Putting my feet up

Lotions, , , ,

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About 8 weeks ago I strained my foot, lugging a heavy suitcase upstairs, in worn out shoes. Clearly not a good idea as I’ve been annoyed by a sore foot since then. I gave in and headed for the doctor on Friday, suspecting something worse than a strain. Thankfully nothing else seems to be wrong, apparently just more time is needed and some pain killing anti-inflammatories to settle things down. Fed up with limping and not being able to do yoga, I slicked two of the pills. After a 12 hour psychedelic sleep and then a day feeling like a space cadet, it seems I’m allergic to the tablets. So back to the herbs and surprise surprise, they are working a treat and my brain feels clear again.

Here’s what I made to speed the healing and ease the inflammation (if you dislike the idea of lard, use ghee or a quality vegetable oil – which you can later thicken with beeswax). This healing lard based ointment feels silky smooth, cooling, calming and takes the pain away.

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1 block of lard (250g)
9 medium Comfrey leaves (Symphytum uplandicum x)
9 Elder leaves (Sambucus nigra)
Handful Ground Ivy stems (leaves, flowers and all) (Glechoma hederacea)
3 Wormwood leaves (Artemisia absinthum)
3 Ribwort leaves (Plantago lanceolata)

1. Chop all the fresh herbs and place in a heavy based saucepan along with the lard.
2. Heat over the lowest possible flame to melt the lard and then to simmer it for approximately 40 minutes (stay with it and stir every minute or so, obviously the lard is highly flammable if left unattended).
3. After 40 minutes the herbs should be just turning slightly crispy, as all the moisture leaves them. This is a good time to stop, turn off the heat, move the pan from the stove and allow the mixture to cool for a few minutes.
4. Strain the herbs from the infused lard by carefully pouring through a muslin/super clean tea towel and sieve.
5. Add the spent herbs to the compost bin and pour the infused lard into a sterile container or two.
6. I keep this ointment in a fridge and use it freely on sprains, strains and skin irritations that benefit from cooling.

365 Frankendael day 365

365 Frankendael, ,

A year ago I decided to show you a taste of what can be picked and eaten from the streets and parks of Amsterdam, every day for a year. That year came to an end today. It has been quite a journey!

There was never a day without edible or medicinal herbs growing wild. As the year moved on I found more and more herbs, fell in love with some such as Hollyhock and learned secrets about others. Whilst on holiday, friends in Amsterdam were often kind enough to email photos to me. The Christmas holiday was difficult, Amsterdam had miserable weather so fewer photos from friends. In place, I added a batch from my holiday in Tenerife.

I am very grateful to Joop Eisenburger, Lina Kremin, Elodie and Herman den Otter, Dennis Breedijk, Lynne Dunstan-Wadsworth and Dana Marin and others for their beautiful photos, whilst I was away from time to time.

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So what is around today on day 365? It was an apprenticeship group meeting for me so friends to share the discoveries with.

Above is Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum). Just braking into flower in some parts of park Frankendael, this patch is still perfect for the pot.

Below, Fumitory. Renowned in some regions as a cleanser of radiation from the body and more well known as a tonic for the digestive system.

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Next is Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) NL Hartgespan. Returning from its winter underground hide. Beloved, bitter herb.
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Here is Pennsylvania Pelitory, I was so pleased to learn of its urinary tonic effect last year.

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Primrose (Primula vulgaris). This plant will be focused on in my next project – growing and using native herbs in public (or private) spaces. There is not enough Primrose to pick in Amsterdam, so why not grow some more?

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Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus). Orange sap for herpes and dissolving skin growths. So many more uses for this herb but be careful, it is caustic.
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Horsetail (Equistitum arvensum) flowering, ahead of its foliage – so useful for brittle nails due to the high silica content.

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Soapwort, also just emerging from the soil. Still used by some musea to gently cleanse ancient fabrics. It is a wonderful herb for many skin complaints and grows easily in a pot. It’s other common name, Bouncing Bet, aptly describes it’s flowering beauty in summer.

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Russian Comfrey (Symphytum uplandicum x). Bone set in old country tales, rapid wound healer and more for us today. It smells and tastes of Borage and Cucumber, is gooey inside and is so easy to use on your body and your compost heap!
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I’m so happy to find this plant. Really happy! It is Wormwood (Artemisia absinthum). It is an endangered species in the Netherlands, this is the first patch of wild Wormwood I have found in Park Frankendael.
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Some of my apprentices gathering Bread & Cheese from a beautiful Hawthorn tree (Crataegus monogyna). May Day here we come!
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Here is Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). One of the best eating wild plants in town. Pick just a leaf per plant when you find it and it’ll treat you to delicious meals until autumn. Pick a whole plant and you’ll really miss out later on!
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And Ground Elder (Aegopodium podograria). I love this plant but most gardeners try to rid their patch of it. A carrot family member, it tastes of parsley, clears gouty, sciatica and rheumatic joints and I’ll be eating it daily from now until early winter!
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There were far more plants today but now it’s time to stop.

