Health News. Lots of resources and information

Rhubarb leaves (which you know must never be eaten) are deadly poisonous to aphis and most sucking insects. Make up a batch as follows: Cut up 3 pounds of the leaves, and boil in 3 quarts of water for 30 minutes, then strain, and add 4 ounces of a soft soap (that common laundry variety is best), and dissolve it well. This spray when cool can be used to kill aphis on roses, but if you use it on herbs, remember to leave the plants for at least a fortnight before cutting them for the table.

Tobacco dust is another good organic insecticide, but can be hard to come by now. I have even offered to sweep up the floor at one of the large cigarette-packaging companies, but, as you can imagine, I was laughed off the premises. Any of you who live in a tobacco-growing district may be able to get the left-overs from the drying-shed floors. These can be prepared as follows: Boil 4 ounces of tobacco dust (cigarette ends will do if you are a smoker, but remove the filter tips), in a gallon of water for 30 minutes. Strain the clear brown liquid, and bottle it carefully labelled and away from small children, if not using it at once. It is quite poisonous, so care must be taken; but it quickly breaks down in the soil some two or three weeks after spraying, and it is safe to eat any leaves after this period.

Chemical insecticide manufacturers are beginning to recognize the increasing demand for “safe” sprays. As this book is written, two are on the market advertised as “bio-degradable”, and safe for edible crops.

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Natural herbal therapy, applied with knowledge and understanding, never harms the human body. Its whole aim is to restore the balance of all the bodily functions and to eliminate the poisonous harmful wastes that cause illness. These poisons are often built up because the diet is deficient in natural minerals or vitamins. Herbs work in the prevention of illness.

If you have read the preceding chapters, you must now wonder what to plant with what, when to sow and when to harvest. Take it slowly; try to pick out just half a dozen herbs that appeal to you; plant them and learn about them gradually. Use them as often as possible in your diet and for simple home remedies if feeling off colour. You will soon want to add more to your collection.

The initial outlay in buying small plants or seeds, some dolomite, blood and bone, and a few simple tools, is all your herbs should ever cost you. My thrifty Scottish ancestors would be delighted to see the money I save. Not only do we not have to go to doctors, chemists and slimming classes: the herbs provide rich compost for the improvement of our soil, and additions to various recipes that enable us to live like gourmets on the free produce from our own garden. Gifts, like herb oils and vinegars, pot-pourri, or sweet and savoury jellies, can be made inexpensively for friends and relatives; and even shampoos and skin-toning preparations need only herbs and a few other simple ingredients you can easily put together.

Many times have people said to me, “Why aren’t we told about things like this?” I should like to see a course on natural health and nutrition taught in the schools, particularly to girls who will influence their family’s choice of foodstuffs in later life; and I feel that highly qualified natureopaths and homeopathic physicians should be recognized by medical doctors as partners, not competitors. Most study far longer, and are almost fanatically devoted to maintaining the health and well-being of their patients. Illness, that unnatural state of man, is, after all, their common enemy.

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A native of the warm, sunny sea coasts of Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, where its perfume can often be smelt far out to sea, rosemary is known and cultivated all over the world. It grows best near salt water, and is a valuable garden shrub for seaside dwellers. Sandy light loam suits it best, and it is hardy and drought-resistant, too. Too much water will cause some of the leaves to drop, but normally it will grow under difficult or exposed conditions very well. The more sunshine the better, to build up its stores of oil in the leaves and flowers.

In late winter, when other herbs are well and truly asleep in the cold ground, rosemary starts to flower. It is a valuable plant for bees at this time, when other nectar is scarce, and will bear its white or pale blue flowers right into spring. The prostrate variety (Rosmarinus prostratus), is valuable for rockeries and sunny hot corners, and its spreading growth is most attractive beside brick or stone steps. Reflected heat from walls is atonic for the plant and it will give its perfume more freely under these conditions.

Slow-growing at first, rosemary can live to a great age, over thirty years or more. To grow from cuttings, take a small side stem with a heel of old wood attached, and strike this time in a more sandy soil mixture. It will grow well in a pot, and can be trimmed to a formal shape if required.

A recipe for dressed-up spaghetti comes from southern France, where rosemary grows on the hillsides.

Spaghetti in Herb Sauce

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onions

2 tablespoons chopped parsley 1 clove garlic (crushed)

1 stalk celery (chopped fine) Rosemary leaves to taste

2 firm tomatoes

1/2 cup white wine

Grated Parmesan cheese

1 lb. spaghetti, cooked and drained

Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan. Saute the onions till lightly brown, then add the herbs and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and cook lightly. Mix in the wine, salt and pepper, and heat through for a minute. Pour over the hot spaghetti, and sprinkle the cheese on top.

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Here are two recipes for making beer, the first English, the second Australian:

Horehound Beer 1

To a large handful of leaves and stems add 3 gallons of water and 2 lb. of treacle. Boil for an hour, then strain and cool to blood heat. Add 2 tablespoons of yeast, and let stand for 24 hours covered with a clean cloth, then bottle. Ready to drink in one week.

Horehound Beer 2

Boil in a large saucepan gently for a half hour 2 oz. of fresh horehound leaves and stems and 1 oz. of fresh bruised ginger. Add 1 lb. raw sugar and sufficient boiling water to make one gallon in all. Let cool slightly. Add i oz. tartaric acid and the juice of 1 lemon, and colour with a little burnt sugar (or a teaspoon of molasses). Add 2 tablespoons of fresh yeast when quite cool. Strain and let stand covered for two or three days. Bottle in dark brown or green bottles and seal tightly. Ready in two to three weeks.

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Nowadays, catmint is not a culinary herb, but is valuable medicinally. A tea made in the usual way from the leaves has been found very effective as a mild sedative, especially for children. Catmint tea is often mentioned in herbal therapy as being prescribed for the over-active child, or one who tosses and turns in bed or is subject to sleepwalking or nightmares. The tea taken hot brings out perspiration, and cold can be taken in a fruit drink. Like all natural medicine, the effect is not quick and spectacular but slower and more lasting. Regular use seems to be indicated to achieve results. The juice of the leaves has been given mixed with wine or treacle or honey to help inward bruising after any heavy fall. Put the leaves through the juicer for this if you wish to try it.

Catnip has long been used as a natural tonic and stimulant for cats, who often love to roll and revel in its foliage; but more particularly they love the root of the plant. If you own a cat, watch its behaviour when you dig around the roots or lift the clump for transplanting or dividing. It will go into ecstasies of delight. Chewing the root of catnip was said to make timid persons fierce and aggressive! Bees are attracted to the sweet-scented blossoms, so here’s another herb to bring those pollen-laden friends to a market gardener’s crops.

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