Herb Walks with Lori Snyder

Heads up! My wonderful friend and Colleague Lori Snyder is leading 2 hour herb walks this week tonight and tomorrow night. Details are on the Village Vancouver website:

Join Lori Snyder on a herbal medicinal wild food walk. She will identify and share her experiences with practical applications for skin care, food and medicines. Cost per person of $15.00.
Come Wednesday or Thursday evening.

Time: September 4, 5, 2013 from 6:30pm to 8pm
Location: Columbia St. and West 1st ave @ the Pond

Under the Laburnums

We really should start a tradition of picnics under the laburnums when they are thrumming with bumble bees.

 The bumble bees and honey bees also love these alliums which look like fireworks.

And for the calming version of the alliums, head over to the white garden.

 I like this white version of the perennial cornflower, especially with a side order of honeybees.

 Masterwort is a good bee plant for dreary late spring days.

 This shows the inspired interplanting, integrating the shades of pale green and the burgundy, with a good use of texture.

 There were bumble bees in the red white and blue comfrey.

 The pollen from this false indigo is lighter in color than the lupin pollen. ˙Her suitcases are overflowing!

 This honeybee fits so nicely in the rosemary flowers. Her abdomen in distended with a nectar load.

 

It's bloomin' squid!

 There weren't any bees in this columbine patch, but there were some mining bees hanging around the green mulch nearby.

 You can really see why this is called milk thistle.

Another good choice for your white bee garden. The milk thistles I've grown have always been purple.

Here are my seedlings waited to be potted up.

Bathtub Teas at Aberthau

On the way to Aberthau I saw this bumble bee in comfrey at the edge of the forest.

 Here's the set up for the bathtub tea workshop.

This is one of the easiest way to use herbs.

 I collected and dried rose petals, rosemary, lavender, hops and sage.

 I actually like using fresh rosemary, but I bought some rosemary essential oil, which eases aching muscles.

I had an accident and spilled some on the carpet, so the room is now perfumed with lavender and rosemary, which is kind of nice.

The Madame Beespeaker Anise Hyssop Project

Agastache foeniculum at UBC Farm

 As an advocate for Vancouver's pollinators, I would like to encourage you to plant Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) in your balcony pots, back yard, school or community garden. It is a perennial herb in the mint family with edible purple flowers tasting of sweet licorice, which is why is is often called "Licorice Mint". The leaves can be used fresh or dried to make a delicious calming tisane. Anise hyssop syrup is popular in desserts and cocktails. It has a flavor and scent profile that has been compared to root beer.

Sometimes called the "Honey Wonder Plant," one acre of anise hyssop can support up to 100 honeybee hives. The flowers also attract bumblebees and butterflies. I have grown it in full sun, partial shade and even in small planter boxes. The flower heads dry nicely and retain some of their mauve tinge. You can plant the tiny seeds in the spring or late September, and they germinate best sown close to the surface, barely covered with soil. Anise hyssop can bloom from June through September and if it is planted near your Brassicas, it repels cabbage moths. Agastache foeniculum is native to parts of B.C., Alta., and Sask.

When you grow Anise Hyssop, I encourage you to save the seeds, divide plantings and in turn, pass them on to other gardeners so we can get our city blooming! Large quantities of seed can be bought at Richter's, a Canadian herb company.

Madame Beespeaker's Spring Tonic Licorice Mint Tea

Makes 1 pot

2 tbs dried raspberry leaf

1 tbs dried anise hyssop leaves and dried flowers

1 tbs dried wild bergamot leaves and flowers

1 tbs dried nettles

1 tsp dried elderberries

Pour boiling water over the leaves and let steep for 5 minutes.

This is a calming, balancing, cleansing and healing tea. The elderberry will help your immune system. The anise hyssop is good for your throat and digestion. You could add green black or rooibus tea for more body. Experiment and make it to your own taste. As with any herbal tea, it is medicinal--check with your doctor if you have a medical condition or are currently taking medication before drinking herbal teas.

