Hawthorn Berry Tincture

I've never made a herbal tincture before, but I had the opportunity to taste a number of tinctures while participating in a herbal medicine evening course in the spring, and while most of them tasted somewhat less than delightful (as you might expect) the hawthorn berry tincture stood out as being rather more pleasant. The hedgerows are full of haws at the moment because hawthorn trees, most commonly Crataegus monogyna in the UK, are often abundantly productive.

Of course, herbal tinctures are not necessarily supposed to be delicious, but instead beneficial in terms of promoting health and well-being. Before continuing I should state that I am not a herbalist and not qualified to prescribe or recommend any herbal medicine, I simply intend to share my thoughts and doings regarding my use of herbs at home. The advice of a qualified medical professional should be sought where any health problem is of concern. As for foraging for herbs, plant identification is crucial - you must be confident that you know what you're picking. And it makes sense to tread lightly at all times, be grateful for what you find, never take more than you need and don't strip a wild plant or dig one up.

Hawthorn is a remarkable plant which is renowned as a heart and circulatory system tonic, especially when taken regularly over a long period of time. It appears to improve the circulation around the heart and helps to support and maintain the health of the heart muscle. I've never suffered from any heart problems, but after learning more about the heart and how it works (worth a post in its own right) this incredible organ seems to be so crucial to general good health, both physically and psychologically, that I'm very happy to look after mine a bit more!

Hawthorn's beneficial effects are only seen when a preparation is made from the whole plant material - laboratory efforts to isolate specific chemical compounds have been ineffective. According to most of the information I have read, it is best to make a tincture from flowers, leaves and berries, but as I've missed the flowering stage I'm making a tincture from the berries which I will use to steep leaves and flowers that I'll pick next year.

My first task was to head out and pick some haws. I found plenty in a hedgerow in Ashton Court Estate, Bristol, and commenced picking. It was a pleasantly meditative way to spend an hour or so and I was intrigued at how the berries varied from tree to tree, some were round, others more elongated and their colour ranged from bright red to deep maroon. I also picked some blackberries as I went along.

Starting off the tincture itself was just as easy. I filled a jar with the berries and poured in enough vodka (40% proof) to cover them, before putting on the lid and giving it a shake. I'd saved a brown glass bottle with a screw cap which made a perfect tincture jar, as the dark glass helps prevent light damage to the tincture. I labelled the jar with the date and what it contains and put it in a cupboard. All I need to do from now on is shake the mixture once a week for six to eight weeks and then strain off the liquid, which will be my tincture.

I'll blog about the first tasting when it's ready and include some of what I've learnt about the heart and how it works.

Abbey House Gardens

Having worked at a busy herb nursery for the last couple of years, the frantic growing season usually passed me by in a blur of watering, feeding, propagating, potting and pest hunting. Now that I find myself with a (hopefully short) hiatus between jobs which has happened to fall at the tail end of the summer, I'm trying to make the most of the opportunity to visit some gardens in the area before the blooms fade.

So yesterday I headed off with a friend to Abbey House Gardens in Malmesbury. Right in the heart of the hilltop town the gardens surround the beautiful grey stone Abbey House, home of the Pollard family since 1994. The gardens were once cultivated by Benedictine monks and Ian Pollard's work in developing them has successfully combined these historical influences with more contemporary garden design.

We let the garden lead us and ignored the map in the leaflet, making own our way round - I much prefer to explore a garden bit by bit. First we came to the knot garden, satisfyingly neat, clipped box hedges were filled with bright colour. An intricately clipped square knot of box and germander at the base of a standard tree really intrigued us.

We then passed through the carved stone 'Saxon Arch' onto the upper lawn, overlooked by the walls of Malmesbury Abbey and with every border gloriously filled with roses. We followed the hedge around behind the lawn, passing crab apples red and yellow, and carried on down between herbaceous borders full to bursting with summer exuberance. The stew pond full of enormous koi carp held our attention for a while, and although I'm sure these aren't destined for any stew it's an interesting demonstration of the monastic history of the garden.

