the Witchen Kitchen Beginner Herbal

tammy June 15th, 2008

For the blog party on staying cool in the summer, hosted at Alchemille’s Garden

I spell “cool in the summer” a-i-r c-o-n-d-i-t…. oh, wait… that’s not herbal, hehe

As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of ways to use herbs and plants and food to stay cool in the summer. My favorite is just taking a lazy walk in the cool shade of big leafy trees, especially near a stream or a lake or a river or the ocean. Or better yet, taking a dip in that water or sitting and digging my toes into the cool mud or sand alongside it. Just getting close to the heartbeat of Mother Earth, where the growth is lush and the water runs free is enough all by itself.

I also like to add herbs and plants to almost every other thing I do in the course of living. I wanted to share one cooling thing I’ve been using lately that is so easy and simple. It’s a lovely rose petal toner that takes maybe 5 minutes to make, plus a couple weeks to sit before using.

I made herbal gifts for the holidays last December and had lots of dried rose petals left over. I wanted to use them before they lost their potency, so was wracking my brain for what would use up a lot of them all at once.

I decided to infuse them in witch hazel, which I also had plenty of. I just put the fragrant rose petals in a jar, poured witch hazel over them, and let them sit for a couple of weeks. The result is a heavenly scented, pink, cooling toner.

I use it on a cotton ball to cleanse my face and neck after my shower each day. I have to say that my skin has never been so soft and clear as it has since I began using this. Works better than any expensive facial product I’ve ever purchased.

I also put it in a spray bottle to spritz all over when ever I want to cool off a little. It’s nice spritzed right in the face (be careful not to get in eyes) and on the neck, arms, belly… where ever you need it. Freshens and cools instantly. And it smells soooooo good!

It’s now time to make some more with all the fresh blossoms that are blooming all over. I’m sure a fresh infusion wil be just as lovely!

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tammy June 14th, 2008

If you suffer from insomnia, this common weed could be your best friend. It can provide deep relaxation and a delicious, gritty-eyed, cuddly sleepiness when you are wound up and your mind is racing and you find that you can’t get to sleep or stay asleep for long.

Last month I started a bunch of new things in my life. I changed my work schedule, started massage school, began doing some computer consulting work on the side… there were a lot of new things to absorb and a lot to juggle. I was quite wound up and often had trouble getting to sleep, and when I did, I slept lightly and woke just a few hours later to begin tossing and turning for the rest of the night.

Just when I was getting desperate, I found the prickly lettuce (Lactuca scariola) growing tall and strong right at the edge of the yard. To make sure I had the correct plant ID, I felt the row of prickles along the bottom mid-vein of its leaves, and then plucked off one to see the yellowy sap oozing out. Sap will ooze out of any part of the plant that you break off.  I ate about half a leaf, tasting its sweet, slightly bitter, flavor. The young leaves are often used in salads, though the older leaves can get much too bitter for eating.

After eating the leaf, I began gathering what I needed to make a quart of tincture. I felt super relaxed as I walked around the edge of the yard snipping the stalks. Not drugged at all, just calm and relaxed. I also began to feel pleasantly tired and sleepy. I hadn’t felt that in sooooo very long. Delicious.

After I chopped up my harvest and put it in a labeded jar with 100 proof vodka, it was time to get ready for bed. I went through my usual bedtime routine, tidying up, washing up, laying out clothes for the next day, etc, all the while feeling very calm, very relaxed, and knowing that I would have no problem falling asleep that night. I crawled into bed, went right to sleep, and slept soundly the entire night — the first time in over a month!

I have purchased wild lettuce tincture in the past and knew it could help me sleep, but that’s really all I knew about it. Last week I got my hot little hands on Matthew Wood’s new The Earthwise Herbal: A Complete Guide to Old World Medicinal Plants and have now learned a few more things about this plant.