So a beautiful day, a beautiful project (to be continued in some form but not daily), amazing plants on our doorsteps and wonderfully enthusiastic people to share them with. Many thanks to everyone who has been involved on some way and especially Frank for his tolerance. I’ll now have a little rest and then organise the photos into something useful. Also time to finish my book on making remedies.

If you’d like to walk with me and learn about the plants to be foraged in Amsterdam, there is a chance on Sunday 26th May.

365 Frankendael day 364

365 Frankendael,

I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a day less than a year, today.  Hard to look at any plants without thinking of how to use them. I think that there are worse things to get hooked on though!

Today, Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), small leaves at the moment but plenty of it around.

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Also Geranium species are getting stronger everywhere. They are evergreen in this climate but the energy is definitely stirring in them at the moment – meaning they taste better and have more potency.

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Also, new beautiful and incredibly useful Plantain (Plantago major) plants everywhere, if you look carefully.

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And lastly today Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis agg). Bitter, tasty, medicinal, everywhere, free!

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365 Frankendael day 363

365 Frankendael, , , , ,

Garlic Mustard seems to be everywhere at the moment, and Stinging Nettle and Ground Ivy! I didn’t take very many photos today but here is a pavement crack full of minty, flowering Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacae):

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I picked a small handful to make tea, from a lovely clean woodland edge.

And here is a very windy photo of Cleavers (Gallium aparine), which is also everywhere I look at present, on the ground at least. Soon it will start to scale up shrubs and wire fences, becoming very visible to everyone.
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I didn’t take any Nettle photos today – was to busy picking them. Plenty of them are ready for making infusions, pasta and whatever else you fancy.

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Here above is Burdock (Artica lappa, NL: Klit). An extremely useful herb. Well worth learning what you can do with it. I’m not one for harvesting roots in the city but all parts of the plant are useful to some degree. Here’s a useful Burdock link.

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And lastly, Dock (Rumex sp). Where I come from, everyone knows that rubbing Dock on a Nettle sting, takes the firey pain away. But there are far more users for this edible plant. At this time of year, and if you don’t suffer from Gout, Rheumatism or other uric acid related ailments, you may fancy cooking a dock leaf or three as a sour tasting vegetable. It contains oxalic acid, as in sorrel and rhubarb. So it tastes sour and shouldn’t be consumed too often.

365 Frankendael day 362

365 Frankendael, ,

Very pretty Maple tree, in flower close to Amstel Station.

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And I was really happy to find a tree pit full of Winter Purslane / Miner’s Lettuce (perfolium) along side the park today.

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See how similar the Miner’s lettuce looks to this other plant at first glance. Both were growing in the same patch of dirt. But the leaves are a little different and crucially, the flowers all have a different number of petals. This third plant today is a Speedwell ( Veronica) species.

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365 Frankendael day 360

365 Frankendael, Apprenticeship

In five days time, I’ll have been charting the edible and medicinal herbs of this little corner of Amsterdam, for one year. It has been eye opening to me and has brought me lots of unexpected gifts.

One of these is my apprenticeship programme. Today the first group meet for the seventh time. We took cuttings of the medicine chest Elder shrub (Sambucus nigra),

Cleavers (Gallium aparine)

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Beautiful and useful Fumitory (Fumaria officinalis)
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Found Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) yet again.

Comfrey (Symphytum uplanicum x)

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Looked at Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna),

Munched on samples of Common Horehound (Marrubium vulgaris),
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Sniffed the unmistakable scent of Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfare)

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and ever so bitter Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca).

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We looked at simple to make Ivy (Hedera helix) shapes.

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Ideas for balcony Moon Gardens.

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And after our session I found Garlic Mustard.

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365 Frankendael day 359

365 Frankendael

I visited Delft today and was pleased to notice just the same useful “weeds”there that I am used to finding here in Amsterdam.

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This tree planter arrangement caught my eye. It uses wire mesh and small additional lips pod garden wire, to hold pot plants against a street tree. I’m not sure how the mesh was originally attached to the tree but it now seems to cut into the bark in places which is not at all healthy for the tree. The planted hybrid Primroses could easily be substituted for non hybrid varieties of numerous herbs.

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And here is one of my herbal plant pots. This is a healthy and useful Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), growing beside my front door.

365 Frankendael day 358

365 Frankendael, , ,

We had a lovely walk to Jeugdland in Oost Amsterdam today and founds lots of wonderful herbs along the way and at the playground.

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Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) NL: Bijvoet.
This is the first I have found this year and as it’s a regular part of my diet I am delighted that I’ll be able to eat it fresh (rather than dried our in vinegar) from now until the autumn. This plant is a little too small to harvest from but it won’t be long until the leaves are well established. This one was especially easy to identify because some of lasts years dried stems and give away foliage were still attached to the plant.

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Elder (Sambucus nigra) NL: Vlier. Here it us growing out from beneath a bridge.

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Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfare) in flower.

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And Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) NL: Douzendblad. Thousands of succulent, medicinal and edible (for some, in moderation) leaves, along Valentijnkade. I suspect they are enjoying the warmth of the brick walk beside the old Jewish cemetery. These are the biggest and best looking I’ve seen since last year.