Health News and Information

Here is a recipe for candying the young stems, to produce those bits of sugary green to top that special-occasion cake.

Crystallized Angelica Stems

Boil short (4-inch) lengths of fresh green stems, picked during the second year of growth, in water until just tender. Remove, and strip off outer skin, then return to the water and boil until green and not too soft Drain and weigh the stems. Using 1 lb. of sugar to 1 lb. of fruit, cover with this sugar and let stand for 24 hours. Then boil the stems in the syrup until it is clear. Drain, dust with sugar, and dry on greaseproof paper in a cool oven. Cool, and store in glass screw-topped jars.

Rhubarb Pie

Here is a recipe for those who dislike the sharp taste of rhubarb, but appreciate all its iron.

Pastry for a 9-inch pie shell (wholemeal flour is delightful in this) 3 1\2 to 4 cups sliced raw rhubarb

1 lemon (skin and pith removed) sliced Several young stems of angelica sliced very thin 1 1\4 cups brown or raw sugar

2 tablespoons wholemeal flour mixed with the sugar

Line a pie-plate with the rolled-out pastry. Sprinkle one-third of the flour-sugar mixture over the crust. Arrange a layer of rhubarb and angelica, scatter lemon slices over, sprinkle with the flour-sugar mix. Repeat the layers until all ingredients are used. Cover with pastry lattice (it makes a juicy pie), and bake at 375 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes.

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In answering questions put to me by those wishing to grow herbs in their garden, I have found the commonest problems come under the headings below:

Where is it best to grow herbs?

What special conditions do they require?

How can herbs best be raised from seed?

How else can I propagate them?

What are the best herbs to grow, and how can I use them? How are fresh herbs different from the dried ones, and how can I dry my own? Can herbs be grown indoors?

What is the best way to control insect pests and disease?

Each of these questions has a different answer, depending on your soil and climatic conditions and the seasonal conditions in your part of the world. So I have tried to make the information as general as possible, leaving some adjustment to be made to your own particular circumstances.

Where Is It Best to Grow Herbs

“Where to grow” of course depends entirely on the size and type of your garden, and whether you wish to grow the plants for horticultural interest or for health or culinary use.

My own garden has herbs in the most unlikely places— under the rose bushes, spreading wild in my gravel driveway and creeping right up to the bricks of the barbecue where they get singed every so often. Let me hasten to say (lest you think I’m a “plant and pray” gardener) that they also grow in a series of formal circular beds, some with brick stepping-stones so I can move easily amongst them; many more in a long, thin, crescent-shaped bed; and a few, especially the mints, confined to large containers (14- to 18-inch pots or tubs). I have in my kitchen courtyard a strawberry pot with some culinary standbys, marjoram, sage, lemon-scented and garden thyme, and a small basil; and on a wide sunny shelf in my laundry I have most of the year small punnets or seed-boxes with young seedlings or newly sown seeds, or some quick-growing mustard and cress sprouts for salads.

So the questions seems best answered “Herbs will grow wherever you*want them to!” But the plants have their individual likes and dislikes, as set out in the chapters on each particular herb, and it would be best to find out what these are before choosing plants for a special place in your garden.

Here are a few suggestions for formal beds. THE LADDER. This should be a long rectangular bed with narrow pathways across for “rungs”, to enable you to tend and pick the plants. This pattern is best used for small-growing herbs such as marjoram, oregano, salad burnet, winter savory and all the varieties of thyme. It is also best if planted only with perennial evergreen herbs, so your “ladder” does not have a step missing for several months of the year.

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Rumex acetosa POLYGONACEAE

French sorrel is-the best variety for the table. It is not so acid as the British native variety, and its sharp astringent taste will wake up a bland salad if a few small leaves are chopped and mixed through. Be a bit sparing with the vinegar or lemon juice in any dressing for such a salad, as sorrel has sufficient of its own oxalic acid.

It is a perennial pot-herb, similar to spinach (and it can be cooked like that vegetable), with bright, glossy-green spade-shaped leaves with a reddish touch to their stems. Growing in a small clump, it does not take up very much space and two or three plants should provide you with ample leaves for salads and soups. It is a relative of buckwheat, and of the dock family of “weeds”, and is often mistakenly classed in with the other sorrels, of which oxalis is the most notorious member. Some of these other varieties can infiltrate pasturelands and become a real nuisance to the farmer, and they need no introduction to the home gardener, either. French Sorrel has no such propensity, keeping itself to itself in any sunny well-fed corner of the herb or vegetable garden.

