Common chickweed and a lovely recipe

There's lots of chickweed growing at the moment! It has been said that there is no part of the world where Chickweed is not to be found. It’s one of the first greens available in winter and the tenderest of wild greens. It’s available all year round, but gets stringy around midsummer. As the name suggests, poultry love it.

Chickweed is readily distinguished from the alike plants by a line of hairs that runs up the stem on one side only, which when it reaches a pair of leaves is continued on the opposite side. As you can see on the picture.

Chickweed can be eaten raw. Most obvious is eating it as a salad. Or how about liquidized in a green smoothy? It makes a nice pesto as well. But the best recipe I've come across is chickweed pakoras...


Chickweed pakora
From: Hedgerow – John Wright

Makes 8

Don’t be too precise on quantities: it’s hard to get this one wrong…

100 gr gram (chickpea) flour
1 tbsp medium curry powder or to taste
½ tps baking powder
½ tsp salt (or more)
About 120 ml water
50 gr chickweed, washed, dried and roughly chopped
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic or a handful of wild garlic
Vegetable oil for shallow frying

- Mix flour, curry powder, baking powder and salt
- Slowly stir in enough water to form a paste with the consistency of mustard
- Mix in chickweed, onion and garlic
- Heat a thin layer of oil in a heavy-based frying pan
- When hot, spoon in heaped spoonfuls of the pakora mixture to form little cakes. Space them well apart
- Cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until crisp and golden brown on one side.
- Turn over the cakes and brown the other side
- Drain on kitchen paper and serve

This post was shared on Wildcrafting Wednesday

Preparing a lunch and making cough syrups together

Come and connect to the abundance of the Winter season!
Craig Gibsone and Eveline Rodenburg invite you to a hands-on workshop around the theme of Winter that will renew your connection to seasonal preparations, to the land and to traditional herbal practices.

Again we will start by walking around Craig’s permaculture garden, harvesting for the lunch we will prepare and enjoy together. After that we talk about coughing and make different cough syrups. You’ll get the recipes so you can easily prepare them yourself at home!

Craig is an intuitive natural gardener and eco builder applying it in a happy intuitive way while constantly observing the interconnected nature of all things
Eveline is a naturopath and herbalist passionate about keeping the traditional knowledge of herbal medicine alive
Venue: Craig’s inspiring barrelhouse, kitchen and garden
Date and time: January 26th, 11-4pm.
Cost: £ 25 per workshop, but don’t let the money hold you back; just come and attune.
For further information and to book your place: evelinerodenburg@gmail.com, call Eveline on 07553 695 620 or drop a note in the GO. Or simply talk to us!

Treasures of Winter: four workshops at Findhorn

I'm organizing four workshops on the coming four Saturdays. Here's some information about them:

Come and connect to the abundance of the Winter season!

Craig Gibsone and Eveline Rodenburg invite you to four hands-on workshops around the theme of Winter that will renew your connection to seasonal preparations, to the land and to traditional herbal practices. We’ll be harvesting, gardening, preparing and cooking in Craig’s beautiful barrelhouse where the daily practice of permaculture is present all around.

Each workshop starts by walking around the garden looking at what can be harvested and what can be done this time of year. We might do the tiny first sowings under glass and prepare a dish with our harvest. Then - gathering around the warmth of the woodstove - we will make traditional remedies for coughs, colds, dry skin and other winter conditions.

Craig is an intuitive natural gardener and eco builder applying it in a happy chaotic way while constantly observing the interconnected nature of all things
Eveline is a naturopath and herbalist passionate about keeping the traditional knowledge of herbal medicine alive

Venue: Craig’s inspiring barrelhouse, kitchen and garden
Dates and time: January 12th, 19th and 26th, February 2nd from 11-4pm.
Cost: £ 25 per workshop, £ 90 for block of all four. You can book separate workshops.

For further information and to book your place: evelinerodenburg@gmail.com, call Eveline on 07553 695 620 or drop a note in the GO. Or simply talk to us!

Dandelions are ready to use

Natures is coming back to life again! Dandelions are growing too and now is the time to harvest their roots. Just dig them up, give them a rinse and a brush. You can dry them now by cutting them into small bits and then allowing them to dry on a piece of paper or cloth and store them in a paper bag when they're completely dry.

I made them into tincture

After cleaning the roots, I cut them into small pieces and put them in a jam jar with vodka. The right one is a jar I made earlier, the left is a new one. You can see the change in colour once the good stuff dissolves into the alcohol. I like to use this tincture in spring as a detoxifier and I take ten drops, three times a day. Don't take the tincture longer than six weeks and stop for some time to see how you're doing without.

Dandelion root makes the bile more fluid and it enhances the secretion of bile two to four times! This supports the liver and helps preventing the formation of gall stones. The bitters work great in your digestive system: more saliva, more gastric and pancreas juices, hence a better digestion!

Dandelion is called pisse-en-lit in French, because it increases the flow of urine. And at the same time it strengthens the urinary system. Most diuretic drugs cause a loss of potassium, but dandelion is naturally high in potassium and as such a very balanced and complete remedy. The leaf actually works best on the urinary system, so you can add some of it to your tincture.

