Winter Herbs Marjoram, or is it Oregano?

Pot Marjoram Norfolk herbs

While I was at my plot a friend gave me a Pot Marjoram plant he had just divided.  It was a welcome gift.  I have golden Oregano Acorn bBank but had lost my  sweet Marjoram Dittany and no longer had this one either. Before planting I cut back the stems and flower heads and this released the wonderful volatile  oils and I was reminded of walking through wild marjoram on mountain tracks in Greece.    A far cry from the cold, grey day November day here in Hampshire. Its generic name Origanum means joy of the mountain This gift lifted my spirits and was quickly planted. with on a layer  horticultural grit to increase drainage and planted In full sun it will draw in the sun's rays and release its wonderful aromatic fragrance.

A member of the lamiaceae family marjoram has the characteristic  square and covered in fine hairs stems and the leaves and its  tubular lipped flowers  are like all members of this family which include mint, hyssop, basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, savoury. All this family draws butterflies and bees to them with their rich aromatic scent. They are wonderful herbs to pick fresh in summer to use in light summer salads and meals  but also enhance winter  dishes soups, stews, and roasts and can be used fresh or dried they all help the digestion of these heavier foods

Pot marjoram is similar to the  Wild Marjoram, and  forms a mound of leaves from which grow the reddish purple flower stems  loved by bees and butterflies.  It is a beautiful plant which grows uprights, unlike wild marjoram which sprawls lazily,in verges and field margins.  Wild marjoram grows to height of 18 inches or more and produces  clusters of small tubular of mauve flowers. In winter it dies back to a dry mat.This plant is often called Oregano and is popular in italian cooking as it has a more pungent taste and when dried  it is even stronger, perhaps because it is packed with high concentrations of aromatic volatile oils.  

Origanum onites sometimes know as French Oregano is a has a light spicy flavour which is a delicious with vegetable dishes.  This  Autumn I sowed seeds of the Pot Marjoram but the tiny seedlings are prone to damping off.   I have found with all the  this family of plants I have more success propagating plants from cuttings. and root divisions.  In spring I will take  cuttings from  the new growth as it is a safer way to increase the number of plants, I will  divide the Yellow Arcon Bank marjoram which is sprawling across the width of one of my beds at the allotment.  This lovely plant is a welcome gift to receive for most gardeners so if the cuttings and division are successful and and I am overwhelmed with plants someone will be happy to get a sturdy new plant of Marjoram.

Marjoram or Oregano: Can you tell the taste of  marjoram from oregano? Oregano has stronger aromatic volatile oils and is more pungent while marjoram is considered s to give a sweeter spicer flavour to sauces than oregano but then again in the UK is the  oregano in your spice rack Oregano or marjoram?  In fact there are 40 plants in four botanical families that go by the name of Oregano the botanist  must get a headache trying to sort  the difference.  It is best to enjoy these beautiful herbs in healing and cooking without worrying to much about botanical correctness of the name of the plant we are using. In Europe and America the plants is used as an aromatic spice  and its healing benefits which are as aid to digestion an arthritis treatment, in an infusion to help ease the symptoms  of coughs, colds and flu.  

In the kitchen marjoram is good to use in pasta, rice,  dishes like moussaka, or sprinkled on roast lamb or pork before cooking. here is a recipe for a potato pie potatoes:

1 lb of Potatoes thinly sliced and layered
 4 finely sliced shallot
s a tablespoon or two of marjoram leaves
2 oz - 4 oz of butter
breadcrumbs as a topping
salt and pepper to taste

Layer the ingredients in a buttered pie dish  top with bread crumbs and more dabs of butter and bake in medium oven for an hour.   Enjoy as an accompaniment to main meal or as a supper dish with cheese added to the layers.


The Daily Telegraph  published a potato dish using marjoram and new potatoes baked in parchment with  fresh garlic  here is the recipe


The marjarom I grow on my plot is decorative, a lovely herb to cook with, and is beneficial to our health.  so Three Cheers for Marjoram or is it Organeo?

With Reiki's blessing and light

MerryB

Dog Roses & My Healing Garden

RHS Hedge Nursery

My plot is bordered on one side by  a Willow hedge and on the other by Dog Roses. The Dog Roses were planted partly to screen yet another ugly poly-tunnels on my neighbour's plot but mainly for their beautiful flowers and hips.  It will also,when grown fully, provide a wonderful wild life habitat .  It was only bought from RHS hedge nursery at end of March this year and needs time to develop in to a thicket.

I am looking forward to seeing it grow and flourish next year.  I hope to see the beautiful flower which are pink with a white center, and then in autumn harvest the rose hips, leaving some for the birds and other creatures.

Gardening teaches patience and also engenders optimism and imagination. I planted the Dog Roses in March in a heavy rain, knowing that they would take a year or more to develop into the picturesque  hedge of  my imagination.  Nature cannot be hurried, on this cold, damp day with only a glimpse of weak sunlight I am planting the last of the spring bulbs.  The grey days make me feel dreary but I know that through the magic of Spring these bulbs, and the plants I have sown in autumn, will brighten late Spring and Early Summer with beautiful flowers and the Dog Rose hedge will have thickened and rose buds will be forming.

