{"id":1793,"date":"2023-06-22T14:06:56","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/?p=1793"},"modified":"2023-06-22T14:06:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:06:57","slug":"1st-june-2023-herbs-their-variety-and-many-uses-zsuzsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/2023\/1st-june-2023-herbs-their-variety-and-many-uses-zsuzsa","title":{"rendered":"1st June 2023- Herbs, their variety and many uses- Zsuzsa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our June meeting saw the return of Zsuzsa Serer, who gave us an
informative, interactive and refreshing talk on herbs. Herbs have many uses
apart from culinary, namely medicinal, potpourri, cosmetics (incorporated
into shampoos and creams) moth balls, witchcraft and excellent for wildlife.
Some examples of these are rosemary, chamomile, bergamot and lavender.
Zsuzsa brought a wide selection of unusual herbs and described their
anatomy and uses.<\/p>\n

A very useful herb to cultivate is\"\"
comfrey. As it is very invasive, it\u2019s
recommended to be grown in
pots. Infused leaves are a great
source of fertiliser, but a warning,
the solution is extremely smelly,
so always have a cover. It\u2019s black
roots can be made into a poultice and is good for healing broken bones. It is\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 not advised to remove a plaster cast and replace it with a comfrey poultice.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The plant has an impressive record of medicinal use. Bees and butterflies\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 love it.
The speaker made the session interactive by passing leaves around for us to
experience a new smell and taste. One such herb was winter savoury, an
evergreen shrub, used in a variety of dishes like fish, meat, cabbage, beans,
and sausages. Butchers used to put this herb in sausages as it helps to digest
heavy foods. It\u2019s good for upset tummies as well.
A good herb to grow at this time of the year is lemon verbena. It\u2019s a
Mediterranean plant, loves full sun and good as a pot plant. The leaves are
quite aromatic and can be infused to make hot and cold drinks. Quite
refreshing.
We also had a selection of mints to smell, chocolate, lime, pineapple. All the
above have very subtle flavours, except the Moroccan mint, which is much
sharper and very difficult to kill, so never put on the compost heap.<\/p>\n

Sweet cicely, as the name implies, it\u2019s sweet with a hint of aniseed and
balances well with sour dishes like rhubarb. The seeds that look like
miniature cucumbers are very tasty to eat on their own.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Another useful herb to have in the garden is sorrel, as it\u2019s the first greenery
that comes out in the Spring. This herb grows in the wild and can be used for
sweet or savoury dishes. The leaves look very much like baby spinach, are full
of vitamins and have a sharp taste. Zsuzsa suggested using them in a
sandwich instead of a pickle or mixed with other leaves in a salad.
So, the message to gardeners is to grow herbs for their diversity and their
ability to encourage wildlife. Also buying herbs from nurseries, where they
have been hardened off, is a much better option, than from supermarkets.
And the best way of ensuring an all-year-round supply of herbs is to cut them
back, dry and store the leaves in jars.
All the plants that were brought for demonstration were available for sale at
the end. This part is always popular.
Hanna Roberts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our June meeting saw the return of Zsuzsa Serer, who gave us aninformative, interactive and refreshing talk on herbs. Herbs have many usesapart from culinary, namely medicinal, potpourri, cosmetics (incorporatedinto shampoos and creams) moth balls, witchcraft and excellent for wildlife.Some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-30"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1795,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/1795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriplow.org.uk\/gardening-club\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}