Camomile at the allotment

This year I'm growing Roman camomile (Chamaemelum nobile) at the allotment. I like camomile tea but have only ever made it from tea bags, and herb teas from tea bags often seem to me to be a poor imitation of teas made from home-grown fresh or dried herbs. My camomile plants have been flowering for some time now, but I've been waiting for a rare moment of sun to pick some flowers for tea.

Camomile tea can be made from the flowers of Roman camomile or German camomile (Matricaria recutita), which both have a wide range of effects on the body with generally calming and digestive actions. I was actually a little surprised by the taste of the tea I made from fresh flowers yesterday; not immediately pleasant, it was slightly bitter but with a sweeter aftertaste and after a few sips I got used to the flavour. Some of the digestive effects of camomile can probably be attributed to that bitterness.

There are plenty of other reasons to grow camomile in the garden or allotment. It is an attractive yet unassuming little herb, low-growing and unshowy, with fragrant, feathery foliage and white and yellow flowers which are loved by beneficial insects. It is easy to grow from seed and even easier to propagate from cuttings.

Camomile is also an excellent companion plant - it seems to act like a health tonic for other plants growing nearby. I've planted it in between my artichokes (for space-saving reasons as much as anything else) so it can grow in the partial shade beneath the grey-green architectural leaves, and both species seem quite happy with the arrangement.

Aztec Broccoli

Also known as huauzontle, aztec broccoli is a new crop for me this year. It's a member of the Chenopodium genus along with true spinach, quinoa, good king henry and fat hen. I love trying different or unusual vegetables and growing them myself always adds an extra dimension to tasting something for the first time, so when I came across this one on the Real Seed Catalogue website I knew I would have to give it a go.

I sowed the seeds in modules in early May (although they can be sown directly into the ground) and they had germinated within a week, quickly growing large enough to be transplanted into my allotment. Weeks of rain followed, during which many of my plants and seedlings were devoured by hordes of slugs and snails enjoying the wet conditions - I could barely bring myself to look at the huauzontle seedlings in case they had all vanished. But no! They were barely touched and continued to grow on throughout the gloomy weather, giving me some succulent pickings of mealy green leaves to use raw in salads.

A few weeks ago the dense clusters of flower buds on each plant grew large enough to be harvested, taking the top three inches or so from the flowering shoots, including leaves, just before the flowers open. I steamed the 'broccoli' until tender and was pleased to discover that the flower buds and leaves held their texture after cooking, giving a very pleasant 'bite' unusual in a cooked green. The flavour is difficult to describe, not really like broccoli or spinach, huauzontle tastes very green, fresh, almost grassy with a hint of citrus.

The more flower buds I pick, the more shoots are produced, so hopefully the plants will carry on cropping for as long as the weather stays warm enough. Already a favourite, I can't believe how it easy this has been to grow with little attention from me and no noticeable pest or disease problems. Apparently it's a common crop in parts of South America so I'm looking forward to finding and trying out some interesting recipes - huauzontle fritters anyone?

How not to grow garlic!

The garlic bulbs I've harvested this summer were planted last autumn, when I still lived in Bristol. Because I had no ground to grow anything in at the time, I tried growing garlic in compost in wooden wine boxes outside our flat. The photograph shows the result of my efforts with a standard-sized bulb alongside for comparison.

The garlic bulbs produced are disappointingly small and only some of them have divided up into cloves within the bulb. This year I will be doing things differently, growing garlic in the ground on my allotment, but I think it's worth looking at where I went wrong last year and how a better crop of garlic might be produced from container growing.

Firstly, the garlic cloves I planted were from shop-bought garlic intended for cooking, not growing. I have had success in the past growing garlic I bought from a market stall, but I grew it in the ground not in a container. This year I'm planning to buy some bulbs sold specifically for growing on, although hopefully I will be able to use some of the cloves I grow for planting in future years.

Secondly, I am aware that I tried to grow too many cloves for a small space. Perhaps the bulbs would have developed properly if I had planted fewer of them and they had more room to grow. The container was certainly deep enough for growing garlic, but by planting too many cloves there may not have been enough nutrients in the compost to sustain their growth. (I recognise this tendency in myself to plant and sow too densely with other crops too - I find it difficult to thin out sowings and often underestimate planting distances when setting out plugs. Hopefully, recognising it will help me to correct it!)

Also, I planted some winter salad crops (like winter purslane and rocket) between the rows of garlic, so although there was no weed competition maybe there was still too much competition from my other crops, especially as it was all in a container!