According to the profile in Wood’s book, I can see why it works so well for me. “It is indicated for stiff sore persons with painful muscles, especially the lower back. The pulse is slow and hard… [which] indicates ‘cold blockage’ or ‘internal cold’… Sometimes there is slight evidence of the heat that is being blocked… it produces red margins of the eyelids, allergies, and facial acne.” (p. 307, 308)

I had been very, very cold this past winter, and very, very stiff and sore, especially in my lower back. After reading this I looked in the mirror and sure enough there were red margins around my eyelids also.

He goes on to write that Lactuca also addresses hormonal imbalances caused by excess of androgen — think teenage acne as a common manifestation of this. It has also been used to cure “dropsy” (water retention, edema). Acne and edema — two more conditions that I have dealt with in the past.  Seems I have a lot of affinity for this herb.

However, even if you don’t fit the profile completely, I think it would be beneficial to almost anyone who needs a little help relaxing and sleeping. It is very gentle and effective for that purpose, and unlike most pharmaceuticals on the market for that purpose, it is non-addictive.  I plan to make it a permanent part of my herbal medicine chest.

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tammy June 11th, 2008

I have been perimenopausal for some time now and so last month when my menses didn’t begin on schedule, I thought, well I must have missed my first period. But nope, that wasn’t it. In reality, my cycle was simply synchronizing with my daughter who was about to give birth.

Very early on Friday last week my daughter called me to say her contractions had begun. Soon after getting that phone call I started very lightly spotting, nearly nothing compared to what I am used to, but still a period.

She had a very long first stage of labor that lasted the entire weekend. Her contractions would come regularly for a while, then stop, then start again. On Saturday, I noticed that every time she would begin contracting again, I would begin cramping and have more flow. Her real, active labor didn’t begin until late Sunday evening, at which time my cramps became more intense and the flow more heavy. I didn’t get a full, “normal” period, though, until she had finally given birth early Monday morning. She released fully, and so did I.

Isn’t that neat?

Having been immersed in the reductionist, scientific world view my whole life, I am still just amazed at the energetic influences we can have on each other in general. In the past, I often have synchronized my cycle with other women I have worked along side of daily. This seems common among women who are in close physical proximity on a regular basis.

But I have to say I am even more amazed at the synchronicity I had with my daughter. Due to work and school schedules, we haven’t really spent a lot of time in the same physical location during her pregnancy. Though we talked on the phone often, weeks would pass without seeing each other. That maternal bond is apparently very, very strong.

But it’s not just mothers and daughters. I remember experiencing the same thing — delayed menses triggered to flow as soon as labor started — when my son’s partner gave birth almost five years ago, though I wasn’t nearly as synchronized with her in more subtle ways such as particular ebb and flow patterns. And I’ll say, too, that this energetic type of influence and communication is also not just mother’s and daughters and menstrual cycles. I’ve had plenty of strange energetic “knowings” regarding my sons also, though none of these were at all related to menses.

So in any case, we’re all synchronized now and we have a beautiful new baby boy! My fourth granchild, Jelani Davis R.  I was in the delivery room and helped to birth him.  As his sweet little head emerged, he christened me with a nice warm shot of amniotic fluid!  Wasn’t that nice of him to make sure I was fully included? lol

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tammy June 1st, 2008

When I first started my herbal journey, for some reason I thought harvesting and drying my own herbs would be terribly complicated. Maybe this had something to do with growing up in a family where dried up shriveled things were tossed straight into the trashcan, considered completely unsuitable for human consumption. Dried herbs are definitely dried up and shriveled!

I also thought you had to have special equipment and string your plants up in just the right way so that your herbs would dry properly. I didn’t want to end up with a bunch of dried up shriveled stuff that I would have to throw out, so for a long time I just didn’t go there. Instead, I bought all my dried herbs.

Then recently I happened to see Phyllis Light in a video calmly talking about bringing in a branch of some herb she had picked and left on the kitchen table for a couple of days to dry. She picked up what looked to me like something for the compost pile, crumbled a few leaves between her fingers, and declared it as having “dried nicely” and that it was ready to use as a tea.

Wow, what an epiphany for me. Huh? That’s all there is to it? Hey, I could do that!

