Thistles, Bitters and Life's Simple Pleasures

Saturday July 18 2015 - Varney, Ontario

It was a beautiful mid-summer morning in July, and we plant apprentices were getting ready to learn about medicinal plants. Weaving a thread through from last weekend of stewardship though, we started by going out to sit with some of the amazing medicinal plants that we had planted over a month ago. The changes were staggering, as I went to sit by a beautiful milk thistle that grown over four feet since I had last seen it. With white and green spotted leaves that spiralled where attaching to the stem, and a bright purple blossom facing this sky - the milk thistle was a sight to behold. Some others sat with astragalus or hops or calendula, reflecting upon the growth of plants, the bounty of summer, and the beauty of sitting still. After some time, we gathered together to share a few quick reflections before jumping into a session with special guest - Laura Gilmour!

 

Crafting a bitters formula to help with digestion, we discussed all the cultural food practices that would allow for invisible bitters, like eating bitter salad greens or certain pickles to prime our digestive tracts in advance of meals.  True bitters are the best way to "tell digestion to take up the challenge of the food we are about to eat".  There are even sneaky ways to incorporate bitters into meals like having a bitter aperitif to toast with before a holiday meal! 

We followed a rough formula to blend our own special bitters formula

Bitters

- 10% Super bitter (ex. gentian root)

- 30-50% Mild to medium bitters (ex. chamomile)

- 30% Aromatic (ex. cardamom)

- 10% Harmonizer or catalyst (ex. licorice root)

After blending our own unique bitters formula that included some great plant tinctures like angelica, tulsi basil and dandelion root, we were all excited and ready for lunch and a fruit full picnic on the lawn commenced!

After lunch, we split our group of 17 into two rotations of some tasting and making activities. Alexis led us through the process of making a healing oil which was infused with St John's Wort and then a cold and flu tincture made with yarrow, elderflower and peppermint. It's hard to imagine on a hot summer's day that in the deep of winter, you may have a rattling cough that needs that tincture - o the changing seasons!

After looking into St John's Wort more mythical properties - like it can help guard your soul from phantasms! - we made some plant journals on the SJW.

Leaving our semi-finished homework behind, we worked with Laura Gilmour, an amazing community herbalist, naturalist and small business owner of Wild Muskoka Botanicals, to learn about flavours and tastes and how that can tell us about the properties of the herbs. We tasted hot horseradish, and yummy, sweet astragalus and salty nettles. Depending on your body's inclinations and the type of condition you may have, we played around with the types of flavours and remedies that could help. The highlight was definitely nibbling on Schisandra berries - the five-flavoured fruit! So wild to have every flavour in your mouth!

As the more official workshops wound down, we celebrated our medicinal plants weekend by sharing a delicious potluck meal with salads, meats, cheeses and so much more - only to top off the evening with a cocktail party! Although cocktail tinctures really are for fun rather than medicine, everyone definitely felt great!

Written by:  Lee Earl 2nd Year Wild Plants Apprentice

Trillions of trilliums and other adventures in the understory

Story of the Day for Sunday May 17

 After a beautiful Saturday night potluck full of wild foods, and a beautiful fire, our plants group got up on Sunday morning with a transplanting mission. In the long grasses under some pine trees, tiny sugar maple seedlings were trying to grow. Before the mower could reach them, it was our plan to plant some of these maples elsewhere.

Mixing the native soil with some of the potting soil so that the young plants would not be shocked, we each took turns digging out two seedlings and potting them up for our trees and stewardship weekend in June.

We then got into vehicles, and headed to an established hardwood forest on the Niagara Escarpment. Moments after being on the trail, there were little bunches of white flowers and single magenta-pink blossoms lining the way. What were some of the differences between the various types of native cherry we wondered? Choke, Pin and Black Cherry. . . and what (if anything) can be done with their blossoms?

Past honeysuckles, wild strawberries and endless amounts of deer browse, we climbed. Stopping at a Hop Hornbeam, a member of the Birch family, we found out that it has edible seeds that hang in a cluster similar to hops. The maple and ash trees nearby also have edible seeds, which are more palatable before maturing, as the older, the more bitter they seem to get.

