As I walk around my garden this weekend, I feel a bit heartbroken. The decision to sell up soon has been a really tricky one, and once the initial excitement has faded, I find myself sorrowful. I'm so used to walking around my vegetable patch knowing which bed is due for green manure or which one is due for the garlic crop, when to turn the compost and keeping an eye on the blackcurrants, telling my mullein to hurry up and grow or nibbling on mugwort. How will I give this up? The lovely couple we showed through loved the garden, but I doubt very much they understand what I've done, or will find use for half the things I've planted.
Mullein
I know I can start another physik garden elsehwere - within a season, if planted fast enough, I know I can have lemon balm and thyme, mugwort and pepperment, and so on. Sourcing other plants might be tough, and some, like ashwagandwa, I'm not sure will grow in Tassie. I'm busy drying even more than I usually do, just in case we move even quicker than I thought. I think we'll be living in a caravan for a while before we move down there and I wonder if the people that buy it will allow me to come onto the property and harvest the plants I know they'll have no understanding of or use for.
Honestly, I didn't expect to feel this heartbroken. I know it's the right decision but I'm worried I'm going to miss this garden for the rest of my life!
However, let's turn to more positive things - medicine making! Inspired by the oxymel challenge, I decide to get a lung oxymel on the go. After reading this post by @didivelikova I thought I'd try a lung support oxymel of my own, using the mullein that I had dried last week. Mullein is well renowned to be good for the lungs (I'm sure @edprivat and @foxfireorchards and @rubido have smoked it), opening them, easing spasms and tightness, and soothing irritation and dryness.
That sent me on a googling mission wondering what else was good for lungs. The problem is that when you start these searches you become tempted to purchase herbs from far away rather than relying on what you have. Then I stumbled across plantain - that I have a lot of, as it grows wild. I've had a lot of success with plantain before when we were on a road trip and I was struggling to breath due to the cold air, and my husband's nose operation meant that his nose was really, really painful. Foraged plantain tea worked a treat for both of us, but I'd forgotton this personal anecdote altogether. Of course it'd work for lung support!
Other options were wild black cherry, horehound, and marshmellow, but none are available to me. I thought the taste of just mullein and plantain would be super grassy, so I added some thyme to the mix! It's also good for soothing coughs and is a natural expectorant that helps get rid of mucus. I used to do steam inhalations with thyme when I had asthma as a kid so I thought I'd give it a go in the oxmel.
Elecampane
What I do wish I had was something with vitamin c, like rosehips or blackcurrants. The blackcurrants are a few weeks off ripening so I might throw them in then - it shouldn't matter, and I'll just leave it to extract for longer. Vitamin C is antiinflammatory so I think it'd be perfect. I also really, really want to put elecampane in there, but I don't think my plants are ready to uproot yet. It's also an expectorant, and is good for bronchotis and asthma. It's also got a lovely sweetness to it. I guess I can add it later or do a separate oxymel and mix them together. That's the groovy thing about oxymels - they're pretty forgiving.
I also added a splash of brandy to this one to preserve it a little better, since I use fresh plantain and fresh thyme as well as dried. That way it should keep longer - perhaps for those cold winters down in Tassie.
Oh, and I forgot to mention - like @didivelikova I used fresh apple cider vinegar that I made myself!! It's been sitting on the bookshelf since last winter and I forgot about it, which was a good thing because it had a great thick mother of a scoby on it - perfect!!! Do you make your own apple cider vinegar? If so, you should - it's so easy, and dirt cheap!
I dipped my finger in the rosepetal, schisandra and damiana and rosehip oxymel today and oh goodness, it tastes totally divine! Now, I'm off to make a sleepytime oxymel as well - probably lavender, bee balm, chamomile and mugwort. I have fresh chamomile for the first time this year - I also struggled to grow it but I think it's because the rabbits were eating it. This time I put it in the fenced garden and it's growing beautifully and smelling soooo good!
Barefoot before the chamomile
Have you ever experimented with oxymels? Youv'e got a couple of days to do so for the chance to win HIVE - go check out the challenge in the Herbal Hive community (link below) and join the fun!