The herb garden of raised beds is enclosed by 'cloisters' of climbing plants, a staggeringly effective mass of flowering clematis, roses and fruit cordons. We were compelled to sit for a while and drink it in, although as herb growers we were itching to dive in and cut back the perennial herbs which had finished flowering.

On the far side of the house the character of the garden instantly changes. The control and precision of the lines and planting in front of the house relaxes into naturalistic woodland sloping down to the river. We meandered along the shady path downhill, crossing the River Avon on stepping stones. Following the path we came to a deliciously secluded waterfall before emerging into the sunshine at the summit of a little hill looking across the river and back up towards the house. Heavy rain the day before had given the river water an eerie opaqueness which contrasted with the blue of the sky.

I could keep writing, but I'll end by saying that the garden will be worth a visit when the autumn colours arrive, and again in spring to see the laburnum tunnel in full glory. Filled with unusual sculptures, inspired planting and even with its own resident tortoise, this garden reminded me of the power of a great garden to influence mood and induce calm, even in a town centre.

Seed Sowing for Autumn

This week I'm planning to do some seed sowing to keep my containers full with plenty of tasty leaf crops growing on into the autumn and winter. Late summer is the perfect time to sow any vegetables which would readily bolt if grown in spring and early summer. Bulb fennel, oriental vegetables like pak choi, lettuce and salad brassicas are all likely to run to flower if they are grown too early in the year. This isn't always a bad thing - radishes left to flower will produce tasty, edible seed pods which can be eaten raw, and sometimes it's interesting to see vegetables in flower which would normally be harvested before they reach that stage of their life cycle. But for the most part, the flavour of leaf vegetables and herbs like mint becomes bitter and unpalatable when they are flowering.

I will be sowing the following seeds this week:

White Stem Salad Onion 'Feast' - bred to yield very long white bulbs, giving an onion that looks like a small leek.

Rocket - a variety bred to be mild in flavour

Land Cress - with a flavour similar to watercress, this salad plant is supposed to be very hardy, growing even in winter

Mustard Greens 'Osaka Purple' - dark purple mustard greens, very hot when raw but mild and tasty when cooked. Supposed to be very easy to grow and cold hardy.

Winter Pursane (Claytonia perfoliata) - easy to grow, hardy, produces crunchy, succulent leaves

Turnip Greens 'Rapa Senza Testa' - Another easily grown leaf crop, leaves can be eaten raw or cooked

Winter Butterhead Lettuce 'Winter Marvel' - this is a cold-resistant lettuce which will carry on producing leaf under some protection through the winter


I have already started growing some Giant Red Mustard which is ready to prick out into rows in a container. The seed I had was old but has germinated well. Also germinating already are parsley (flat leaf) and salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor) which has a surprisingly delicious cucumber-flavoured leaf.

I once heard parsley described as more of a vegetable than a herb - it is certainly a nutritious addition to a salad or soup, but this often makes me wonder about the distinction we make between herbs and vegetables. Plenty of fruits and vegetables are hyped as 'superfoods', containing antioxidants and vitamins in abundance, with health benefits which would rival that of any herbal supplement.  While often seen merely as flavour-enhancers, the herbs commonly used in cooking contain compounds which help the body to digest and absorb the nutrients it is ingesting. Good health comes from eating as wide a variety of plant foods as possible, however we choose to define them.

The enjoyment for me comes from growing plants with which I can have more than a passing acquaintance. The intimacy of watching a plant grow from seed to maturity at close hand is only deepened when I can appreciate its beauty, savour its aroma and relish its flavour.

Autumnal August

It's one of those typically British summer days which make August feel more like October. The grey cloud of a rainy morning has failed to lift and we're left with a cool and overcast afternoon. Never mind - I've got fresh peppermint tea in my mug and lush, leafy basil growing on my windowsill, both happy reminders that there are some good growing days left before the evenings start coming early and frosts threaten.

