Valerian

Two squirrels in the head disorder

As the physician states, valerian relaxes without the side effects of most drugs used to produce the same result. It won't make you feel drowsy or drugged. The muscles and the mind are just relaxed. There is a condition I call "two squirrels in the head disorder". One of its symptoms is that your mind starts racing nonstop from one stressful thought to the next when all you really want to do is fall asleep. It's like having two squirrels in your head chasing each other's tails.

Of course, this usually happens when you have something going on the next morning that is killer important, some sort of activity that required your being at your best. The more you can't sleep, the more you check the clock to see how much sleep you haven't had thus far. At this junction, if you hop out of bed and make yourself a cup of hot valerian tea, the squirrels will move on, and your mind will slow down enough for you to fall to sleep. If you are in the middle of a stressful period, three cups a day or one cup right before bedtime will help you through.

The above quote is taken from a favourite, and easy to read, herbal book, The Backyard Medicine Chest - an herbal primer, by Douglas Schar. Valerian is described in the book as 'the Mother Teresa of the plant world for those suffering from stress'.
Herbalism can be confusing at first because many herbs have a range of beneficial ingredients, some of which can often be found in other herbs. But this book focuses on one common herb for each ailment, and gives an interesting discussion of it, with history, use and preparation.

Valerian flowers: The scent from valerian flowers is delightful, like a mild jasmine, and faintly musky. In the summer, as we walked past the plant, with its flowers at the top of eight-foot stalks, we wondered where the strangely pleasant smell was coming from.

Valerian flowers are said to be good for cutting and displaying in the house where they add their delightful scent.

Valerian root: This is the part of the plant used to make valerian tea.

Valerian root washed.

Valerian root dried.

Valerian hot chocolate

There's a delicious-sounding recipe for valerian hot chocolate in James Wong's Grow Your Own Drugs.

To make 3 cups requires:

3 tbsp fresh valerian root
3 tbsp fresh lemon balm leaves
3 tsp fresh lavender leaves
6 leaves and 3 heads from fresh passion flowers
peel of 1.1/2 oranges
900 ml full-fat milk
50g dark chocolate (min 50% cocoa solids)
dash of vanilla extract

1. Chop the top and bottom from the fresh valerian root. Add the valerian, lemon balm, lavender, passion flowers, orange peel and milk to a pan and gently heat for 5-10 minutes. Strain.

2. Pour the infused milk back into the pan, then add the dark chocolate and vanilla extract and stir until melted. Drink at once.

Pot marigold orange

The pleasures of fennel

Our beautiful fennel plant. It's about 6 feet tall. This is common fennel. The fennel that has the broad, bulbous base that's eaten as a vegetable is Florence fennel.

Hoverfly on fennel flowers.

We love fennel here. My seven-year old granddaughter and I pop a few seeds in our mouth from time to time for the pleasure of the aniseed taste and the mouth-refreshing effect. If we're out in the garden, we'll often chew a frond of the leaves or a few of the small flowers. Fennel seeds are good for the digestion. They can be chewed or drunk as a tea infusion. Fennel is rich in vitamin A and contains calcium, phosphorus and potassium.

These fat, juicy undried seeds are our favourite to chew, though they do taste quite strong.

Occasionally, I like to break up a few seeds with my nails and sprinkle them on top of tobacco in a cigarette, for an aniseed-scented smoke. I remember some cigarettes years ago, I think they were Malayan, that had cloves in them with the tobacco. They were an interesting and pleasant smoke too.

I already knew that mullein was a common ingredient in herbal tobaccos, but to learn more about what herbs can be smoked, I bought the book, 'Smoke Plants of North America' by M R Ross, about the plants smoked by the Indians. There's a recipe for a smoking mixture with fennel seeds, with hops, mullein, skullcap, damiana and mint. I haven't tried this mixture, but it seems an interesting one. The author says of it that she loves "the heavy, sensual calming effect of the hops and skullcap together. Hops has a funny smell kind of like ripe cheese, but it smokes with a nice flavor and no aftertaste."