Braving a freezing May morning

The gardening week in May fell on the coldest week we have had for a long time, not only cold but wet. Lucia, who is an ELPM student on the communicating with plants course arrived on Monday evening. I had bought quite a lot of plants back from the UK with me, so on Tuesday morning we braved the rain and wind and set about planting, Star of bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum), woad (Isatis Tinctoria, L), a clump of small leaved Sorrel that I am unable to find its English or Latin name...will look harder later, a lovely big honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum), Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) and many others (too late in the evening to try and name them all). By the end of the afternoon we were cold right down to the bones and spent the rest of the day trying to warm up, if that's what you call gardening...only joking!

Planting at the field and Distilling Bay

Today we took some plants from the botanic garden that were either better suited to the wetter enironement of the field or that we had too many of to the be planted on the field at Romain's. Everyone was busy, planting comfrey by the river or tarragon in the herb patch or Lemon balm under the trees. We planted a long line of peas, collected some fresh wild herbs for a warming tea, blackberry leaves, ground ivy, wild primroses, nettles... Hisham, a third year herbalist student had arrived laden with branches of freshly cut bay. We decided to distil them in Romain's still, the 20 litre still isn't big enough for producing essential oils but is quite adequate for hydrosols. Bay(Laurus nobilis)hydrosol helps create a balance between thoughts and emotions (sounds good to me), it is also a powerful painkiller, fungicide and anti-bacterial. I read somewhere that at the same time as burning a bay leaf you should make a wish, so we all did this around the still.....the ancient meanings for Bay were protection, clairvoyance, purification.
The hydrosol that we obtained was very aromatic one could even say it smelt a bit too strong, I have noticed that a month later it has a much more recognisable scent of bay. Something to remember about hydrosols is that they are NOT a weaker version of the corresponding essential oil, yes they do contain a tiny amount of some of the active parts of the oil but they also contain active parts that are not necessarily found in the oil, these are the parts that are hydrophilic ( they like water). This means that hydrosols do not always have the same healing properties as the plant in other forms:herbal tea, essential oil etc.

A small woven willow fence.

I had been given by a basket making friend some living willow sticks so we decided that it would be a good idea to try and make a living fence out of them. We did not have enough to double them but we did however have enough to fence of the new woman's bit of the garden created by Sandra and Catherine. I will be careful to water them regularly so they take.

The girls begin a woman's corner

Given free reign on a small section of the left hand side of the garden, Sandra and Catherine decided, surprise surprise, to create a female garden. They busily and lovingly cleared away the weeds and set about creating curves and bumps that represented the female form. Limited by the choice of plants immediately available they chose those that have healing virtues for specific female complaints...Marigold (Calendula off) , Mugwort (Arthemesia officnalis), Borage (Borago officinalis), yarrow (Achillea Millefolium), Ladies Mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris), Raspberry leaves (Rubus idaeus). The onlky worry I have about this female garden is that the curvy bumps will be very dry for the plants as the water will run straight of them....something to look at in a bit more detail as the season continues.

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.

Gardening week with ELPM students

We are not yet inundated with students wanting to get their hands dirty, but we did however get a lot done today with the help of Catherine, a first year herbalist student.

We began by planting out some asters that had been dug out last week and were desperately waiting for a new home, we also planted horse-radish and chives in the left hand bed. I then got down to cleaning and digging the large central bed, whilst Catherine spent time planting seeds in the now fully functioning poly-tunnel. A third year student came by with his cousin, just a visit, not a working visit. We did however benefit from their presence, whilst sitting outside drinking a herbal tea together in front of the central plot, ideas were thrown into the air about possible planting and design for this area. Hisham had some stimulating ideas, a god send, as I was running out of fresh themes. The idea of winding path, a bit like a snake going gradually down the plot. The planting would be on the theme of major plants for each part of the human body, starting with the head and going down through all the main body systems. This idea seems a good one to me as it creates a focus for choosing plants and makes a strong link between gardening with medicinal plants and their healing qualities.....very inspiring, well done Hicham!!

At the end of the day, Elohim came into the garden and finished the digging and then got on with sorting out the compost heap......like magic the jobs are gradually getting done.

Second bed completed + garden plan

I did not want to wait for student activity and then find that no-one was around and nothing had been done in the garden, especially at it is the ideal time of year for re-planting and re-planning a garden, what I am trying to say is that I have been getting on with things on my own.
The second bed runs all the way down the left hand side of garden (see plan, kindly drawn up by Aurore) and has the wall behind it. The bed itself is not very deep, so I decided on planting two plants deep. The higher plants obviously behind, as well as some climbers and smaller plants near the front.
Plants include Trachelospermum jasminoides, commonly known as star Jasmin and a blue clematis as climbers along the wall. Origanum vulgare ssp aureum or Golden oregano, Allium Schoenoprasum or chives, Centranthus ruber or red valerien, Mentha citrata or Bergamot mint, Tanacetum balsamita commonly known as Costmary, bible herb, Balsam herb or mint geranium, Chelidonium majus or Greater Celandine and others. In between planting there will be room this year as the plants develop for flowering annuals such as Calendula officinalis or marigold, Centaurea cyanus or Cornflower, echinaceas etc. I will take photos as the bed develops and grows so you can see the progress.