Herbs to beat colds and flu this winter.

Temperatures have plunged overnight, and thoughts of winter miseries are beginning to surface. As I am writing this, I have to "touch wood" all over, because I seldom get a cold, and haven't had a full blown flu in 30 years. My secret? Well, I have a few. Number one is, I don't wait for the flu, I take preventive action. I keep my diet quite simple (not too much stodgy food), and at the slightest hint of change in myself (loss of appetite, headache, scratchy throat), I take a herbal formula which I've developed. It knocks the bugs immediately, and doesn't give the flu a chance.

There are several herbs which can act prophylactically, to prevent the virus taking hold. But first you have to do a little work at not allowing a pleasant environment for invasion and occupation of viruses and bacteria. Keep your diet fresh, with plenty of leafy greens, vegetables and herbs in your cooking, like garlic, ginger, chilli, turmeric, sage and rosemary. In a nutshell, keep your diet savoury. Sweets, chocolates, puddings and cakes are going to make you a perfect target for a regular flu and colds. 

Herbs have different roles to play in the defence of your body. Not only do you need antibacterials, but also liver cleansers and kidney boosters. One of the secrets to good health is good nutrition and effective filtering of the blood by the liver and the kidneys. Soups are a great way of providing preventative care, because you can put so many good herbs in a soup - herbs that nurture the kidneys and liver like celery, parsley, nettle, turmeric, garlic and sage.

 If after all your healthy eating and including herbs in your diet, you still succumb to the flu, all is not lost. There are many herbs to help fight it, and reduce the severity. Flu often causes hot and cold shivers, so you want to raise the body temperature quickly to kill the bugs. Elderflower tea with a good dollop of ginger, (either fresh or dried) will help with this. Echinacea is an excellent antibacterial and anti-inflammatory. Your phytotherapist will have a good formula with Echinacea and possibly some anti-viral herbs to really attack the problem. If the cold spreads to the lungs, many Phytotherapists have herbal syrups and cough medicine which will help the cough clear up quickly. I make a syrup with horehound which I grow myself. It gets picked and cooked with thyme and aniseed to make a wonderful effective and safe syrup.

Each season presents its own challenges. But having some knowledge of the herbs around us, can help with most of the common seasonal illnesses. And if you MUST have caffeine with your medicine, just make a good strong cup of coffee. It is also a herb and has its benefits too.

Autumn bliss

I love autumn. The first rains of the season have soaked into the parched earth, and the sun is no longer so searingly and viciously hot. I was delighted to find a source of horse manure and got 20 huge bags which I spread over the entire garden. There was quite a bit of straw mixed in, which adds to the good effect. The chickens did a good job of distributing the heaps that I left in the beds, working it in nicely by their vigorous scratching . Already I can see many plants looking much invigorated.

I'm a dangerous person at this time of year. Always armed with secateurs and pruning shears, I'm on the lookout for plants that are taking over or past their prime and just about everything gets trimmed. Perennial basil has been cut back and the leaves are drying for a delicious addition to winter meals. The Verbena officinalis gets trimmed to ground level and already new leaves are forming. It is such a good herb for nerves and the liver. From one lonely self-seeded plant, I now have many, as I was careful to leave them in place and just cut them back. They have quite tough roots, so also help stabilise the soil. My first harvest of Hyssopus has been cut, and I hope it sprouts back nicely next year. I lost one bush, due to it being a favourite pee spot for my dog.

Hypericum is growing everywhere, but I simply can't have too much, so I allow it to self seed liberally. It also helps keep the soil in place - my beds are always under attack from the chickens. I made the most beautiful tincture of Hypericum this year, and would like to have enough for the practice each year. It is so much better than what I can buy!
The Echinaceas are now topped with dried seed heads, and these I leave on for self seeding. My Echinacea bed is getting bigger each year, but I still haven't got enough to harvest yet.
Pride of place goes to the Hawthorne tree, which is loaded with ripening berries. This will be a bumper crop!! But those pesky thorns........
.

Autumn is a very busy time in the garden, the preparation which is done now, will be rewarded in the spring. The cooler weather means more energy too. I find it a good time to take cuttings now. Quite a few plants produce side shoots at this time of year, so I nip them off and put them into pots for free extra plants. They are less likely to die from heat and drought. Most of my garden spaces are filled up with self propagated plants.

And when my bones are weary and the straggly garden has been neatened up, it's so nice to sit somewhere with a cup of tea, surveying a job well done!

Tomato tales

Once upon a time in Pretoria when I was a young bride (heh heh), my husband planted tomatoes. If I remember correctly they grew without fuss and we had so many tomatoes that they filled a wash basket - huge, gorgeous, luscious healthy tomatoes! Oxheart I think.
Since I have been gardening here in Cape Town, I have tried year after year to emulate that achievement, with plenty of disappointment and frustration. I have been told that it is very difficult to grow tomatoes out of doors these days and that one has more success in tunnels.

This year was the worst ever. The seedlings which I raised myself last September, were ready to go into the ground by early November. Again they were Oxheart. They grew vigorously and I had high hopes of achieving that dreamed of bumper crop. The plants looked fabulous and were full of flowers. They were fed and watered with devotion, using chicken manure from my own bantams. Then overnight it seemed, they became pale and covered in a fine reddish web that smothered them like some stealthy, creepy organism out of a horror movie. The deep green of the leaves was replaced by a ghostly white - I have NEVER seen such sickly tomatoes. The few fruits that were on there looked terrible. I was not just disappointed, I was deeply ashamed! The whole lot got yanked out and thrown in the dustbin. UGH!