I decided to have a dog rose hedge because they are beautiful plants which have flourished since the stone age but also for healing benefits. Fresh Rose hips have used to make jams, jellies, and syrup in Britain, Norway Sweden, Russia, and many other European Countries they were also used in cooking  as well as preserves.  They can be added to apples to make delicious pies or sauces.  When using fresh rose hips in cooking you need to split the hip in half and  remove the seeds and the tiny hairs of the hip as they can cause irritation internally.  In fact  some children long ago used to make an itching powder from the hairs and use it to annoy friends, families and neighbours.  When using Rose hips in tea you do not have to take out the seeds,  which have an age old reputation of being beneficial to the gallbladder and kidneys.  Rose hips contain a rich source of vitamin C as well vitamins A,E,B.

During the second World War rose hips were gathered as an important source of vitamin C and made into syrup and was especially recommended for babies and children.  Now a days if you want to avoid too much sugar in the diet you could make the Rose hips into a " leather" a puree of rose hips dried in the oven. Here is a recipe

• Rose Hips are sweetest after the first frost, but you can gather them earlier  from the hedgerows and pop them in the freezer until you have enough for a leather you will need about four cups.
• Top and tail the rose hips to remove the stalks and blossom end
• Put them in a pan with just enough water to cover, bring to boil and then simmer for 10 to 15 minutes
• Press the fruit through fine sieve into a bowl..
• Any fruit  pulp that  does not go through the sieve return to the pan  and add enough water to nearly cover the fruit
• Do not boil the pulp simmer for 10 minutes or so
• Repeat the process once  again by  putting any pulp left in the sieve back in the pan  
• Cover with water and simmer for 10 minutes 
• Sieve and discard the seeds and skin.
• Line a baking sheet with grease proof paper, foil or I like to use rice paper - leave an overlap  around the edge to make it easier to remove the leather
•  Pour on the puree, put into a cool oven and dry for two hours or more, roll up  when cool and cut into strips put in air tight jar.  Pop into the fridge  It should last for two or three months. unless it is eaten up before then!

A wonderful immune boast and quite delicious as well.!

In summer I made ice tea with rose hips and hibiscus flowers, a wonderful ruby red tea. Rose Hips have a sour taste and according to your taste need the edition of orange or lemon slices and perhaps sugar.  Adding some dried Hibiscus flowers add sweetness and a lemony tang.  This Ruby Red beverage is delight full to the eye and taste buds.  In addition you are giving your immune system a boast with these two wonderful herbs. During the long hot summer months this year I took  flasks of  this tea iced to my allotment and it enjoyed with friends and family.

Now it is winter I am drinking a hot infusion of a mix Rose Hips and Hibiscus Flowers with two or three cloves, and some Rooibos tea, which makes a dweliciouswarming drink.  I  sometimes add s two or three thin slices of ginger instead of the cloves and some chunks of fresh or dried apple to the tea.

I have found some interesting  recipes to make rose water, rose vinegar and  a face cleanser as well as rose petal jelly.  I will experiment with these in 2014.  Although I may hesitate  to cut the beautiful rose flowers and pull them to pieces.

With Reiki Blessings

MerryB

Tea Time In My Scented Herb Garden

sMy garden and allotment are full of herbs, I use herbs in teas and cooking, and medicinally.  On a grey  June day I wrote a list of the herbs I grow and it came to over 50 herbs.   This is a picture I took of my part of my herb collection on that same grey day.  There are thymes,  mints, rosemary, oregano,  sweet cicely, lavenders, and wild strawberries just beginning to ripen.  These herbs I use every day in cooking, for making teas and medicinally. I grow some herbs in pots but most in the ground. At the allotment I have the herbs lovage, angelica, hyssop and chamomile growing in one bed near my shed but I also grow other herbs in the fruit beds, with the strawberries borage., with the chard,oregano chives, rocket.

It gives me a sense of well being to see and  to be surrounded by herbs, and when I stop to rest and play with my dog Pops I brew herb tea picked fresh from the plants around me. Sometimes I may have a mint infusion, or black tea and lemon balm to give me a boost of energy, the combinations are numerous and from my local Tea Store I have learnt to make unusual blends.  I try their expert blends and become bolder in the combination of herbs I use in teas.  I sometimes use Rooibos  teas green, earl grey or black with the herbs.

In March to shield my plot from yet another poly-tunnel I plant a dog rose screen, which have rose-hips in the Autumn, so I have been trying out loose rose-hip tea, All about Tea combine this with hibiscus flower and it has become my favourite tea. I love the Ruby Red colour  of Hibiscus tea, a delight to eye and its flavour is tangy and citrus and delicious. Hibiscus  grow in tropical climates but in fact are members of the mallow family. The Pharaohs used hibiscus tea, and today it's still common as a toast at Egyptian weddings. 