It's possible that not all of the bulbs divided into cloves because the weather wasn't cold enough through the winter here. I've read that garlic is best planted in the autumn so that the cold winter temperatures stimulate the bulb to divide. Last winter was very mild in this area so despite my autumn planting it seems the garlic did not get that stimulation.

So lessons learnt for planting garlic this year - buy suitable garlic, get the spacings right and don't try to plant other crops too close. I can't do much about the winter weather except hope it's cold enough!

Drying Herbs to Make Tea

As my Calendula officinalis plants on the allotment are producing so many gorgeous flowers at the moment I've decided to harvest them for drying to make tea. The recent improvement in the weather has helped with this considerably because flowers are best harvested when they are dry, ideally on a sunny day. I'm usually able to fill a bag with flowers whenever I go to up there as picking the flowers encourages the plants to produce more in their efforts to reproduce and set seed for the next generation.

On a small scale, I find the best way to dry herbs (flowers and leaves) for making tea is to lay the plant material out on paper in a cardboard box and keep the box somewhere dry but away from direct sunlight. I've been turning the Calendula flowers over from time to time to help them dry evenly, usually once or twice a day when I remember to. Gradually the petals will darken in colour and curl up, starting to fall away from the flower base as they dry out. Once the petals are completely dry I'll gather them all up and store them in a container somewhere dry and dark. Hopefully I'll have enough Calendula tea to be able to give some away as Christmas presents.

Calendula is an anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal herb and can be used externally (as a lotion, poultice or balm) to treat skin infection or injury, or internally. Drunk as a tea it helps with indigestion and menstrual problems and it has a lymphatic action which can help clear up skin problems. The tea is simply made by pouring just-boiled water onto one or two teaspoons of flowers and infusing for ten minutes or so. The infusion takes on a delicate, sunshine colour which is very warming and brightening when made from dried flowers in the darkness of winter.

I've also been harvesting peppermint for drying. Before the plants start to show signs of flowering I cut them back to the base and lay out the stems in boxes as with the Calendula above. As the leaves dry out they become crumbly and come away from the stems easily, ready to store for winter use when completely dry. The mint plants will carry on growing and should give me another crop or two before the cold weather comes.

Edible or medicinal plants I pass on my walk to work

On my route to and from work I walk along pavements, down footpaths and across fields. I'm always interested in (and distracted by) the plants I pass as I go, especially the ones I can recognize as either edible or medicinal (or both). My journey home from work today took much longer than usual because I decided to photograph as many plants as I could for this post (the photos are intended as illustration only and not as an aid to identification, best consult a good field guide).

Wild oregano (Origanum vulgare) 

Lovely to see this in flower.

Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

So common it is easy to overlook, but an important medicinal plant.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Young leaves are good in salads, dried leaves and flowers make a great digestive tea.

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris)

Soothing, mucilaginous herb. Good to eat too.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

Traditionally used to flavour beer. Often found at crossroads.

Vervain (Verbena officinalis)

Such a beautiful herb. Sorry the picture isn't very clear!

Red clover (Trifolium pratense)

Another plant that is good for food and medicine.

Selfheal (Prunella vulgaris)

Flowering amongst the grass and clover.

Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria)

Spires of golden yellow emerge from the base of a bramble hedge.

Nettles (Urtica dioica)

Another common one, good as a vegetable and as a medicinal tea.

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

Used as a herb, as a medicine and to clarify beer.

There are many other useful plants that I walk past, such as dandelions, poppies, elder, brambles, beech, horse chestnut, hazel and greater plantain, and probably many more that I have forgotten or don't know. I really enjoy the sense of connection I get from being able to identify wild plants, but at the same time I'm aware that identifying a herb is only the start of the process of getting to know the herb and how to use it, especially as a medicine.

Hawthorn tincture completed!

Last week I completed the final stage of producing my own hawthorn tincture. Having made a tincture from hawthorn berries last autumn (by steeping them in vodka) I then used this as the liquid (or menstruum in herbalist-speak) to soak fresh hawthorn flowers and leaves that I picked in May. I have written about both of these processes in previous posts. All that remained to do was to strain off the tincture from the plant material, and having done that I now have a complete hawthorn tincture which I am storing in a brown glass bottle in a cupboard to prevent any damage that exposure to light may do over time. I used a sieve to strain off the tincture, giving the soaked flowers a good squeeze by hand to get as much liquid out as possible, but a tincture press would be the best way to extract the maximum liquid content from the plant material.

The resulting tincture is dark, rusty-red in colour, with some floating sediment (probably due to my rudimentary straining method) and smells distinctly autumnal, rich, rounded and fruity. It tastes surprisingly sweet with a hint of astringency at the back of the tongue.