A native bee naps on the leaf of an anise hyssop plant at UBC Farm

New Bee Habitat Workshop

One of my favorite gigs is working with the Creative Remix Summer Camp at The Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre. This year we created bee habitat scuptures for the kids to take home and put on their balcony or garden. This is a brand new workshop!

It's such a great time of the year to work with the herb garden, which has been filling in nicely.

Rules to live by: No negative language!

It was pajama day--thus the pjs and slippers.

The bee experts say you can help native bees by leaving out bundles of hollow stems and twigs. I thought we'd experiment using bamboo at various angles to see which orientation the bees prefer. After all, stems naturally grow vertically.

We also explored the structure of flowers, looking closely at how the bees reach the pollen and nectar in different herbs.

I like to get the students to explore the herbs with all their senses and draw the details in the leaves, stems, and flowers.

 

 

Turns out honey bees love butterfly bushes too! The nectaries must be full enough that this girl can reach it the liquid using her tongue's capillary action.

Bathtub Teas

If you're like me and have been doing a lot of digging in the garden lately, it's time to soothe your sore, aching muscles with a bathtub tea. It's so simple. All you need is a piece of cotton with a loose weave--cotton muslin is ideal. You can also use bits of worn-out vintage cloth in cotton or linen. I use about a ten inch square.

Take a hand full of epsom salts and put it in the middle of the cloth, then add your herbs on top. You can use fresh herbs if you're using the tea the same day or within two days. Otherwise, use well-dried herbs. You can see here I've put in dried lavender, malvia petals and rose petals for a soothing, relaxing bath. These are better than bath bombs imo, because they don't leave bits of detritus floating in your bathtub or clogging the drain.

Gather up the corners and tie a piece pf string around the top of the herbs and voila! You've got a tea bag for your bathtub. You can put this in right as you're running the bath and leave it in while you soak. Just don't wash your hair in the water as salt's not great for your locks. You can re-use the cloth and don't forget to compost the herbs. In fact, you can just dump them right onto your garden soil. The lavender will repel cabbage moths and their ilk.

Here's a list of herbs you can choose from put in your bathtub tea:
 

lemon balm: relaxing

rosemary: soothes aching muscles, boosts immune systerm

lavender: relieve tension, relaxes, good for acne (women's herb)

roses: compassion and love

peppermint: increases circulation

spearmint: lifts the spirits

sage: good for colds and flues

lavender and rose: good for sleep

pansies: good for skin (women's herb)

lavender/rose for relaxation

calendula: good for your skin

I highly recommend this excellent resource: Homegrown Herbs: A Complete Guide to Growing, Using and Enjoying More than 100 Herbs by Tammi Hartung

 

Drying Herbs at Moberly

Yesterday I worked with students from Moberly Elementary introducing them to the Moberly Community Herb Garden and creating herb drying triangles. First, I scoped out the garden to see what was vigorous enough to harvest. I chose the nepeta, mint, and the wooly lamb's ear.

Both classes fixated on the stachys. The first class almost exclusively chose this plant, so I didn't offer it as an option to the second class to protect the plant from being over-harvested. I think it's fascinating that texture won over taste and scent.

I also brought fresh and dried herbs from my own garden, including fennel fronds and lemon balm harvested that morning.

The garden is filling in nicely. I love exploring gardens in the morning light. Most students knew about the garden, but didn't know they were allowed to touch it. I told them they could come and visit the stachys any time.

Here are the herbs from my garden and some from the MOP: anise hyssop, dragon's head, coneflower, fennel seeds, oregano, sage, chocolate mint, lemon balm, thyme, and lavender.



The students wired together a triangle made from twigs and used hemp to create the hanging part and to tie on the tags with the herbs and their names. I also gave my spiel on why we need to grow more herbs for bees. The teachers and students gave us really positive feedback and I was very pleased at how well the kids did with the project. I love the size, scale and raison d'être of the Moberly Community Arts Centre. If only we had more of these in Vancouver!





I'd like to give a shout-out to Kathy at The Branch Pop Up Shop on Main Street for inspiring the final form of the triangles we made. She created a beautiful chandelier that gave me the final eureka moment. There's a photo of her creation here. It's a really cute shop, and I love the way they've decorated the space.