Hiking up the slope, we encountered many, many trilliums, varying in colour from bright white to dark maroon, some with a distinctive ripe smell that attracts some of the pollinators (tricked into thinking they will get a carrion meal). There were also some examples of both false and true Solomon's seal, which can be differentiated by the way they flower.

Many spectacular orchids were found, including the Yellow Lady Slipper, whose flower smelled of mango! , and a beautiful patch of pink and white Showy Orchis. After a lunch atop the mountain, we listened to birds and even saw a beautiful Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.

Traversing down the slope, on our way to refill our water bottles from a natural aquifer, we passed the Coffee Plant - a cool find with plenty of further research about how to get that delectable brew from it!

Visiting the "supermarket" of the lowlands, a name Euell Gibbons imparted upon Cattail, we tasted some young shoots and discussed survival uses and foods from all seasons that could be made from this plant. Even the mucous/slime that lines the inner cattail can be useful as a bit of natural topical painkiller.

As we headed back to our starting point, before closing our circle with porcupine browsed poplar buds, we encountered our final member of the Solomon Seal family - Star flowered - with some very young and delectably edible shoots. Our last edible find - a morel! To more  adventures next time!

Written by:  Lee Earl - 2nd Year Plants Apprentice

Urban Edible and Medicinal Plants Class 2014

We spent the last few days in High Park with the Urban Edibles and Medicinals course.  What a weekend! We started on Friday night with introductions to each other and to some wild plants. First was some plants made into teas, one with Lemon balm and one with Red raspberry.  Then we made some infused oils, breaking up some St. John’s wort that was harvested from a family acreage-great to be used in a healing salve for wounds. The flowers of Common elderberry were put into a tincture with some vodka, in preparation for cold and flu season in the winter. Alexis’ slideshow highlighted some key harvesting tips, especially the golden rule: “make sure you have 100% identification before you harvest something”. We also learned about some of the key medicinal plants in our area, including Burdock, Red clover, Dandelion, Coltsfoot and Milkweed.

 

Saturday started with a field guides primer, including how to use using Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide and what books were great to get started with. We set to the trail with our field guides and hadn’t even gone very far when we saw a broad-winged hawk just ahead of us on the trail.  As a jogger scared the bird from it’s spot, instead of flying away, the hawk perched right above us and ate it’s meal, likely a small songbird.  We continued along the trail and found some False Solomon’s seal, Wild sarsparilla, and Mayapple, as well as some other common deciduous forest plants. After lunch we considered why it is that invasive plants species like Garlic mustard have come to our areas and talked about making pesto with the stems. The day culminated with a Sit Spot and Fox Walk in a quiet forested area where we each spent a little time with one plant.  We walked out to our spot slowly, took our time coming back in and had a nice moment of contemplation before we shared some stories and ended with some gratitude.

 

Sunday was Harvesting Day! The morning started off with an excursion to harvest plants to take home with us. We made some teas from Red raspberry, White pine, Wood sorrel and Bee balm.  They were put on top of Alexis’ pick-up truck where lots of passers by were curious of the colourful glass jars as they steeped in the sun. A Sassafras tree was spotted as we started an afternoon walk with some tree ID, including some deciduous, opposite-branching trees like Maple, Ash, Dogwood and Horsechestnut. We looked at several pines trees and headed into a Black Oak Savannah, a unique ecosystem in these parts and a highlight of High Park.  Certain species grow here that are rare in Canada including the Cup or Compass Plant and Butterfly weed.  We did an awareness activity where we were challenged to find a plant that we had been introduced to while blindfolded –opening up our senses beyond simply using sight to get to know a plant.  Returning to the sun teas we’d made in the morning, we tasted them all, including some teas left out overnight-to see the difference in steeping methods.  There was a toss up for favourite tea between Red raspberry and the moon steeped White pine “Moon Pine”. We shared a round of gratitude before our circle broke for the day and we headed home, hopefully to dreams of Stinging nettle and Yarrow to keep ourselves motivated to keep working with the plants. 

 

Post by Alex Thomson - Earth Tracks Intern 2014