Sorrel is easy to raise from seed in the spring, or from root divisions taken in the autumn. The seed keeps its germinating power well, and the young plants should break through the soil in about 7 to 10 days. They are sturdy-stemmed and easy to handle, and can be set out in the garden quite soon after the first two leaves are shooting. Guard them well from snails and slugs right from the first day, and give plenty of water to keep the leaves large and juicy. Cut off any flower heads that form, unless you need some fresh seed. Juice from the leaves of sorrel can be used like rennet for setting junket. Add drops to a cup of warm milk until it sours and sets, or make a strong “brew”—a handful of the herb in half a cup of water, and use this liquid when cool to set the junket in the same way. Juice from the leaves can also be used as a bleach for stains on linen, particularly for iron, rust or mould stains.

Sorrel is a strong internal antiseptic, and a much-loved soup-base in France.

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English Lavender is the variety from which the strongest oil is obtained. As a girl, I was told the Mitcham Lavender products were the best; and on recent inquiry I found that the old plantations of lavender at Mitcham, in Surrey (now unfortunately entirely built over by housing settlements) produced not only good quality oil, but a product priced six times higher than the French oil on the world market.

The chalky soils of Surrey provided lavender with one of its requirements, alkaline conditions. In this country, it is necessary to put plenty of dolomite or lime into the soil in preparation for planting a lavender bush. Work one or two handfuls well into the soil under the roots, and also sprinkle it through the topsoil around the plant, forking it in lightly. Lavender bushes will last and thrive if given this alkaline environment and plenty of water, with good drainage away from the roots.

Plant a bush near your laundry door and, on a sunny still day, dry your prettiest handkerchiefs and underclothes spread out on the bush. English lavender is a compact, low-growing shrub, with long-stemmed heads of loosely-set deep-mauve flowers. The stems and silvery foliage are also used in the extraction of the oil. The flowers can be dried very easily if picked when the sun has evaporated any dew, and hung in small bunches head downwards for a couple of weeks. Humid weather will, of course, mean a longer drying time.

French Lavender grows to a hardy 3 to 4 feet high, with strong woody branches topped with short-stemmed soft mauve flower-heads above the greyish-green foliage. This variety is also very easy to dry.

My own French Lavender bushes remain vigorously growing and in flower for the greater part of the year. They live close to a rather decrepit piece of down-piping, which overflows at every heavy rain. Drainage is rapid, though, and the lavender bushes are fit and well, and covered with the long-stemmed spikes.

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You can use chives on or in almost every savoury dish. When I serve out the meal each evening, my last stop before the dining-table is always the chives or parsley bed. Just chop up a few leaves and sprinkle on. If your spouse or your family objects to the aroma, chew a few parsley sprigs after eating chives. This will remove the after-effects. A few drops of aniseed oil on the tongue will do the same thing.

If you are a percolated-coffee drinker, tip the grounds on the chives bed. They seem to relish them. Well-fed soil is essential for chives, for the plants take nitrogen and potassium out of the ground. Grow comfrey near by if possible, and you will have huge, healthy chive plants. (Comfrey roots are a rich source of nitrogen in readily available form.) Yellowing of the tips of the spear-shaped leaves means the chives are underfed, and are crying out for nutriment.

Garlic Chives are a little different. Their leaves are strap-shaped, and they have a white, starry head of flowers. Their flavour is of true garlic, but in a much milder form. Again, use them raw”, in salads, sauces and all savoury dishes. They have good antiseptic properties, and help to check the spread of contagious diseases when on the breath. Like garlic itself, they have a deterrent action on the T.B. bacillus, but are not harmful or injurious to the body in any way.

Garlic chives and roses seem to be companion plants. As well as increasing the perfume of the roses, the chives have a repellent effect on certain insects, notably aphis and when they are planted amongst roses the incidence of disease seems to be considerably less. One large rose nursery I know now gives plants of garlic chives with each order.

Use the herb freely; you cannot have too much of it. Use it wherever onion taste is required if this is too strong for you.

Chives can be quick-frozen very successfully if you need them right through the year; but, of course, some of their health-giving properties are lost in so doing. They can also be dried on screens, but tend to go yellow and lose their appetizing colour. Fresh chives grow so abundantly that you should have plenty for one household with only several plants.

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