Weed Walk
June 12, 2012
Green greetings to you all!
June is the month of big medicines. Many of the most important medicinal herbs are ready to harvest. It’s our last chance to cut nettle to dry for infusion. It’s time to dry red clover blossoms. The comfrey needs to be cut and hung to dry. Motherwort, day lilies, Philipendula (meadowsweet), yarrow, and Hypericum (St.J’s) are coming into bloom, ready to made into medicines.
In fact, there are so many plants to harvest, dry, tincture, and preserve with oil or honey or vinegar, and so many recipes to try out, that it may well take me a decade of Junes to share them all with you. So let’s get started with six big medicines.
The star of this week is elder, a mysterious, magical medicine plant. When the sun is hot and the blooms are open, it’s time to tincture them and to make some elder flower champagne. Just follow the fast, easy, fun recipe.
The co-stars of the week are valerian, comfrey, and day lily, with a stellar performance by raspberry and a good-bye fling from sister spinster stinging nettle.
Then we’ll focus on some greens for our wild salads, with a nice selection of tasty leaves, including, of course, a member of the rose family. And there’s another awesome shot of everybody’s favorite scary plant: PI. Blooming!
The photos are fun to share with you; but I am acutely aware that they are missing the smells, tastes, and textures of the plants. These aspects are more important in identifying the plants than the way they look. If you can, join me at the Wise Woman Center this summer for a workshop weekend, or work-learn days, and you will be able to inhale the odors, savor the tastes, touch and feel the plants themselves, and even eat a wild salad with us.
Abundance and green blessings surround us.
Breathe in the joy!
Susun
Quick Links
Elder, valerian and day lillies...
Nettle, raspberry and comfrey ...
Malva, wild carrot and violets ...
Yellow dock, daisy and fairy roses ...