Goodbye Blogspot, hello to Holt Wood Herbs

Hurrah! We finally have moved so that the blog continues at the new website here and all of the past blog posts can be found at the new site. We hope you will visit the new website at www.holtwoodherbs.com for everything to do with Holt Wood, herbal medicine, Herbaid, Medicinal Forest Garden Trust and more, including online orders for herbal body care items made with ingredients grown in Devon, UK. You can also sign up at the website to receive future updates. Thanks to everyone for your patience.

Virginian Witch Hazel in flower at Holt Wood

New web site for Holt Wood Herbs

New web site for Holt Wood Herbs
Sometime in August 2016 we will be transferring this blog at herbaid.blogspot.com over to our new much-improved website at www.holtwoodherbs.com, so please retune if you are seeing this message. Do let us know at info@holtwoodherbs.com if you experience any difficulties in following the new blog. (But do bear with us as we get to grips with web design there, it may need a few tweaks!!)

Publishing progress

New book!

New book cover image

One of the reasons that our medical herbalist, Anne, has been so short of time to spend at Holt Wood is her involvement in recent years in preparing a book for publication.  The book is based on Anne's research into seventeenth-century household medicine and draws on original household recipes, accounts and letters. At last, the book is nearly ready and is called Household Medicine in Seventeenth-Century England. Although not specifically about 'herbs', there are chapters in the book which consider recipe ingredients and medicinal preparations as well as detailed views of 'self-help' activities in the seventeenth century. The book will be published by Bloomsbury Academic later in 2016. More details on the book can be found at the Bloomsbury  web site.

Meanwhile...

Back at Holt Wood, we are gearing up for an Open Day, 1–4 pm on Saturday 21st May 2016. The open day session in the afternoon provides an opportunity to find out why we started the project and how things are progressing. 

Our draft programme

1300: Welcome and introductions

1315: Background to Holt Wood Medicinal Tree and Shrub Project

1345: Walkabout to see trees and shrubs

1515: Harvesting medicinal barks and examples of herbal medicines

1600: End

View across the valley from Holt Wood

The afternoon is suitable for people of all ages and experience. If you would like to come then get in touch to book your free place and we can send travel directions. For background information on Holt Wood see the website.

Updating the Holt Wood website

We are aware that the web site needs updating for Holt Wood. This will be a huge learning process! It is an opportunity to bring together news about Holt Wood and an online shop for some of the produce as well as links to permaculture and other projects. So, hopefully, we will be working on this in the next few months and then announce any updates. 

Witch hazel just beginning to open leaves

Birch for all

We have been trying out ways to collect Birch (Betula alba) sap. We used a carved oak peg in birch-tapping kits available for £10 including postage from Touch-Wood.

You can see the whole process in a YouTube clip link from the Touch-Wood website. As the sap is rising in the Birch tree, a hole is drilled slanting upwards with a 16 mm bit, then the oak peg with a hole is knocked in and allows the sap to drip into a bottle. A hole is drilled in the bottle enabling it to rest on the peg (or it could be tied onto the tree). There are lots of uses for the sap from boiling down to syrup (which takes a while) to making wine.

Our efforts to collect Birch sap have been a bit undermined this year because we have not been able to travel back and forth to Holt Wood as often as we would like - the sap collects quickly and can attract flies if not harvested promptly. We have discovered that wine or sherry bottle corks can be readily reused as stoppers once the bottle and peg are removed. 

For an alternative way to collect Birch sap see the example on the Natural Bushcraft website. And for some really super products from Birch trees see the website of Priestlands Birch in Somerset where you can obtain a birch sap tonic or birch tar soap.

There are other ways to use Birch. If you can collect enough Birch bark in a tin it is possible to distil birch tar oil in a fire, collecting it through a small hole into another tin, it is dark and antiseptic. Our focus at the moment is on collecting Birch buds so that they can be infused in oil for making lip balm and ointment. Trying this out in recent years, we have found that the oils last a good length of time, probably testament to the strongly antiseptic and antifungal properties of the Birch in terms of its essential oil.

Fun with willows

We have been clearing a lengthy ride, making it wide enough to plant some additional fruit and useful  trees. Most recently we have been enjoying the fluffy white buds of Salix daphnoides, so much so that we have ordered some additional ornamental willows for future harvesting, including more kinds of willow catkins and curly stems.

An excellent source of willow cuttings is at World of Willow in Dorset - they post by return. While sorting out additional space for planting we have been experimenting with charcoal-making. Magically we have transformed a tin of cuttings into thin charcoal sticks that are ideal for drawing - perfect for artists. These will be boxed up and taken along to the annual Seed Share event organised by Sustainable Crediton.  This will be on Saturday 20th February 2016 at the Old Town Hall in Crediton.

It is such fun to use charcoal for drawing and we will ensure we have some paper and smaller pieces of charcoal for kids to play with as budding artists!