). This is what is needed if harvesting the medicinal and nutritious Burdock roots, is your mission.
Blackberries.
Fat hen growing In the shelter of a Beech hedge.
I’ve been to De Hortus Botanicus today and busy planting exotic things for the workshop with Suzanne from City Plot in the autumn, so not much time to visit the park. Here are just a couple of photos of a beautiful Hazel tree which stands on the outside. It’s quite easy to confuse Hazel with Beech. Both have similar leaf shapes and both have edible nuts but Hazelnuts are my favourite. Roasted they taste almost chocolaty and go really well with it, hence my fondness. I need to make some notes of where I find Hazel this year. Hazel is a very useful tree, it can be coppiced to produce dozens of fine branded, in the same manger as Willow. it’s great to see that the council road cleaners, here in Amsterdam, still use broomsticks make of Hazel. It’s perfect for the job, grows locally and is completely sustainable. I hope the council brooms don’t come from abroad, if they are, at least they are not made of plastic.
Apparently there’s a nice copse of Hazel somewhere at the bottom of Pythagorasstraat, I haven’t found it yet. It’s well worth foraging nuts when you find them. They contain such a lot of nutrition and are apparently the least polluted part of a plant, that may be harvested. That is a great thing to remember when foraging in mucky city autumn weather.
These plants are growing alongside Frankendael by the windy dirt path that follows the Middenweg. At first glacé everything simply looks green there but if you take a closer look there are several great edibles and a few plants that if eaten, would upset your body quite substantially.
Here is nutritious Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), regrowing after a recent mowing.
Next is White Deadnettle (Lamium alba). Not a stinger but very useful and also nutritious.
Here’s a poisonous berry, I know it as Snowberry (Symphoricarpus alba).
Here are some of those half eaten unripe Elderberry heads, that I mentioned last week. We can only eat them safely when they are fully ripe, for birds it’s obviously another story.
Lastly today some ripening Hawthorn berries (Crataegus monogyna). If you are not sure then how’s a good time to get to know how to identify them, in readiness for the autumn harvest.
I’ve been noticing this Scabious looking plant around the park for a couple of weeks now. It is known as Small Teasel (Dipsacus pilosus) and grows well in damp hedgerows. I don’t think it is known as a useful herb or substitute for Common Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum).
Here is a close up if the tiny flowers produced by Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). I cut a little today to make a for soak.
Next is Wild Basil (Clinopodium vulgare), setting seed but still easy to identify and eat, should you want to.
Lastly today, Mullein (Verbascum sp.). More for earache and lung complaints than the plate. A stately and useful herb.
Here are a few street herbs, from close to the park…
This one is an update on that pretty rosette forming Geranium, growing in a pavement. It is now flowering and has retained the rosette habit.
Second is a Chocolate Mint growing in my geveltuin tuin. I’m showing it today because so many mints are presently in flowmaking ambling even easier identification. The Mint family (Mentha spp.) is quite enormous, they are Labiates, have square stems and smell strongly of mint. I chose Chocolate mint for my home some years ago as I like to add the leaves to chocolate puddings, intact I just love chocolate, so this variety was a logical choice. Mints are great pot plants, they spread easily by setting out runners. This is not such a positive feature when grown in many gardens. It can take over the whole garden if allowed to grow unchecked. When foraging mint, which is a water loving plant, always harvest clean parts which have not been submerged in water. The water and thus submerged parts of water plants, may harbor really grizzly parasites which will have a fun time with your internal organs before you realize what has happened. This is not just a tropical occurance, it is potentially true of all water. Mint and other water plants which are harvested well above the water level should then be treated with the same cautious foraging rules as other plants.
Here is an Ivy plant (Hedera helix) which catches my eye everytime I walk past it. It is unusual in its leaf shape and sometimes I see small leaves growing directly out the mature leaves. It grows very close to a front door so I suspect it is an escaped specially bred garden plant. You may remember that skin toning and stimulating cellulite treatments can easily be made from this herb. Not one to eat though.
Today was the Comfrey workshop. We harvested from a lovely patch of Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) in a quiet corner of Park Frankendael. After torrential rain before the workshop, the sun shone and the plants looked even more verdant than usual. After meeting the plants, off home to drink some 8 hour Comfrey infusion that I set up last night, make some Comfrey ointment (from infused oil), Comfrey Witchhazel gel and to prepare for making a Comfrey leaf tincture. The Tincture and gel instructions are on the workshop handout and will also be in my forthcoming Urban Herbology Essentials book.
So much more can be done with this wonderful herb. Another time! In cities I always harvest leaves alone, so no digging up Comfrey roots today, but plenty of healing unctuous goodness in the leaves. Also a reminder that Russian Comfrey doesn’t contain the much feared liver toxin in it’s leaves.
Thanks everyone for coming along, I really enjoyed it and hope you have further fun and healing using your preparations at home and in setting up your tincture jars. Any problems, just let me know. The next workshop is fully booked. I’m thinking of running a winter warmer lotions and potions 3 hour workshop later this year. If that sounds interesting then let me know.
I carefully walked a long Frankendael hedge and woodland today, hunting for Sloes on Blackthorn trees and shrubs. My wander was fruitless in one way – not a single Sloe to be found and yet very fruitful in others:
Here is a woodland wild rose, already covered in very dark, almost ripe hips.
The following rosehips are more the norm. In a sunny location, this shrub flowered later than the one shown above and hence it ripens hips later. They are well on the way though.
Here’s a Jerusalem artichoke plant in full bloom. I wonder if this park has tried the Sarphatipark method of using it to smother chopped down Japanese knotweed?
Here is Rowan, ablaze with ripe orange berries. There are many uses of this fruit. Here’s a particularly tasty one.
More ripening and ripe Blackberries, this shrub is one of several within the park.
And here are the Sloes which I eventually found. My daughter wanted to go to our closest playground all along. When I gave up my Sloe hunt and returned there, we found a huge Blackthorn absolutely laden with fruit. I harvested as many as I could manage, all of which popped off the tree without any effort. Traditionally Sloes are harvested late, after the first frost but this usually means I miss the chance to harvest more than a few fruit. This year, for a change, I am harvesting as and when I see the fruit become ripe enough (fully coloured and very plump). I am scoring them with a sharp knife before freezing them. When I have about 500g, I’ll heading out for a bottle of Gorden’s Gin or similar, will combine the berries with some sugar and the gin and will leave it for as long as possible to infuse that unique sloe flavour into the sweetened spirit. There’s nothing quite like it and I am very excited to have found an inner city Sloe hot spot!
Edible Geranium flowers at a street cafe in Oost Watergraafsmeer.
Buzzing honey bees on flowering White Bryony (Bryonia alba) which is poisonous but clearly valuable to city wildlife.
Common Hemp Nettle (Galeobdolon tetrahit), in flower, prickly, square seemed labiate and easily identified. Edible and medicinal. This plant is an annual so if you harvest any leave the flowers intact to seed. Here’s a link to some basic information about the plant.
Lastly today, a mini meadow of Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) again, in Park Frankendael.
Urban Herbology 