Around the Farm, August connection letter
hedgerow harvest, rambunctious ram lambs, and the mystery of our disappearing ducks
The blackberries are plump and ready for the picking. The goats beat me to the juiciest bunches on their Sunday foray for all the wild and tasty things that grow up along the roadside, but I have frozen lots already along with as much as I can manage of the overwhelming crop of apples from the 30 year old, heritage trees in my mother’s garden (we eat no other apples). Haw berries and rose hips are reddening. I love those big, juicy, rugosa hips to cook down into a chutney (I’ll share how I make it next month), which Husband will bring me soon from his work estate before the hedges are cut there, but the hedgerows here around our farm abound with old-fashioned ramblers and wild field and dog roses—small, firm, shiny, deep red hips that find their way into vinegars, honeys and oxymels, the vibrance of summer stored for winter. The haws will be soaked in honey-sweetened brandy for a mid-winter tipple that’ll warm our cockles when December winds bring ice and snow. There is no cutting of hedges throughout the growing and nesting season, and so by this time of year the hedgerows and verges are brimming with wild abundance. Some of the roadsides around here are never cut, and the hedges are thick and unkempt on narrow, gravel roads rarely travelled that almost close with summer’s overgrowth, and here is where the best things grow.
True (Roman) chamomile, which I am lucky to find flourishing wild on and around our farm, and eyebright sprang up just at the right time—I had sensitive dairy goats with runny eyes and noses from the changeable weather at the start of the month forcing them to stay indoors eating dusty hay—so I gathered the herbs in handfuls and chopped them up fresh into a brew with echinacea and garlic, and my goats slurped it up with appreciative gusto.
It is said, among herbalists, that the right plants will appear when they are needed, and that the herbalists of old could predict the season’s ailments by the plants that appeared and flourished that year. Perhaps there is something in it. I have written before on the deep alignment of eating seasonally and from place—here and here—we are made of the same rocks, rain and sun rays, the seasons that grow the wild plants blow through us, too.
A note on taking from the wild: take just a little, just enough, leave plenty.
They say when wildcrafting to take no more than one third. I think that’s far too much. What if I take a third and then you take a third and then someone else comes and takes a third, soon that two thirds left untouched is shrinking down to a tiny fraction of the two thirds I left in the first place. So, judge how much is there, if it’s a little, leave it, and if the next season is right, maybe there will be more next year; if it’s a lot, take a little, always leave plenty for the land, and give something back, if you can. I am taking a few small handfuls from places on and very close to our farm where I have observed and know the plants are well established, which will be coveted and used with the reverence and care befitted to such gifts from the wild. Cultivate instead of wildcraft where you can. We are planting new hedges of native berries and wild roses and creating disturbed ground on our farm for the wild chamomile and eyebright to spread—eyebright, which feeds from the roots of certain forbs and grasses, doesn’t cultivate well but can be encouraged with the right conditions; chamomile will easily establish from seed or transplants. And know your plants, their seasons, growth habits and useable parts, how to harvest without harming—listed species that are protected under law and must not be picked or disturbed can be found online (the current Irish list can be found here).
Buying commercial herbal preparations isn’t always better. Some wild herb populations across the world have been decimated by over harvesting for commercial sale. Besides, there is untold magic and order in harvesting with our own hands from the soil we live on.
I have little bunches of eyebright and big bunches of yarrow drying over the wood stove giving our little hut on the hill a witchy, autumnal feel. Eyebright is saved for
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