Out in the little yard behind the flat the tomato plants I'm growing in compost bags seem intent on sprawling way beyond the boundaries I've tried to set for them with canes and string. Even my efforts to restrict their growth by pinching out tips and side-shoots don't seem to have reigned in their exuberance. They're bearing plenty of fruit too, so I'll keep up the twice-weekly liquid feeds with Maxicrop and hope we get some sun soon to speed up ripening.

The gently trailing stems of winter savory (Satureja montana), happy in its little pot, sparkle with tubular white-pink flowers, bright against the pungent green foliage. They are a delicious treat when I go out to water the containers, sweetly fragrant with a peppery finish - I keep meaning to scatter them over a salad, but can't resist eating each one I pick. A bunch of its annual cousin, summer savory (Satureja hortensis), came in the veg box last week and I used it yesterday with Adzuki beans, parsley, onions and tomatoes to make a summer bean stew. Another astonishingly good food and herb combination which works well in both the eating and the digesting of the dish.

Winter savory is a perennial herb found in the Mediterranean region (although possibly originating from central Asia), happiest in a sunny spot with good drainage. Its taste and aroma are often compared to that of thyme, with a pungency when fresh which disappears on cooking. Like summer savory it is fantastic cooked with beans and pulses, but it's also a good match for meats and fish. A versatile herb which deserves to be much more widely known and used, it is definitely one of my favourites. Bees also love it and it yields an antiseptic essential oil used in aromatherapy.

Why Herbs?

Why write about herbs? Herbs are a uniquely fascinating and generous group of plants to grow, use and learn about. Most of us who cook at home are familiar with using herbs in various forms and several commonly used fresh herbs are now standard supermarket fare; stocked alongside vegetables and salads they are bundled into plastic bags or potted to grow and cut when we need them. We use them for flavour and aroma, to lift an otherwise mundane dish beyond its basic ingredients, or to add authenticity to world cuisine - think of sage and onion stuffing or lemongrass and thai basil in a curry.

Herbs are also well-known for their medicinal properties; from headache relief to providing modern medicine with some of the tools to help fight cancer, many pharmaceutical drugs are based on or derived from chemical compounds identified in plants which can help to heal us. Whole areas of alternative medicine have grown out of the various ways that herbs can be used, including aromatherapy, homeopathy and herbalism. Around the world many communities rely on herbal remedies for health.

Herbs also link us to our social and scientific history. Medical herbalism forms a major (and often political and controversial part) of the history of modern medicine. Botany arose from the attempts of plant hunters, herbalists, doctors and scientists to identify and classify the plants they were using and discovering, many of them medicinal herbs, from all around the world. A wealth of folklore surrounds the traditional uses and customs associated with herbs and native plants in almost every culture on earth, much of which is being lost as we move further away from traditional ways of living.

Herbs are beautiful enough to be grown as ornamental plants in their own right. Fennel and Goat's rue are perfectly at home in garden borders bursting with herbaceous perennials at the height of their summer bloom. Creeping Thymes tumble over rockeries, fragrant favourites of bumble bees and gardeners. Height and structure come from shrub Myrtles and Rosemary, or even trees like Elder and Bay.

Herbs are also recreational in more prohibited ways. The capacity of plants to produce substances which affect our bodies even extends to the alteration of our state of consciousness and our experience of reality. Mind-altering herbs are still used in traditional cultures to commune with ancestors and spirits as a very real part of daily life, whereas modern attitudes towards medicinal herbs have come to include an element of fear - herbs can have powerful effects on the body and if used incorrectly can cause harm and even fatality.

Herbs delight us, heal us, intoxicate and feed us. They link us to our history and folk traditions and provide us with ways to rediscover our cultural roots. They blur the boundaries between food and medicine and continue growing as weeds even if we disregard them.