Planting at the field

The group had grown by this afternoon, we were now looking a bit more serious with six of us planting and studying the local flora in the field that Romain has lent for the project.
We planted Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L) and willow down by the river, tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus) and (Melissa officinalis) or Lemon balm further up the field, we planted the lemon balm on the side of the field, where it had previously grown wildly in the hope that it will naturalise again. We also planted a long row of dwarf peas, I had meant to plant them on my plot between the rows of aromatics but unfortunately mixed up the packets and ended up planting runner beans instead. In hind-site, it is probably better this way as it is a bit late in the season to be planting peas and as the plot at Saint-Joseph is very sunny and in advance, it is better that the peas settle down in a more humid, late developing plot.

The second part of the afternoon was spent distilling Laurus nobilis or bay leaves. We used Romain's 20 litre alembic, an alembic this size is adequate for obtaining hydrolats but not really big enough for essential oils.
The final product had a very intense and strong aroma and was surprisingly gentler when swallowed.
The discussion around the alembic, very quickly go onto the subject of hydrolats, what are they, what do they contain, how does one use them etc.
I am not really experienced enough to answer these questions. All I can say is that the hydrolat is the distilled water obtained once the the condensation is completed, it is an aromatic water containing tiny quantities of some of the active principals found in the essential oil as well as other hydro-soluble active principals that are not present in the essential oil.
It is a very gentle product, that has much less risk when used internally than essential oils and is also ideal used in the aqua phase of the fabrication of organic cosmetic instead of water.

Getting back to our Bay water, its qualities are, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, powerful pain reliever, balances the emotional and the mental. Used for repetitive throat infections when the person does not say what they need to say.