And so began my first drying experiments.

I’ve learned that in some cases, with especially juicy plants, you do have to be careful so that you don’t get mold or fermenting going on, but really even that is not nearly so complicated as I thought it would be.

Most herbs really can just be laid somewhere convenient on the kitchen table or counter for a couple days and they dry beautifully, keeping their fragrance and color. As soon as you detach an herb from the living plant, the dehydration begins. As long as you keep it out of especially humid places and give it lots of circulating air, it will dry just fine with no other effort.

Here’s some plantain I dried in just that way.

Some flowers and plants may need a little more help because of high moisture content. For example, red clover blossoms can ferment if the moisture in them evaporates too slowly, causing them to develop potentially dangerous blood thinning properties.

The answer for these is to dry them more quickly by putting them in a hotter environment with lots and lots of air circulation. To accomplish this, I’ve heard of some using the oven set on a low temp, turning them frequently, or hanging their herbs to dry in a hot attic with good air flow, even using fans if it is too humid.

You can also use a dehydrator. I was recently gifted one of these handy little contraptions, and I have to say it is a totally awesome tool. Mine has seven trays that you can fill and stack to dry quite a bit of herb all at once. Lay the herbs on the trays, flip the switch on, and just a couple hours later you have perfectly dried herbs. Then just crumble them into a quart canning jar and cap it tightly.

For the first time this year, I’m filling my cupboard with self-harvested, home-dried herbs. So far, I’ve got honeysuckle leaf and flower, tarragon, sage, rosemary. And the season is early yet, so that’s just the beginning.

What are you drying? Do you use different methods? I’d love to hear what you do

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tammy May 29th, 2008

Well, I’ve just been tagged by Michelle (GreenWoman). Apparently, that means I have to tell all you readers six quirky things about myself. Where in the world do I start? LOL

Here are the rules of this Blog Tag Game:

• Link to the person who tagged you
• Mention the rules in your blog
• Tell about six unspectacular quirks of yours
• Tag a new set of six following bloggers by linking them

Here are six of my quirks:

1. I don’t like people to touch my veins. You know, where they are very prominent on the wrists or back of the hands. Gives me the willies!
2. I have a thing for obscure and esoteric topics of conversation and thought. One of the sweetest (and funniest) things my hubby ever said to me, while shaking his head in despair, was, “You think I don’t listen to you, but really I do try. Just most of the time I don’t know what the h*ll you’re talking about.” hehehe
3. A half glass of wine makes me slightly drunk and quite silly
4. At any given time, I’m reading three or four different books all at the same time, usually a different book in each room of the house. One for the kitchen, one for the office, one for the bedroom, one for the sitting room…
5. I keep the books I’ve already read, but want to refer back to, in a basket in the bathroom for frequent perusal. Sometimes I also put new books in the bathroom and read them cover to cover in short segments daily over the course of a couple of months.
6. I hardly ever wear shoes, except to work or shopping and such, and then I usually only wear slip-ons that I can easily kick off whenever I get the chance. Contrary to my grandmother’s warnings, always going barefoot has not made my feet big and wide and ugly.

And here are six bloggers that I love and read regularly.

I’ve never done a tag before, and I don’t know if any of you are open to this sort of thing or not, but here goes! Tag! You’re it!

1. Rosalee at Methow Valley Herbs
2. Kristena at Blessings of an Herbwyfe
3. Ananda at Plant Journeys
4. Cathy at Growing Curious
5. Plantain Patch
6. Darcey at Gaias Gifts

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tammy May 26th, 2008

I just can’t believe the bounty of this little plot of land we live on.  I discovered recently that there are bush after bush of wild blueberries, which happens to be my absolute favorite fruit.  I missed them the last two years because I wasn’t paying careful attention in the Spring when they were flowering and so had no way of really knowing what those random berries were that I saw later in the Summer. 

Flowers are the easiest way to identify any unknown plant.  They follow patterns that are easily categorized by family, and this helps tremendously with narrowing it down the correct plant.  Most online identification tools are also going to be easiest to use when you know the flower. 

