a bowl of plantain

When I was in my mid to late teens, I was a bit on the wild side. Not too much, just enough that I left school mid way through Year 11, got a job and a car and left home. All before I turned 18. Have car and money?….well, lets party!! And so it was. My three closest friends were 3 hillbilly boys and we would just hang out at a laid-back pub in Windsor (west of Sydney) till closing time and then head off back to someones house in Pete's very cool, black FJ Holden. My parents rarely drank alcohol, which meant that I'd not grown up thinking that was what happened when people got together and so I didn't drink either - but I had grown up using herbal teas and a few old fashioned remedies and that too had a bearing on my beliefs! 

The late 70's were just at the tail end of the true hippy era and I dressed accordingly - black Chinese 'happy shoes', King Gee overalls with various patches and cheesecloth Indian style shirts complete with embroidery and little mirrors! Ah, those were the days! But I digress - I just wanted to mention that my life as a 'herb witch' began right back then, when we sat around in that pub, playing pool, being cool and in my case at least, spouting what little knowledge I had about wayside weeds and garden herbs…..and gaining the fond nickname - "The Witch". 

And my love of all things natural and weedy hasn't left me to this day. I can identify many more wayside weeds, have used a whole heap of medicinal herbs with my children and still love to pootle about with oils and potions. 

My veggie garden has been much neglected over winter and I still haven't been able to bring it to some semblance of order, but yesterday as I was organising some boys to start weeding, I noticed a whole heap of fresh, lush plantain growing beside the raspberries. Perfect for a bit of magic salve making - good to use on babies bottoms, rough skin, itchy spots and many other skin irritations. 

I have the narrow leaved variety growing here Plantago lanceolata but there is also a broad leaved type which I'd love to have access to, as I've read it makes great 'kale' chips. The seed heads are interesting as they can be long or quite short, all on the same plant and the tiny cream flowers dance around on their fine stems like little creatures floating on the tides.

I started picking the youngest leaves as they are tender and succulent and I'm sure I've read that they have most of the 'good' bits in them……but then I thought, well, maybe the older leaves are more mature (and wiser, like older women ;) and may be better to use! So I just picked both and filled my bowl with fresh green goodness. I do know that when using the leaf of most herbs, the best time is in Spring when all the plants energy is being put into the leaves.

I didn't wash them since they were from my own garden and I know they are unsprayed but I did have to check each one for bits of blossom and the odd bug. I cut them into small pieces with a pair of scissors and packed then loosely into a clean glass jar, almost to the tippy top.

You can see here that the oil has already started to penetrate the leaves after only about 10 minutes. In a day or two they will all be a nice dark green and soaked through with oil.

Then a good quality olive oil to cover the greens, pop the lid on and store in a cool dark place for up to 6 weeks. And thats the part that is a bit tricky……I've made this several times before and its been hit and miss with mould growing on the surface after only a week or two. Sometimes its fine and other times I've needed to throw it out - which is why I don't use an expensive organic olive oil.
I do think though that I've found the secret to keeping it mould free - and that is to fill the jar right to the top with the oil so that theres only a small space for air and therefore less space for microbes. Thats my theory anyway and I'll let you know in the next instalment if it worked!

And if you are interested, here are a couple of links to more plantain goodness - a new to me permaculture and herbal blog.
I found another method of making salve by pureeing the herb, which looked interesting enough that I may try it too.
Of course, a discourse on plantain wouldn't be complete without some words from Susun Weed, a wise woman with a vast knowledge of herbs, weeds and women's business.

I hope you give salve or ointment making a try as its so very easy to do…. and so lovely to use ones self made remedies.

fat hen - a nutritious weed

Do you remember in my January Slow Living post when I mentioned that we were eating a 'weed' called Fat Hen? A nutritious weed that grows well in rich, soil especially in cooler wet weather. Since we had a late start to summer with a lot of rain in October and November, we also had a mighty good crop of Fat Hen! 

Each year we purchase trailer loads of spent mushroom compost to spread around the garden but due to the rain last year, we didn't get to spread it out for quite a while. The garden beds that the compost was piled onto, became really rich and moist and I ended up with a fantastic crop of this lush 'weed'. 

The official name is Chenopodium album and it is in fact related to quinoa. The name Fat Hen was given to it because it was used to fatten poultry. Our hens may well have put on some weight because they ate loads of Fat Hen when we weeded out the garden beds earlier in the season!  I still give them a plant every now and again and they peck every little leaf and seed until there is just the skeleton of the stalk left. 

Instead of me re-writing all of the interesting info on this plant I'll just give you a couple of interesting websites that I found while looking for botanical names.

This one mentions that Fat Hen grown in nitrogen rich soil will contain nitrates and should be consumed in moderation (which we did). It also contains oxalates, so should be cooked rather than eaten raw, although I feel that the healthy enzyme content in small quantities would make up for the oxalic acid consumption!

Garden Organic, a UK site, mentions that the seed buried in undisturbed soil can still germinate after more than 20 years! Yikes! I shall be sure to pull out any remaining plants before they seed!

On this Medicinal Herbs site, there is a good lot of info on eating and using Fat Hen as well as any known hazards.

And if you want to find out more about the history of Fat Hen and some of it's relations, check out A Modern Herbal by Mrs M Grieve.

 So when there isn't yet much in the garden and the troops are hungry, why not use a little bit of what is growing?

We often have cooked quinoa for breakfast and I usually make extra so it can be the basis for lunch or dinner too. My very quick fried rice quinoa goes something like this…….

In a large frying pan heat some coconut oil, add chopped onions, carrots, zucchini, broccoli, celery and what ever else is lying about in the fridge or is in over abundance in the garden! You can also add frozen corn niblets and peas if you have them.

Saute until softened.

Add cooked quinoa/buckwheat/rice and stir through. Season with tamari and pepper.

At the last minute add a few handfuls of clean Fat Hen leaves and shoots.

And thats that!! We have ours with a salad of some sort and sometimes omelette strips on top.

And thats two recipes in as many weeks - must be all my excitement over the food we are growing!!

I'd love to hear if you use any 'weeds' in your cooking?
And how did you learn to identify them? 

Thanks for stopping by to read my thoughts and also if you've left a comment!