Another combination of tea that I got from this tea store is a Faery Tea called Wendy's Tea.  Here is its description from the Tea Stores on-line store:

Wendy Tea is a magical faery blend of Rooibos Earl Grey,sweet South African Honeybush, Lavender Flowers, Rose Petals, Marigold Petals and Cornflower Petals. A refreshing, uplifting tea that will leave you feeling relaxed and ready for whatever life throws at you!

Delightful to drink on a hot June afternoon, and to share with friends and family  a spoon of honey and there is magic held in your hands and  especially  for children.  

I find a chamomile infusion is delightful, chamomile and lavender tea promises a relaxing evening and sleep,  but for perfection I mix these herbs  with Rooibos, green or black tea. ( I am a builders tea person!)

Oh I love herbs and making herb teas.I feel I might be back to  blog about herbs and tea again

This is the on-line link to All About Tea

Pops is waiting for her evening walk so I must  stop blogging and take her for a stroll in the park.

With Reiki Blessings

MerryB

Mint Glorious Mint

Corsican Mint Norfolk Herbs

Next year in my garden and in my allotment I intend to grow more mint plants , I hope to grow Corsican mint and Penny Royal as part of a"no grass lawn" outside my shed.  I am going to divide the area into boxes about the size of a seed tray and  growa mixture of mints, thyme, bellis,  German chamomile, clover, and other low growing tough plants the area will only be three foot wide and six foot long.and should be able to  be walked on and for Pops dog to lie on but digging is banned!
  

Nepeta Six Hills -Hooksgreen  Garden 

 I am growing some of the  plants in seed trays including penny royal..but other mints I  will buy as plugs as  most of the them are difficult to grow from seeds.  I do grow cat mint and have visions of a beautiful border along my herb bed of  this blue flowered mint. This has been a dream ever since I saw  a clip of Pam Aryes sitting in her garden on a beautiful summers day along side a border of Nepeta in full flower.





I find Cat mint grow well from seed and I have enough to grow a border around my herbs beds in the garden. and bowls for the cats,   It grows well through April, May into June it reaches perfection tall, flower buds forming and that is when Ray cat nibbles and bends it and rubs his head along it  and rolls in it.  Then Pop dog who has ignored it previously discovers it and eats it and snuggles down on top of it and I am left with stalks.  Oh sigh,  I grow it for them but I can dream! I have not grown it at the allotment as I do like the idea of the numerous cats or foxes rolling in ecstasy on my herb bed.

Black Peppermint Norfolk Herbs

I am also going to grow more varieties of mint, I use so much mint in cooking, salads and teas and want to increase the amount and types I grow.  My black peppermint  no longer looks lush and flourishing but a tiny plant with small leaves, as I have picked it so often for tea. The spearmint is also a frail shadow of it self and certainly has not become invasive. these two mints can be told apart by the fact that peppermint leaves have stalks and the leaves have a purplish tinge. Spearmint and Peppermint mint are my favourite mint plants and are used be me almost daily for tea, in cooking, salads, and with fruit. I have never found mint invasive as I pick it regularly and only reluctantly stop picking the leaves when the plants needs time to renew them selves


A new mint I am going  grow next year is Moroccan Mint. It is one of the best spearmints  and mixed with green rooibos tea is a lovely hot infusion or iced drink.  A small amount of  fresh peppermint adds a lovely zing to the tea. It also goes well with Chinese green teas such as the famous Gunpowder Green Tea which All about Tea mix into their blend of Tuareg Mint Tea this is really delicious.

Mints is used as herbal  remedy for stomach aches, headaches, stress and anxiety.

" if only people knew how good the fresh green leaves of Peppermint are when bruised and laid on the aching part to cure  nervous headaches ....There is a curious coldness about Peppermint; it diffuses warmth, yet with its strange numbness which is soothing."

Frances A. Bards well, The herb Garden

1911

Mint  can also be crushed and be used to soothe insect bites. , Methol is made from Peppermint, I use it when I have a cold to clear my head, I infuse  a  few crystals of Menthol in hot water and breath in the steam. 

The Japanese used Menthol two hundred or more years ago and carried it in sliver boxes hanging from their girdles.


 Menthol is used in these all these product:

Menthol crystals are cooling, refreshing, and have a pleasantly strong minty aroma. They are often used in cosmetics, salves, balms, medicated creams, throat lozenges, toothpaste, mouthwash, gum, foot sprays, pain relief or cooling body products, shampoos, conditioners, liniments, shaving creams, oral or throat sprays, compresses, medicated oils, and cooling gels. Since Menthol crystals are so concentrated, only a very small amount is needed within products. When purchasing Menthol crystals remember that a good quality menthol crystal usually contains not less than 99.4% menthol.

Mountain Rose Herbs

Buddleia Mint Norfolk Herbs

Chocolate mint Norfolk Herbs

Anyway time for tea, I think fresh mint and green Rooibos tea.

With Reiki blessings and light

Merryb

Reiki Druids Herbal

During the  next couple of weeks I am transferring and updating all my pages on herbs to this blog. I will be adding new pages.

PS  I was going to do some work on it today but the sun is shining and Pops and are off to the my allotment to have a cup of tea for me and treats for Pops then I will do some digging while the ground is wet - much easier.

So please come back soon

Merry Rambler