Below is what my blueberry flowers look like.  I was able to find and identify this plant online by searching under “white flowers” at www.missouriplants.com. The latin name is Vaccinium stamineum, so I had to scroll through many pages before I got to the “v” section and recognized this flower.  Once I had the latin name, I searched Google for more photos to be sure it was a correct i.d.

This variety of blueberry is known by the common name of Deerberry, and are edible.  From what I’ve read, the fruits do not become dark blue and sweet when they ripen, but remain a bit green and sour. 

The other day in a particularly sunny location I saw a nearly ripened fruit on one of the bushes, and it was somewhat purple, but not blue.  I ate one and found that it was quite tart, but I thought they were actually pretty tasty. 

I’m going to harvest as many as I can this year and freeze them to add to smoothies and such, as they are very nutritious.  According to a recent USDA report*, they contain loads of anti-oxidants (as most berries do), which are a group of nutrients that support cardio vascular health and scavenge free-radicals in the body to prevent things like premature aging and cancer.  

Wow, what an awesome gift from Mother Earth, just sitting out there waiting for us to partake.  I never cease to be amazed.

* While I find the goal of “genetic improvement of fruits and vegetables” in this research quite scary, I do find the nutritional information about the deerberry they have discovered to be useful. At least I know my wild growing blueberries haven’t been genetically modified!  But who knows what they will do to the commercial blueberries using this info, yikes!

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tammy May 20th, 2008

I have Sassafras trees! Everywhere! I feel so rich and so blessed. I dug a sapling root on Sunday to make root beer and dried some leaves for tea. I have to say I’d be quite content to just go around smelling them all day every day… ahhhhhh, there’s nothing so lovely as Sassafras.

So once I smelled them, I had to also taste. The leaves are sweet and mild and extremely mucilaginous. I hear they are often used to thicken soups and stews and gumbo, and I can see that they would be very good for that purpose. I dried all the leaves from the sapling I dug up, and I plan to make some leaf tea soon. I hear it is almost as good as the root tea.

But the root… now that is something straight from heaven. Smells and tastes strongly of root beer — as you may know, it IS the original genuine flavor for that lovely beverage. I used it to make some tea and two versions of root beer.

Now, I didn’t quite know exactly what I was doing, but just followed my instincts and some vague recollections of stuff I had read in the past.

First, I washed off the root thoroughly. Then I used a knife to peel off the outer bark. From what I have read, the inner side of the outer bark is the part with the good stuff in it. The peelings went into the pan; the stick remaining I gave back to Mother Earth. I ended up with about an ounce of bark, which I covered with water to fill a 2 quart pan.

I then boiled it until the water evaporated to about 1/2 of what I started with. The water turned a lovely red color and the whole house smelled sweet like Sassafras. We tried some of the resulting decoction plain right out of the pan and it made a very good tea all by itself. Since I wanted to make root beer, though, I added some sugar (not sure how much, just till it tasted sweet enough).

For the first version of the root beer, I filled a glass half way with the sweetened Sassafras decoction and then the other half with sparkling water. Abracadabra! Instant root beer. My grandson loved it and hubby and I thought it was really good, too.

For the second version I put the rest of the decoction into a pyrex glass 4 C measuring cup and added some yeast while it was still warm (about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon), stirred it, covered it, and set it on the shelf to ferment. I just used regular bread yeast ’cause that’s what I had on hand. I let it sit for about 24 hours. When I got home the next day I pulled out my home brew and dipped a wooden spoonful out to taste.

Oh, my! Gotta have me some more of that! The fermenting really brought out the strong root beer flavor and added a fizzy kick. It is one of the most delicious things I think I’ve ever tasted. The sparkling water version can’t even come close. There are probably more sophisticated ways to make this, which I’ll be wanting to learn about now, but I think it’s not too bad for my first try.

To store it, I poured it into a recycled (sterilized) olive oil bottle that has a rubber stopper on it, and put it in the fridge to stop the fermenting.

