Rowan

Rowan or Mountain Ash berries. Make a nice tart sauce or delicious jelly.

 

The berries are very useful medicinally. Cut the clusters off the trees in October while they are still firm and red (leave some for the birds!) and hang them upside down in brown paper bags to dry. This is best done in a warm, airy place. When they are completely dry, you can seal them in dark, air-tight jars. The juice from the berries is mildly laxative and makes a good gargle for sore throats and hoarseness. To extract the juice from the dried berries, soak one teaspoonful in one cup of cold water for 10 hours, strain and use as a gargle. When made into jam, the fruit becomes astringent, which is good for mild diarrhoea.

To make the jam, collect fresh berries in the autumn, trim off the stalks and weigh the fruit. Boil the berries, strain off the seeds and skins and reboil the liquid until it sets. You may need to add some crab-apples to provide the pectin.

The fruit can also be boiled, strained and made into wine, and gently boiled to make a vitamin C drink which was previously used for scurvy. The Welsh made a special ale using Rowan berries, but the secret of this is now lost. Perhaps with a creative, intuitive, approach the ale-makers amongst us could create a new Rowanberry ale for feasts, rituals and ceremonies.

The Rowan yields a black dye used for tanning. The Druids used it for dyeing their ceremonial black robes which they used for certain lunar ceremonies. The ancient Druids of Ireland also lit fires of Rowan wood before battles and incantations were spoken over the flames to summon spirits to take part in the fight and to combat evil forces.

 

Wildflower, I'm just being curious here but you do seem to know an aweful lot about herbs and their medicinal (and other) uses. Do you use them yourself? I don't like taking medicine and have often wondered if more natural remedies would be better.

 

celia..Yes i have an advanced herbalist diploma..I am not qualified to diagnose..but i can make and prepare herbal ointments etc..
And yes i do use herbs every dayif i am unwell i use them and ..now because its the flu..coughs and colds season i am on echinacea..
I have done two herb courses as i had a great interest in them ..I still do i grow them and love finding out all their uses..
I dont like taking medicine off the doctor..and fortunately i am drug free..
If you want to use herbs just try some of the simple ones i have put up here in gc..I havnt got a lot of knowledge about chinese or foreign herbs ..I just stick to the safe and simple ones..
I think they over charge people in these health shops as its easy enough to make yourself a pot of herb tea ..the ointment is also easy to make..You can even buy empty capsules and make your own herbal tablets..I dont bother with that i just take tea ..I do buy some herb tablets ..I know they work they also work on animals..My dog was ill once and his eye dissapeared into the socket and we spent over �£300 at the vets up and down every week he was tested for everything and they kept giving him ointments and injections and he was still ill..so i thought right i will have a go because they reckoned it was an allergy nothing more seriouse..so i bought some euphrasia and i gave it him every 2 hours for 2 days and on the third day his eye was clearing and had come back to normal..and all that cost me was �£4..
you may as well give herbs a try you could even grow and dry your own.. :D