In the first week of January I was at the nursery and thinking that it was far too late to plant tomatoes, I only looked at the seedlings out of curiosity. Oxheart and Rosa. Then I thought, bugger this I'll try again, and into the trolly they went. I bought Reliance organic compost and soon they were flourishing in their new beds.

Rosa seedlings after three weeks

No one could have been more determined than me to get it right this time. Their position was very pleasant, morning sun and slightly shaded in the afternoon. No water touched their leaves and they were fed and watered very regularly. My pride was at stake here after all.

I decided to be proactive regarding blight, red spider mite, fungal, viral,or any other horror disease. I sprayed them once or twice with milk against fungal disease. My main weapon was very experimental, namely Echinacea. Being a phytotherapist it made sense to me that Echinacea might have a preventative effect on the plants similar to humans. So I mixed 25 ml Echinacea tincture in 500ml water and sprayed them every week. They grew so fast and vigorously that I could hardly believe my eyes. It was as if the Echinacea was a tonic. However, I didn't do a control batch to see whether they would have  thrived anyway - because of the soil, compost or feeding with chicken manure. So next year I'll have to do a proper experiment.

Now it is almost 2 months to the day that I planted the seedlings. The Oxheart got some leaf curl disease and I pulled them all out. I don't think I'll try them again. Rosa did develop blight on the lower leaves, but I cut those leaves off and continue to spray the growing tips every week. This week I increased the amount of Echinacea to 30ml per 500ml water. One thing I can say with certainty, the Echinacea didn't harm the plants in any way.

Rosa after two months.

The Echinacea that I have is very strong 1:4 compared to the 1:10 that you can buy commercially. I think it helped prolong the health of the leaves, without entirely preventing blight. Most of the tomatoes look very healthy, but here and there, on otherwise very healthy bushes, there is the odd tomato with blossom end rot. The rest of the tomatoes on the same bush are fine. Very strange.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of the harvest! Hold thumbs for me!!!





Decadent and VERY easy ice cream.

To complement the rhubarb compote, nothing beats a creamy, smooth ice cream. The one I make takes a few minutes, and is dead easy. It is a little pricy, but worth every cent.

You need:
250ml fresh cream
250g mascarpone
1/4 cup olive oil (optional)
100g organic sugar
2 tablespoons natural vanilla

METHOD: Whisk together the mascarpone, sugar, olive oil and vanilla at high speed. When well mixed, pour the fresh cream in a thin stream into the mix while whisking at a moderately fast speed until nice and thick.

I make my own vanilla extract using alcohol. I fill a jar with vanilla pods and cover with 60% alcohol. I leave this in a cool dark place for months and pour off the amount of vanilla extract I need, as I need it. The alcohol in the vanilla extract is great for preventing the ice cream from crystalising.

Once the ice cream mix is lovely and thick, pour it into a container for freezing. Lick the whisk , bowl and spatula very clean! You can taste the olive oil in this ice cream, and I think it's very nice. But you can leave it out if the idea doesn't appeal.

Final result ready for the freezer!

Rhubarb: From garden to compote

Despite the fact that the spot where my rhubarb lives is rather dry I had some very nice stalks this year and wrote on my "to do" list: make rhubarb compote! If you leave it too late, the rhubarb can get a bit woody. So I harvested it and got cracking to make a delicious compote.

Almost 900g! But by the time I peeled it (lightly) I reckon about 850g. The right proportion of rhubarb to sugar is 1 part sugar to three parts Rhubarb, so I added 200g of organic sugar and two tablespoons of wonderful natural fynbos honey. There is no need to add any water. As it is gently heated, the rhubarb sweats juice which dissolves the sugar and the honey helps to provide liquid too. I prefer to simmer gently, but the phone rang and when I came back into the kitchen the compote was bubbling furiously, luckily not burned!! I added two tablespoons of chopped crystallised ginger to the compote, which gives a nice surprise here and there when you eat it, without giving the compote an overpowering ginger flavour. One can add vanilla or orange zest, it all depends what you are in the mood for!!!

Final result!

Garden vistas

On Sunday I browsed through the book, "1000 Garden Ideas" by Stafford Cliff, which I bought at the Exclusive Book Sale the day before. The book is very inspiring and I just love being transported into beautiful gardens. It also made me see my own garden in a different light, so I went around with my camera and took some pictures. Here they are:

For reflection

This is an area I developed for reflection and quiet. The pond provides the sound of running water. It is a lovely shady place to sit with a cup of tea.

A formal design

The crunch of gravel past the Helichrysum hedge I am trying to cultivate, lends texture to this spot. From above on the deck one can see the shape of the bed filled with miniature Agapanthus and Tulbachia (Wild garlic) A lovely Thuja graces the side of the gate on the right.

Another view

The garden is broken up by the position of the house on the plot, situated very centrally. This allows for the concept of many smaller gardens all around the house. The herb garden is at the back leading to the enclosed vegetable garden.

The herb garden

Enclosing the vegetable garden was the best thing I did last year. It allows for a space protected from the chickens and dogs, as well as sheltering the vegetables from the very harsh rays of the sun.
From the herb garden and down a few steps is a patio area under a fig tree, and further down is my bee garden with the Echinacea bed and a few olive trees where I also try to grow some vegetables and herbs.

The bee garden and Echinacea bed

So that's a little tour minus the front garden which is under reconstruction, so needs to get established before being photographed. All in all the garden is not that big, about 1000 sq m, but by European standards quite large I suppose.

Thank you for taking a stroll in my garden. I hope you enjoyed it!