Spring is a good time to detoxify and dandelion is a great help: as a tincture, an infusion or eating the young leaves in a salad.

This post was shared on Wildcrafting Wednesday

Found: Lung moss!

I have been looking for Lung Moss (Lobaria pulmonaria) for quite some time. I first heard about it in my spinning circle. One of the older women told me how she dyes with what she called Tree Lungwort and gave me a small quantity of this lichen. I tried it and loved the color! It is the brown one in the picture.

And then the name caught my attention; I know the Lungwort and was wondering whether the Lung Moss could also be a medicinal lichen. My favorite herbal, David Hoffmann's Holistic Herbal mentions it as an expectorant, used in irritable respiratory conditions, such as bronchitis and asthma. It is specifically indicated in children's coughs. Lung moss has healing and soothing properties for the mucous tissue. On the internet I also found that it has recently been found that the lungwort lichens contain antibiotic chemicals that are effective against the kind of bacteria that cause tuberculosis and many other chest infections. I'm making it into a tincture and will try it out on either myself or a guinea pig :)
Many medicinal plants reveal their properties by how they look. Lung moss is a great example; I find an amazing similarity to the lungs. If you enlarge the photo by clicking it you can see the bronchial tubes and even the alveoli!

I found this lichen while walking along the River Findhorn. I had been looking up at the trees trunks (almost tripping several times...), knowing that the air is very pure out here and the oak trees are fairly old: the ideal conditions for Lung Moss to grow. Just when I was giving up on finding it I recognised it. I have experienced this before when I'm looking for a herb without having seen it before. When I spot it my heart jumps and I just know that this is the one! Today I will go back to the river and hopefully find more.
I don't take it from the trees, as it takes several years to grow, but collect what has fallen.

The River Findhorn is such a beautiful and magical place!


This post was shared Wildcrafting Wednesday at The Woodwife's Journal

Hairy bittercress: a tasty and healthy addition to salad

This tiny weed, Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is probably around in your garden this time of the year. It germinates when it gets colder and grows in winter! It loves disturbed soil, so it tends to pop up where you have been digging or weeding. Don't throw it on the compost heap, because it's edible and actually quite nice. It tastes a bit peppery, but not too hot and is a great and healthy addition to salads, or in couscous. Harvest before it flowers. Just lift the little rosettes, cut the roots off, rinse, chop and enjoy! This fresh energy and it's vitamine C is exactly what we need right now.

This post was shared Wildcrafting Wednesday at The Woodwife's Journal

Making tinctures: a tutorial

Around Christmas I blogged here about digging up roots and cleaning them to make them into a tincture. A tincture is an extract of a herb in alcohol. In this case, I used Meadowsweet. I chopped up the roots and put them in a clean jar. Then I added vodka, enough to completely cover them. Because everything that is not covered in alcohol, can get moldy.

The tincture has been in a cupboard for six weeks, so it's time to separate the herb form the alcohol. I use a sieve and a clean piece of cloth. Old cotton sheets work great for that. I use a glass measuring jug, so I can see what the tincture looks like and how much I have. The procedure is very simple: I just empty the jar in the sieve and see the tincture running!

You can see the tincture is beautifully clear and has a deep red colour. I try to press out as much of the good stuff as possible. You need some strenght for this! I have seen tincture presses on the internet, it would be great to have one...
I pour the tincture into a clean jar and label it. I like to put a date on the label; tinctures keep quite well (most of them at least three years) but not forever. I always keep them in a dark place, away from sunlight.

Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) likes to grow in wet places. The flowers are creamy white. They look fluffy, almost fragile and have a distinct sweet smell. Insects love them! The roots are of a very different nature. They form a strong mat that makes it difficult to dig them up!

Like Willow, Meadowsweet has salicylate salts. In the 19th century, this has been recognised as a painkiller and made into acetylsalicyd acid, called Asperin. Pure asperin can harm the stomach. Meadowsweet doesn't, because it has other compounds that work soothing on the stomach tissue and even relieve heartburn. It is a pain reliever and works anti-inflammatory. And has another bonus: it helps the body detoxing by getting uric acid and oxalic acid out. That is why it is used on joint pains that are associated with acidity.

I will gather the flowers in summer and make them into a tincture too and mix the two.

This was shared at Wildcrafting Wednesday

Make your own tinctures

This afternoon I have been making tinctures from what is available in the garden at this time of the year. That is mostly roots and bark. I found roots of dandelion, meadowsweet, and lady's mantle and bark of willow and barberry. The procedure is dead simple. I strip the bark off the branches with a sharp knife. After digging up the roots I give them a good rinse and scrub and then I cut them up. Each plant root or bark goes in a different jam jar and then I pour vodka on. The first week I shake them every day, to make sure the material is covered in alcohol. Then I put the jars in a cupboard and leave them for a few weeks. When they're ready I pour out the jar in a sieve lined with a piece of fabric and the tincture is ready to use. I will tell you more about how to use it and what to use it for later!