**UPDATE 5/26:  Check out Kiva Rose’s recent post on an easy way to make lacto-fermented herbal brews.  Her method uses whey instead of yeast.  Fermented herbal infusions could easily replace soda in any household.  I’m excited to try it!

While I was out getting the Sassafrass Sunday, I also found and harvested some wild grape leaves, which I promptly cooked and served with dinner, as well as bunches of violet leaf and sweet clover. The herb gardens are prolific and overgrown already, so I also cut some rosemary and sage. While my root beer boiled and brewed, I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging herbs to dry and making rosemary and sage smudge sticks. Oh what a glorious day it was!

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tammy May 15th, 2008

The blog party for May is being hosted by Darcey at Gaias Gifts. This month’s topic is “Spring Greens”!

My absolute favorite spring green (so far… I’m sure there are others I haven’t discovered yet) is Bittercress (Cardamine spp). I found this little beauty last fall growing in my yard. I’m not sure what made me notice it, but I remember being intrigued right away. The intrigue soon turned into an adventure of “let’s identify this plant!”

First, the taste

I started the identification process by tasting a small leaf. Since I had no idea what kind of plant it was, I had no intentions of swallowing it just then, just tasting it and then spitting it out.

When you first chew, it tastes garlicky, then as you hold it in your mouth you slowly start to feel peppery heat that continues to rise in intensity for about 15 seconds, then the heat subsides and leaves the absolute best garlic-pepper aftertaste lingering for a long time. Mmmmmm!

With that first taste, from somewhere in the depths of my brain out came the word Brassica. I had to go look it up, though, as I couldn’t quite remember what it meant, even though I knew it was one of the common plant families. I must have read about Brassica in one of my botany books and retained the sense of it, if not a full blown definition. For those of you who haven’t learned it yet, Brassica is a subdivision of the Brassicaceae family, which is the latin name for the Mustard family.

As my books reminded me, all of the Mustard family are edible. Yippee! I definitely wanted to eat some of this tasty little plant. But first I had to make sure it was indeed a Mustard before I would think about adding it to a meal. I felt intuitively that it was good for food, but as a beginner I didn’t feel confident enough to go on my gut feeling alone.

Next, observe carefully

It wasn’t in flower at that time, in the middle of Fall, so identification was going to be a bit difficult. If it had been in flower, I would have been looking to see if it they had 4 petals and 6 stamens, 2 short and 4 tall (identifying characteristics of Mustard family flowers, from Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification by Thomas Elpel).

But alas, no flowers, so I had to look for other identifiers. I noticed carefully it’s physical characteristics and where it liked to grow. Below is what it looked like in the Fall when I found it. Notice the leaves are opposite and roundish along the stem. You may not be able to see in these photos, but the stems grow in a whorl from a central point. The leaves also have little hairs on them, easily felt with the tongue when tasting.

Finally, research it

I needed to start with some names of possibilities that I could then plug into Google and also look up in the indexes of my books. I did a general search for Brassica, but that was too broad to narrow down. To get some ideas, I posted my photos to one of the herbal forums I frequent and asked my online friends what they thought it was. I got lots of different suggestions, but the one that seemed closest when I looked it up was “Cuckoo Flower” (common name for the latin Cardamine pratensis), which was also a Brassica. It was a bit difficult at first to find any online photos of the Cuckoo that was even close in appearance to my specimen, because it looks quite different when it is flowering in the Spring than it does in the Fall with just leaves, and most of the pics I found were of the Spring flowering plant.

I determined after a lot looking and comparing different pictures that my little plant was definitely a Cardamine, but probably not the Cuckoo. The information on the Cuckoo did, however, lead me to information on some of the other species in the Cardamine genus. I determined from online photos that my plant was Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress).

Below is a Spring pic of Cardamine hirsuta (white flowers) nestled around the Henbit (purple flowers). Notice how the leaves on the flower stalk are narrow and pointy and darker in color. You can’t see it in this photo, but the leaves nearer the ground are still similar to the way it looks in the Fall photo above.

