Nicola and I have been out collecting some herbs. We were able to find quite a lot of Yarrow, St Johns Wort and also a fair bit of Self Heal, which are both destined to become cremes. And I saw 2 adders as well, so a bit of a bonus.
I’ll put up more details of making the cremes later.
Look here on our Facebook page for photos taken on our Herbal Remedies course.
Selfheal – one of our favourite herbs
Yarrow Salve
- Gather the leaves and dry in a shady place for a week or so.
- Store in clean brown paper bags.
- Heat 200ml of olive oil and add 25g of pure beeswax so that the beeswax melts.
- Add as much dried yarrow leaf as you can immerse in the oil, stirring gently with a wooden spoon.
- Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly. The smell will be noticeable, and the colour of the oil will turn green or golden green.
- Allow to cool a little to allow safer handling.
- Strain through a fine metal-screen sieve into a glass measure, and then pour from that into clean, small glass jars, e.g. baby food or small jam jars.
- Label each jar with “yarrow salve” (Achillea millefolium), and the date. Store in the refrigerator.
- It should last for over a year if refrigerated.
The Self Heal flowers and the St Johns Wort flowers have been put in jars with extra virgin olive oil and placed on the window sill. We’ll leave them there for a few weeks now. Since we collected them, we’ve also gathered some lemon balm, which is currently drying out.
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