Vodkatastic

I’ve not had much chance to get out much lately but in between showers, I’ve managed a few small harvests. Last trip out I picked some Red Clover (Trifolium pratense) which I started straight away as per the guidance at The Herbarium, which pointed out that the flowers can spoil quite quickly. Some fine chopping was required to get it to go into the right ratio of alcohol as the flowers are quite springy but I got there in the end. The resulting tincture is subtle but definitely floral. However, it was so subtle it failed to take the edge off the cheap vodka I used so I’d probably use a better quality next time. The Eyebright (Euphrasia spp.) on the other hand was stunning! Almost immediately, it smelled of vanilla-y chocolate but as it steeped I thought it was developing a bitter back note to it. When I bottled it up the other day I had a wee sip – Wow! Coconut! Strong and sweet and aromatic and, if there’s a bitterness about it, it’s the delicious bite of dark chocolate. A real eye-opener (pun very much intended!).

Speaking of punnets… a friend gave us a punnet of Bilberries (Vaccinium myrlillus) she had picked and they sat on the bunker for a day or two, seriously at risk of going to waste. So I bottled them up with some vodka; quick and easy. I did think about adding some sugar or honey but I’m not really much of a sweet tooth and I wasn’t sure of quantities and, well, straight vodka it was. I find soft fruits can be a bit tart though and, what with the cheap vodka, I wasn’t really holding out much hope. I reckoned I could sweeten it up later or something. It doesn’t need it. It’s got a fruity sweetness all of its own. If you like things sweet you could add lemonade maybe? But I don’t think it needs it. I haven’t decanted it because I want to do something with the berries and I haven’t decided what yet. I just had a wee sip there just now to remind myself of the flavour and it just keeps getting better and better; liquid, alcoholic jammy yummyness. I think I’ll try that with any other soft fruit that comes my way and see what happens.

I have two other projects on the go at the moment; both of which I’ve been wanting to do for ages. At long long last I’ve got my first batch of St John’s Wort oil (Hypericum perforatum) on the go. It’s sitting in its jar on my sunniest window sill and is starting to go red (well more rosé really) but when I stir it that gets diluted and there’s only a tinge of pink to it. I think it obviously needs some more time. The other one is nettle seed tincture (Urtica dioica). I’ve been inspecting the nettles daily to see if the flowers have set seed and finally, they looked just right. Following the advice from Henriette’s website I collected them on the stalk and hung them up to dry; yes using gloves. When they were dry however, I managed to take all the leaves off and sort through the seeds with bare hands. They were a wee bit tingly but not in a horrible way at all. So they’re all in vodka now too. I’ve never used nettle seeds before but Kiva Rose is a big fan and I’m looking forward to getting to know another aspect of this amazing plant. The Bilberry lady also gave us some Chanterelles and, yep you guessed it, they’re now in vodka. Again, I’m not holding out much hope because of the cheap vodka but, you never know, it might be another surprise. I love this time of year when the hedgerows are so full of potential harvests. If only the rain would stop I could get out and find some more goodies…

The Backpack

So, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a blog for a while now. I said I’d start it when my exams finished in May but, wow, what happened to June and July and, well, August just flooded past!

Summer has been hectic since the exams finished with very few opportunities for herbal adventures and even less opportunity to write about them. My Herbal forays are always accompanied by my camera and tend to take the form of “I went for a walk and I saw…” but, this Summer, each walk has identified a need for a new item in my backpack of tricks.

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

On my first trip out I decided to head down to the old railway track to the patch of Mullein I had found last year. I had been too late for flowers but had collected seed and made a mental note to go back earlier this time. I couldn’t quite remember where I had seen it but the dry seed heads from last year stood out against the green.   With my eye now tuned in, I quickly spotted the tall fuzzy spires all around and a closer inspection uncovered the first year rosettes nestled in the grass.

So, I had my plant, I had my pictures, now to collect the flowers. Oh dear… What had I forgotten? I had nothing to put them in! A rummage through my pockets produced nothing useful and so, frustrated, I walked past spire after spire of delicate little yellow blossoms.

Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)

My spirits lifted a little when I spotted this chirpy little chappy. I took several pictures to help me decide what it was when I got home to my flora. Unfortunately, being of the family he is, it wasn’t so easy to decide. I really needed the plant in front of me or, indeed, the flora with me when I saw the plant. I love my Francis Rose and find it very easy to use but, without the ability to look at the plant close up, working from pictures is guesswork. And so, my wee backpack of tricks expanded to include:

• Containers for collecting plant material
• My Francis Rose Flora
• A loup

And with a little help from the lovely herbal community at www.herbwifery.org and a repeat visit, I finally identified it as Hedge Woundwort.

Eyebright (Euphrasia spp.)

On that previous walk, I had also been taken with this tiny beauty. I had taken pictures but, after the Woundwort episode, I had resolved to take my full kit out and ID it in the wild. And so, I settled down on the track with my flora and my loup and…

Fantastic! Result! Its Eyebright! And theres tonnes and tonnes of it. So, I’ve got a positive ID, I’ve got a collectable herb  and I’ve got containers for collecting. Let’s get to work. Oh dear…

I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be harvesting. It’s a plant I’ve become more aware of recently as a friend had asked me about it so I had done a bit of background reading. However, I hadn’t really registered which parts were used. I would have instinctively said aerial parts but I was in no way sure. It would be criminal, I thought, to take a batch home only to discover it was the wrong part. What to do? After some “should I, shouldn’t I” contemplation, I hit on an idea. I fired off a text to some fellow students in the hope they had a herbal nearby or knew, for sure, which parts to collect. So I sat on a sunny bank of the old railway track for half an hour or so chatting with a few folk in Edinburgh via text and snipping a little harvest of Eyebright. I was in my element in amongst the weeds with a Flora and no Herbal but you live and learn and my wee backpack of tricks had recruited a new member.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

From the car, I had been spotting a lot of Yarrow on verges and so, confident that I was fully tooled up, I set out on my bike to collect some from less well trodden tracks. After an initial disappointment when a previously identified patch had been trodden through by cattle (not so less-well-trodden after all!), I had one of those real guiding moments. You know when you see a hint of a path somewhere and you just want to follow it to see where it goes? Well, having come back down a path I’ve tramped many a time before, swithering where to go next, one such half-hinted-at path caught my eye. Curious, I followed it up the bank…

A carpet of red clover opened up before me. It was a real wow moment but, given the recent wet weather, these little ground huggers were still too damp to contemplate picking. But what was that over by the fence? Yarrow! And not that low leafy stuff of roadsides and lawns. No, these were tall, proud, fully flowering stands of the stuff. This was exactly what I had been looking for but, as I set about collecting, I realised I had a problem. The tubs I had in my bag for collecting were no way going to be big enough. I was reluctant to leave now I had found it as, what with one thing and another, by the time I had got back to the Mullein I had missed the flowers again. Luckily, I had thrown my handbag into the rucksack before I left and, by decanting the contents, I had an ideal cotton bag to take the Yarrow home in.

A Hedgerow Hippy’s wee backpack of tricks

So is my backpack complete? At the moment I certainly think so but no doubt some future ramble with highlight another glaring omission. For now it consists of:

• bottle of water
• brolly, warm jumper and hat
• mobile phone
• camera
• Francis Rose Flora and loup
• David Hoffman Herbal and scissors
• collecting pots…

…and I’m just away to sew some simple cotton bags for collecting which, inspired by some fab advice from Sarah Head on the Herb Society forum, I will also use at home, to hang the herbs up to dry in the dark.