Wild, free and my favourite late summer hedgerow fruit, it’s blackberry time. We have been busily gathering bowl after bowl over the past few days. I love them for their versatility, straight-off-the-bush-and-into-the-mouth ability, the way they feel between your fingers when you reach that middle of the patch one…! Yay and the flavour varies depending on where they were growing. The three prickly sites we have are yielding hundreds of the beauties this season. Our blackberry bushes also have nettles and bindweed throughout so a “sift and sting” occurs from time to time! It’s definitely worth it when we bring in an enormous haul. I’ve managed to make places to safely stand in shorts and wellies without being zapped. I have to keep asking the children not to eat too many at once but when I turn around, their mouths are full and they have rubbed purple juice all over their T-shirts. You can’t blame them, it’s like taking a mouthful of the most delicious jam when you pop several in. Blackberries are good for you too. They are high in vitamin C, fibre and many other key vitamins and minerals. There are many things I could rave about eating but a sun-warmed, juicy, fragrant blackberry is mighty fine! The chickens have been enjoying a few berries with us too, it’s just the cats who are missing out. I have made a useful blackberry compote for autumn and winter recipes and have frozen a dozen containers of whole fruits. Judging by the number of red and green berries on the bushes, we might have to open a blackberry stand in the lane to share the wealth. It is a great year for them and these hot August days are ripening them fast. I’m hoping birds, mice and other creatures are loving them too. The berries are literally dropping from the bushes for all to enjoy! The great blackberry harvest this year ties in beautifully with the age-old beginning of Lammas, late summer harvest. Traditionally, this is when the first grain is harvested, bread is baked and shared, and seeds are stored for next years planting. It is a time of great abundance and preparation for the cold winter months ahead. “…I too will set aside that which I can use later.” Words from a Lammas ritual that have been running through my head lately. I am also mindful of the busy bees that are continuing to visit the blackberry flowers, doing their part to help make these scrumptious berries. Thanks guys! The blackberries we are saving will be a wonderful health tonic when the weather turns cooler. Excellent timing, naturally.
Tag: wildmedicine
Chamomile among the beans
One of the oldest and most documented medicinal plants in the world is growing like wildfire here and has made a home among the broad beans. It is probably in your arsenal of herbal teas right now. Chamomile has been used for centuries as a healing medicine with a vast array of uses. I plan to dry the flowers by the bucket load and share them with friends. They are also thriving in almost overwhelming quantity in the chicken enclosure. This could help to explain why my chickadees are so relaxed most of the time! It is positively knee-deep in there with trails through it stamped out by the chickens. Soon the chamomile will be ready to harvest, preferably when the moon is ascending and on a flower day. Then the goodness will all be concentrated in the cheerful little flower heads for best results. It is an enchanting sight to see the way they are intermingling with the beans. I enjoyed kneeling before them today as I tackled a few new nettle shoots that keep catching me out. I picked my first two broad bean pods that ended up in a raw pea, broad bean, spring onion salad with soy sauce, Japanese vinegar and honey dressing. Lovely combinations of plants are happening all around as we enter the second part of the summer. There is more Fat Hen growing through the peas, a second flowering of purple dead nettle in the cauliflower patch and countless wildflowers springing up all over. I found a large form of cress with a superb peppery bite among the cauliflower also, and yarrow is beginning to flower along the path. I filled my enormous red colander with green goodies to use for supper earlier. The children took pleasure in using scissors to harvest handfuls of tender pea pods of which several didn’t make it into the container. What joy for them to open up the pods that had fattened to find sweet delicious peas inside. It is a fun way to get them to enjoy green vegetables and hopefully create strong memories for their future lives in food. They also particularly liked the smell of the broad bean pods today. My son said they smell like ‘green’. Indeed they do. I think all colours should have an associated smell. We carried the harvest to the kitchen in time for a dark cloud to hide the sun just as we were satisfied with our pickings. Thanks to an amazing new friend, I knew exactly what to do with the variety of green leaves. I had mostly cauliflower shoots after giving the rows another thinning, some Fat Hen, plantain and yarrow. It had to be Okonomiyaki, a simple but completely delicious Japanese savoury pancake we now enjoy regularly. These beauties are packed full to bursting with shredded cabbage, spring onions and ginger normally, but being me I had to try it with some homegrown and wild greens. I make it gluten free very successfully with trusted flour, cornflour, a small amount of water, three eggs, a nori sprinkle, and rice bran oil I have to hand. The children quite like to have just the pancakes without any ‘green bits’ so a second batch is always needed. I top our grown-up ones with squeezy mayo, a special Okonomiyaki brown sauce from my friend and freshly grated ginger. My partner can’t have the special sauce so I give him extra rice vinegar and gluten free soy sauce to splash on his. Satisfaction guaranteed! It is filling and a great way to pack a lot of nutritious veg into your diet when it’s soaked in Umami flavour. Some of you may be thinking that I cook a lot of asian inspired food and you would be right, but there is so much to love about all of the exciting spices and endless combinations of sweet, salty, sour and spicy flavours to explore. In addition to this love, I also go to my Yotam Ottolenghi book, ‘Plenty’ regularly for inspiration. He is an Israeli-English chef and food writer if you haven’t already heard of him. His food is transcendent and for me, he has the ability to elevate the most humble ingredient with exotic flair. One to look for if you like to use food to cure yourself of any form of malaise like I do. When our carrots and sweetcorn are ready to harvest I might find that very minimal cooking will suit them best. I tasted my first carrot today and the intense flavour and crunch spoke for itself. It was only about the length of a finger but was calling my name when I saw its orange top showing above the earth. I shared it of course! I feel a mass chamomile flower harvest will come any day now so I will need to prepare a drying line or two to hang them upside down from. I’m hoping the house will slowly start to look more and more like a medieval apothecary as the summer goes on. I have a jar of purple dead nettle tops infusing in organic olive oil from mid April I dried for making into salve and calendula flower heads on tea towels next to a stovepipe drying beautifully as well. I haven’t bought chamomile tea for a long time so I am looking forward to a fresh pot of wild homestead medicine. Watching the chamomile grow is another confirmation to me that by lovingly managing our land, nature shares its bounty with us so that we may thrive along with all of the other creatures that depend on it. I’ll drink to that.
This Wild Homestead 