I decided to make a hawthorn tincture because it seemed like a straightforward choice for a first tincture. I knew I could identify the plant and would have easy access to the plant parts I needed to collect for use, as hawthorn trees are found in almost every native hedgerow here. In terms of its medicinal qualities, hawthorn is a heart and circulatory system tonic which is reputed to improve the circulation of blood through the heart and is beneficial to the action of the heart muscle. I tend to assume that my heart is fairly healthy due to my age and my active job, but it will be interesting to see whether I can feel any benefit from taking the hawthorn tincture daily.

Why I work with plants

I'm always interested in the stories behind how people come to discover their passion in life, perhaps because it took me a while to find my own. This story isn't about which courses I've studied and which jobs I've had, it's about a moment in my life that sparked a process of realisation which led to where I am now and which continues to lead me.

Travel means different things to different people. Sometimes people travel because they are searching for love, or for adventure, sometimes as an escape, or as a way to learn more about the world. There are wonders out there, natural and man-made, and many different ways of living to be experienced and explored. I think all of these things motivated me to travel to Nepal.

In 2006 I joined a group of volunteers from the UK and the US taking part in a seven month long community-centred programme organised by a charity called SPW. We travelled to Nepal in January and after a month of training in a village just outside Kathmandu (the Nepali capital) we were placed with Nepali volunteers in village communities in the Terai, an area of Nepal which borders India. We began teaching in our placement schools and working with community groups on environmental issues, trying to build a rapport with local people and establish links with other charities working in the area.

Several months into our placement the strikes and civil unrest which had been simmering for some time boiled over into a revolution which led to the downfall of the Nepali monarchy. In the midst of this the charity we were volunteering with pulled us back to Kathmandu for our own safety, despite the fact that most of the major protests were concentrated there, as we could be flown out of the country at short notice if the situation deteriorated even further. We spent a month under curfew in a hotel in the city, able to leave the building only for short periods of time.

Gradually things normalized enough for us to return to our placements and continue the work we had started. Unfortunately the disruption to our program meant that most of the volunteers felt they could no longer continue until the end of the seven months, and I seriously considered leaving for home too, although I did not. I'm glad that I managed to complete what I had set out to, partly because it meant that when the programme was finished I could leave Nepal on my own terms, with good memories of my time there and a sense of completion.

Those good memories meant that I was very happy to have the opportunity to return to the country, this time as a tourist rather than as a volunteer, to stay with a friend there for a couple of months. We were staying in Kathmandu and trying to organise a mountain trek, which involved getting a permit for entry to the relevant national park. We also discovered that it was compulsory to hire a guide or porter through a registered travel agent - something I didn't have enough money for if I wanted to stay in Nepal for as long as I'd planned. It seemed like our trek would never happen.

Frustrated, tired and sweaty from walking through dusty city streets in the midday heat from office to office, I began to feel suffocated by the seemingly narrow-minded bureaucracy, the even narrower streets and the relentlessly noisy traffic, and this seemed to bring back the trapped feeling I'd had during that month under curfew in the city when the country was in turmoil. This feeling settled into me and I felt low for several days without really understanding why. In an effort to cheer up, my friend and I took a walk to get out of the hotel room which led us down a road we had walked down many times. The road was bordered by a high wall with a single opening - an archway in the grey stone with a plaque to one side saying 'Garden of Dreams'. For some reason, we decided not to pass by this time but to go in.

The sheer relief I felt on entering that garden is difficult to describe. My mood instantly lifted and I felt calm and relaxed, not just psychologically but physically too. Perhaps I had been feeling homesick and being in a garden provided a familiar sensation that made me feel as if I were at home again. I struggle to remember any precise details of the planting or design, but I do remember stone and water, fragrant flowers and inviting benches, and a balance of eastern and western influences. I have a photograph of myself swinging on a swing there, looking happy and child-like.

Visiting that garden gave my spirits and energy the lift that was needed to help me make the most out of the remainder of the time I spent in Nepal, and I did see the mountains after all. Stepping through that stone archway into the 'Garden of Dreams' was enough to show me that gardens and the plants they contain have a kind of fabulous power that should not be underestimated.

It didn't take much more of a mental leap for me to realise that a career in horticulture would fulfil almost every aspect of what I wanted from my working life. I could be outdoors doing a physical and practical job as well as explore the more creative side of growing, from garden design to floral displays and even botanical painting. My fascination with biology and the complexities of the environment we live in could easily be satisfied by applying myself to plant biology, pest and predator insect interactions, and understanding the way environment affects plant growth. Sustainability, food security, human health (both physical and mental) and community resilience are all linked to the plants we grow and how we grow and use them.