Mad About Herbs

Herb Day at Garden Organic

We went to a Herb Day last Sunday hosted by Garden Organic at Ryton Gardens near Coventry in association with the Herb Society.  It was great fun, we did the guided tour of the gardens plus the herb garden talk by Jenny Jones FNIMH and I watched an hour of Sophie Grigson's cookery demonstration before being dragged away by my girls!  Here are a few photos to give you a flavour!

 


An unusual compost container!









































A small organic garden to demonstrate that you don't need much space to grow some fruit/vegetables.  This is meant to be the average size of a back garden.

You can see a few more photos on flickr here.

I've been compiling a list of herb gardens in my forthcoming e-book and hope to visit some soon.  If there are any herb gardens that you know of that are worth a visit or that you have photos of, feel free to leave me a comment below or send me an e-mail.

 

Herbalism and Walking in the Alpujarra, Spain

I've received details of the above course which may be of interest to some of you.  The course is limited to 12 participants and is suitable for beginners and experienced herbalists alike.  It takes place every year in the Alpujarra region of the Sierra Nevada, Spain with expert herbalist Julio Donat.

Julio will introduce you to the vast and intriguing  world of plants, teaching you to identify the varied flora of the Sierra Nevada  (including medicinal, edible, and dangerous plants).  You will learn about the  qualities of different plants, collecting methods, drying, conserving and cultivating. 

You will also learn about simple traditional preparation of plants, making infusions, decoctions, macerations, tinctures, unguents, creams, soaps, toothpaste and perfume.

So if you fancy a week away you can find out more at the Bootlace website or for more details of the week you can contact Fiona Primarolo by email.

Herb Events

Phew! At last the herb events page has been collated, typed and published at http://www.madaboutherbs.co.uk/herbevents.html. It was a mammoth task but I hope you will find it useful. I love going to a few of these each year, it is so lovely to do something different for a day. I have concentrated on events in the England, although you will find ones held in Switzerland, Ireland and on the Isle of Wight.