GARDENING - JOE'S JOTTINGS - HERBS

JOE'S JOTTINGS - HERBS

The Kitchen Skirt upon hearing of Mrs R’s herbs decided that she also needed fresh herbs to compliment the food she calls dinner. So after many calumniatory remarks it was off to the nursery to purchase a few choice herbs for the Skirt’s garden. I chose three types of Thyme. Strange you may think, three types of Thyme, the reason is simple they can all be used for cooking, but with different flavours, Common Thyme which is as it suggests is the stuff you buy in jars at the supermarket, the other two varieties are Lemon Thyme and Orange Thyme which add a little something extra to ordinary dishes and also smell great when you run your fingers through them. Also on my list was Oregano for the Skirt’s mini pizzas, which certainly needed pepping up a bit and Fennel for fish and veg dishes. Not on my list was Camomile, which can be made into tea. Why? You ask when there’s perfectly good Tetley’s in a bag at home. While researching this article I came across a book on traditional herbal medicine. Today people tend to think of herbal medicine as being of eastern origin, but the roots of our modern pharmaceutical industries are based on traditional herbal remedies from native plants. This brings me back to Camomile, which according to the books has a calming effect, hopefully just the thing to calm down the Kitchen Skirt when I’ve been out on the lash, working late or when she feels like engaging the mouth before the brain, as everyone knows men are perfect and have rational reason for doing all things. Sadly the medicine is not quite powerful enough but the black eye is healing up nicely. All the above herbs can be grown in pots but they do like a warm sunny site, they also like poor well drained soil and only require minimum watering so while your off to sunny Spain for a fortnight your herbs should be OK.

After planting out the herbs in the Skirt’s garden I went back to my source to see if there were any other herbs I should be growing because not only do native plants have curative properties but were also used in various forms of witchcraft and magic, maybe I could find something to protect me from life’s hard realities, tribulations and the Kitchen Skirt. Several looked very promising. Nature has a way of inflicting pain and providing the cure nearby a good example is the dock leaf which grows close to nettles you get stung with nettles, then rub the infected area with a dock leaf and hey presto a cure. When the Skirt hits me with a cricket bat the pain can be reduced by chewing certain willows, which are the basis for aspirin. What a connection. Lady’s Mantle the popular perennial is said to have been used to alleviate the gravitational effect on women’s breasts and create youthful looks. I reckon I could sell a fair bit o’ that around the village, not to mention some in the Kitchen Skirts Horlicks on an evening.

For those people who like to partake in the consumption of alcohol there are two plants, which prevent drunkenness and I can honestly say, hand on heart after using this miraculous cure I didn’t get drunk or at least I don’t remember getting drunk. All you have to do is eat a boat load of cabbage sprinkled with sweet Marjoram and  Bob’s yer uncle 15 pints and your sober as a judge. Well I thought so. The Kitchen Skirt had another opinion. Help was at hand with one of the herbs I planted for her Thyme! It’s supposed to protect people from witchcraft and harridans. It’s also claimed that eating thyme increases courage, which I certainly needed the following morning.

Reading through the book gave me an insight into the wonderful world of medieval medicine. Common plants we all know and love were used to cure everything from minor cuts to the plague, as aphrodisiacs and lust potions to plants, which would curb the sexual urges. The two I’m going to try are Caraway and Dill seeds, for two special reasons. Caraway is an important ingredient in love potions (The Skirt’s Horlick’s will taste strange) if that doesn’t work it will ward off her evil eye and keep thieves out of the house. Finally the Dill seeds which if placed in your shoe before going into a courtroom guarantee’s a win. If the Dill does the business I will be writing the next artical from home