With Love,
The Herbal Hive Community
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Make one for heart support. To help you cope. Cyber hug in the next oxymel @riverflows. Send me some of your herbs to tend.
Hey girl, you sold your place, so let go!!!!! What the next lovely owners do with your garden is not your business in future. Who knows, maybe your garden would like a change? Move on!!!!
(Sorry if I sound harsh, but I promise you, I'm not being mean 😉)
I know you're not mean, well, not that mean bahahah. Yes, I know, but you know my emotional heart. They haven't signed yet - we have yet to give them a price. Three real estate quotes first and then we'll decide asking price.
Hey there, I totally missed what's up there. Are you moving houses? Sorry that I've not been following have had a miscarriage and it took me weeks of waiting before it started, while also having a hard recovery, sadly. I will go and browse through your posts now. I have no idea what an oxymel is (lol) gonna google it :)
Oh now, I'm so sorry to hear that - hope you are okay! Always a rough thing to experience. Don't feel bad about catching up - life happens! We are planning on moving to Tasmania, so are just about to sell our house although the offer might fall through it might take longer to get there. WE've had a bit of a competition in the The Herbal Hive community that me and @trucklife-family run - do subscribe and join in if you like.
Tasmania? Wow that is so cool, I instantly remembered that I have once read about the aurora someone could see in Tasmania
https://spacetourismguide.com/southern-lights-tasmania/
So it's like a tincture but with vinegar instead of alcohol? I had some black tea vinegar that I accidentally made while trying to make kombucha, but it got thrown away. I won't get a post out in time for the challenge, but now that I know that's a thing, it'll happen soon enough.
Elecampane is an awesome herb. I chew a bit of root now and then as an expectorant if I have some really stubborn nastiness down inside. It works super well.
It is! I didn't explain it well but it was more of an extended convo with Herbal Hivers... yes, it's an extraction with vinegar and honey, which have it's own benefits of course! Oh yes, you can make kombucha vinegar - I've made fire cider with that before! I lvoe elecampane, I've put it in fire cider before. It also has inulin, for gut prebiotics, like dandelion root and other roots. So good!
I'm sorry I have been so absent but I managed to catch your post about you moving to Tasmania! That's exciting for sure.
It's only natural to feel a bit heartbroken over something like this. Give it some time and allow yourself to feel. I'm sure new amazing adventures are waiting for you and I celebrate your courage to go ahead with this.
xx
That's one reason I could never leave this farm. I KNOW I'd never be able to recreate these gardens. I've been working on soil balancing since 2010 and organic farming since 1992. Who knows what someone has dumped on other soil. Roundup has a 23 year half life...
Not to mention my husband put his heart and soul into building this farm from the ground up.
I am loving reading about the oxymels. I do have horehound, black cherry, and marshmallow in the gardens. The horehound was still alive last I looked but the other 2 are done for the year.
Hi River, I was wondering how it was going with you after a while. Australia appears in the news to have some heavy-handed lockdown in places so I'm hoping it's not affecting you.
Best wishes
I am so happy you are doing your own lung oxymel 🥰 and you gave me great idea to add rosehip, I am sure it will be ok if I added now.
As for your garden... I am sure it is hard to look at the garden and think about all the love and time you invested in it and just let it go...especially when you don't have YET the new place to plan but I am sure the Universe will give you something better...why would you wished it otherwise 🙂 and theeen with all the experience from before you will build even better garden. And as a friend of mine did, and I helped, when she moved out of her old place we went one day to take some of the plants she had there and not in her new place...we left with two huge garbage bags with plants...comfrey, lavender, salvia and bunch of others😄 now all the plants live happily in the new garden.
I am excited for you...change is constant ...😊
I hear ya. Though new adventures are very exciting too. I can't wait to move again. I am pretty sure that you will have another medicinal garden going in no time.
I am doing an online herbalist course atm and recently learned how to make oxymels. But I still have to put the knowledge into practice. I hope I can find some time for this soon!
I am sure that you will recreate a better garden in your new place, it is ok to feel sad because you invested so much emotion and time for your garden.You leave with all of that experience though, which will be your biggest treasure in the next adventure