How to eat Bittercress

So… plant identified safe to eat, now what to do with it? Well… it’s super yummy on sandwiches. It also ads a zesty kick to Chickweed pesto, which I think by itself tends to taste a little bland. And of course, it adds tons of flavor to a fresh wild greens salad. I haven’t tried it cooked yet, but I bet it would be delicious that way too. You can eat the entire plant, leaves, stems, flowers, seeds… the whole thing tastes great. The flowers and seeds are more peppery and spicy; the green leaves more garlicky, but still peppery.  I think this is the most savory wild green I’ve had so far.

Depending on where you live, you may have some nearby right outside your door. Why not go take a look? Go on now… and let me know if you find any!

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tammy May 13th, 2008

I repeat, Dandelion flower oil provides INSTANT pain relief for sore muscles in the back and neck.  I already wrote how it helped me so well the first time I used it, but tonight I decided to test it to see if it would work again in the same miraculous way, secretly thinking that maybe it wouldn’t. 

If I had any doubts, I assure you I don’t anymore.  Sore cramping muscles and joint in my left hip, rub in some Dandelion flower oil, and literally 10 seconds later I have absolutely NO pain!!  Same thing in my neck and shoulder.  A dab of oil, rub, rub, rub… Pain gone.  The end.

I asked my husband if he had any soreness in his back so I could see if it would work just as well for him.  He said his lower back and sciatica through the glutes were bothering him… perfect specimen for my experiments, hahaha! 

To my amazement, a quick massage with the Dandelion oil and he also experienced instant pain relief in the muscles of his back and buttocks.  It did not completely take care of the sciatic pain, though, so I used St. John’s Wort oil (specific for nerve pain) to sooth that last little bit of discomfort.  He was completely pain free when I finished.  He said he has been feeling stiff and sore for months and now his back feels completey loose and pain free. 

To say the least, we are both very impressed and in awe of this magic sunshine medicine.  I just want to go outside and kiss my dandelions!  (It’s dark now, so I think I’ll wait till tomorrow )

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tammy May 13th, 2008

Several of you readers warned me about how easily Dandelion blossoms in oil can mold.  Armed with that information I was very careful to check my brewing infusion the last few weeks and stir out air bubbles every single day.  I just knew mine was going to be the exception!  But alas, about three weeks into the brew time, I noticed several brown spots along the side of the jar of my lovely Dandelion oil infusion.  Thankfully, I was able to save most of it anyway.

I went ahead and strained the flowers out as soon as I saw the first bit of mold.  It didn’t appear to be throughout the batch, but only along the side of the jar, so most of the obvious mold was left behind when I poured it out.  Then I put the strained oil into a fresh, clean, dry jar and left it to sit for a couple days. 

The mold is attached to any water in the oil (originally from the fresh blossoms) and the water is heavier than the oil, so all of the yucky part settled to the bottom of the jar after a day or two.  Then I just carefully poured off the clean top layer leaving behind the part where all the mold had gathered.

The result is spectacular!  I let the clean oil sit for another week just to be sure I had gotten all the mold out, and it is perfect.  Next time I make this, I plan to dry the blossoms a bit before infusing. 

I used it for the first time a couple of nights ago, and I can hardly believe how wonderfully well it works.  My neck and hips and lower back were achy from a long day sitting at the computer, so I rubbed some of the oil into those areas.  Boy!  Instant relaxation!  The ache went right out of my muscles, and I got really sleepy.  Since I had the oil out, I decided to go ahead and do a breast massage with it also.  Then I fell right to sleep and slept better than I have all week.  A wonderful blessing for this peri-menopausal woman who often sleeps poorly these days!

This is one of my new favorite massage oils.  It doesn’t smell as heavenly as my other favorite, Goldenrod Oil, but it does have powerful healing magic.  I’m going to keep working with it to try to work out some of the chronic tension in my neck shoulders and back.  Lot’s of emotions stored there, ya know.  A few weeks ago I started massage school, so I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to use it in the coming  months!

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