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.

Ryton Gardens

Since learning of its existence while studying an organic growing module on my horticulture course four years ago, I've wanted to visit the Garden Organic garden at Ryton. Last weekend, having travelled up to Rutland for a friend's wedding party, we took the opportunity to pay Ryton Gardens a visit on the way home.

Luckily we arrived just in time to join a free tour of the gardens with the Head gardener Andy. This really made our visit as we had a proper introduction to various sections of the ten acre garden and the thinking behind the creation of each area. The gardens were quiet for a Sunday in June - the skies were overcast with the suggestion of imminent rain so our tour consisted of six plus Andy, which meant we could easily ask questions. Mostly those questions were about slugs and how to control them, with this being the wettest June ever recorded in the UK and slug and snail populations soaring.

We spent some time talking about how to use compost and how to make it, as well as looking at various (smelly) liquid feeds made by soaking bags of comfrey, nettles and manure in barrels of water. Then we moved on around the garden, from the herb garden to the tropical garden (a collaboration with local people based on plants grown in the gardens and allotments of  immigrant communities living in the UK), and on to the Biodynamic garden via a lovely small allotment-style plot and a fantastically useful Keder House, which is a kind of polytunnel made from insulating bubble wrap with drop-down sides for ventilation.

We talked about all sorts of organic growing techniques and tips, including the potential benefits of using a biodynamic sowing calendar, collecting water, the importance of crop rotation, encouraging beneficial insects, no-dig growing and seed saving, as well as the importance of wasps. We also had a satisfying scrumping session in the soft fruit garden, tasting some amazing raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries (some were just ripe enough to eat raw), blackcurrants and tayberries.

Everywhere we went, beds of vegetables and fruit bushes were surrounded by ornamental planting, sometimes subtly, sometimes in wide borders full of colour.

The rose garden was heady with fragrance at this time of year and there were lots of small greenhouses dotted around the gardens filled with tomato plants promising the riches of fruits to come. Beyond the cultivated areas were banks of nettles and other 'weeds' providing habitat for all sorts of beneficial insects.

I didn't necessarily come away from Ryton Gardens having discovered anything radically new to me as I've worked in organic growing and continue to try and expand my knowledge of organics through reading and in practice in my garden, but it is always inspiring and encouraging to visit gardens like this one and see what they do and how they do it. I came away especially inspired to collect more rainwater in the garden and make more compost! I also came away with a plant - comfrey Bocking 14, which I'll plant at the allotment for making liquid feed.

Purple-flowered, yellow-podded mange-tout on the allotment

Today I made a quick visit to the allotment to check that the wind of recent days hasn't done too much damage. Happily, everything seems to be growing well, especially the mange-tout peas which are covered in exquisite purple flowers. Each pair of soft lilac petals encloses an inner set of richer, deeper purple. I'm growing the variety 'Golden Sweet', which produces yellow pods that are just starting to develop. I couldn't resist eating one, even though they're a bit small - it was sweetly crunchy and very tender.

I've got plenty of parsley growing at the allotment which I'm harvesting now for salads and omelettes, as well as borage which I'm growing for its edible flowers. I've heard that borage stems can be cooked as a vegetable too, but I'm yet to try that.

Particularly exciting are two crops I'm growing for the first time. Huauzontle (or Aztec Broccoli) produces edible leaves and flower shoots which are apparently very tasty steamed. I'm also growing quinoa plants for grain. Both plants look similar at the moment, just like seedlings of Fat Hen.

Behind them (in the picture) are tree cabbage plants under mesh to protect them from pigeons. These are supposed to grow as a short-lived perennial, giving harvests of cabbage leaves for at least a couple of seasons once established.

I'm also growing courgette 'Black Beauty', runner bean 'Scarlet Emperor', winter squash 'Burgess Buttercup', Achocha (Fat Baby), Globe artichoke, camomile, bronze fennel, Sanguisorba (salad burnet), spring onion 'Kyoto Market', carrot 'd'Eysines', radish 'Munchenbier', red orach, beetroot 'Sanguina', chard, and probably more that I can't remember! I'll write about them all as I harvest them. Meanwhile, I'm planning to start sowing this week for some more quick summer crops as well as for winter and hungry-gap produce.

Courgette and Beetroot Salad

Occasionally, in the almost-constant downpour of rain that has been summer so far this year, a rare day of sun happens to coincide with my day off work. A salad lunch in the garden always seems to be a satisfying way to make the most of such temporary warmth, so I combined courgette 'ribbons' (cut with a peeler) with chunks of boiled beetroot and topped them with Calendula petals and shredded mint leaves, as well as a dressing of oil and balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper. I love the flavour combination of mint and courgette, which I first tasted in a soup at a farm-shop cafe. I wish I could say the courgettes and beetroot were home-grown, but mine aren't quite ready yet, although the petals and mint both came from the garden.

Yesterday I planted out into the garden the watercress cuttings which I rooted in water some weeks ago. They have grown into reasonably-sized plants since being potted on into containers, seemingly able to cope with slug and snail attacks, so I thought I would move them on into the ground to see how they get on there. 

They have a rather sprawling growth habit (perhaps because the weight of the stems are usually supported by water?) which caused them to trail out of their pots so that instead of forming upright clumps of leaves the stems now lie across the soil. I'm hoping they will root where they lie and spread about to fill the space I've planted them in - a semi-shaded patch of deep, damp soil near the pond.

Hawthorn flower tincture

A little more than two weeks ago I got married. Four days before that I was using precious pre-wedding time on one of my two days off before the big day to pick hawthorn flowers. Obsessed? Maybe, but one has to take these opportunities when they arise!

It was a calm, sunny Sunday in mid-May and I saw the chance to finish making the Hawthorn tincture I'd started back in August last year (see my earlier post if you're curious). My plan was to make a tincture using hawthorn berries (which I did) and then finish it by using that tincture to steep hawthorn flowers, producing a complete hawthorn tincture. I just had to wait for the hawthorn blossom, and last month when the hedgerows were full of the sickly-scented white flowers I took my chance.

I spent an hour or so in a small meadow near where I live, happily and unhurriedly picking the small bundles of blossom, taking only those which looked freshly opened or even with a few unopened buds. At home I simply bundled all of the flowers into my bottle of hawthorn berry tincture, using a wooden spoon handle to push them in and topping up with a bit more vodka to make sure all of the plant material was covered. I then added the date and contents to the label and put the bottle in a cupboard, hoping I would remember to give it a shake every few days. I'd kept a small handful of flowers back to try as a cup of fresh hawthorn blossom tea, which was sweetly refreshing and more than a little soporific!

In several weeks' time I'll be able to taste the finished product. Most of the information I could find about making this sort of tincture varied in terms of how long the flowers should be left steeping before straining, ranging from ten days to two months. I'll try six weeks as a reasonable compromise.