Herbal Ally Challenges #3 & #5: Vinegars and Research

Its true, I'm way way behind on herbal ally challenges, and I have come to accept that I probably won't be able to do all of them over the course of the year. So be it. I'l do what I can, and what inspires me.

Starting hawthorn seeds just seems impractical and silly to me right now- i have no where to plant them, they take lots of scarification and freezing (too late for that this year) and I'm moving soon, and moving with too many flats of seeds is not my idea of fun.

But I am happy to report that despite my beliefs about what I thought I knew, researching my hawthorn ally resulted in some rather astounding discoveries and rememberences about this plant.


I looked in three books and was reminded that hawthorn berry's traditional use in China was as a digestive tonic.  It addresses "food stagnantion", when your food just sits and doesn't digest, blocking up the channels of elimination and assimilation.  Not a good thing.  Chinese hawthorn berries are sour, chewy and very tasty.  I remember snacking on them in herb school at NAIMH.  But along with this recall, the digestive effects of hawthorn go deeper and are more versatile than I thought.  Hawthorn is excellent to address heat in the digestive tract, and all the mucous membranes- resulting from inflammed gut tissues from food allergies. It reduces congestion and heat in the blood and can be useful for varisocosities- think of hawthorn for hemorrhoids accompanied by stagnant heat, and improves the metabolism and assimiliation of lipids/fats.

This heat reducing ability also applies the the respiratory tract mucous membranes, and we use it often in asthma, especially when it is accompanied by over excitability, ADHD like symptoms or grief manifesting as acting out. 

Of course it is well known for its use as a heart tonic, but did you know that use only started in about 1895 in Europe.  Prior to that hawthorn was mostly a food, served with meat, to improve digestion.

Most herbalists talk about using just the fruits of the hawthorn but I like to combine the fruits with the leaves and flowers for the most part.  I can't remember exactly where I learned this along the way, but that the leaves and flowers have just as many bioflavanoids and active constituents as the fruits.  Of course, I do believe tht they are significantly distinct as medicines as well.  The leaves and flowers retain much more astringency, while the fruits contain the majority of the sour and sweet tastes.  Generally I use them together.  Hopefully this year I will experiment with using them separately.


I've also made my hawthorn BERRY vinegar.  I'm totally out of berries and leaves right now, they are on their way from Pacific Botanicals, but in the meantime, I haven't made any other preparations.  The vinegar is delicious, ruby red, sour sweet.  It makes me want to turn it into a shrub.  Hawthorn berry shrub. Yes.
Thats on my list of things to do.  Especially if I get lucky enough to get fresh hawthorn fruit this summer!  I'm loving herbal vinegars more and more, as I stray away from traditional modern herbal preparation of tinctures.  How to use herbs in food more and more is my song...I guess.

Great vinegar to clear summer heat- or just too much heat in general that results in a racing, pounding heart.  Or the overwhelming grief and heartache I'm seemingly experiencing this year. 

 

Still sleeping

Winter is still in control. It's icy grip lays over the land, relinquishing nothing.  Not a trace of spruce tips- too early for that-  poplar buds frozen solid, with sticky resin inside that burns my tounge with its pungency and balsamic taste, it will be weeks before it is time to harvest that medicine- not even the hawthorn buds are swelling.





The ocean of snow, perfectly poised with precision- waves waiting to crash in on themselves when the skin kisses the vast expanse.  But for now- seeds lay sleeping far beneath the icy waves.

Hawthorn buds in waiting

I've been remiss in visiting my spiny hawthorn tree for the Tree Year in the fields below.  Crossing the ocean of snow is daunting.  She is still sleeping as well.  Wild cucumber and grape vines dangle lifelessly from her spiny arms, also waiting.  No sign of bird nor squirrel.  Just waves of snow 5 ft deep.


But the birches have birchkins...thats my word for catkins...because really they aren't cats, they are birches, and birchkins sounds more fun. 

birchkins

 

 It is supposed to storm again this weekend, but could end up being rain, so instead of working today like I had planned ( had a list going even) I went outside. The first time in months it feels like.  It really did take about 30 min to get dressed and get the snowshoes on and get the dog ready, but it was almost warm in the 25 degree sunshine.  But the snow doesn't think so, nor do the poplar buds. 

So here we are, all the plants, and all the herb folk still locked in winters icy reign- still sleeping, still hibernating, still awaiting the kiss of the sun prince to wake us from the 100 day slumber.

Winter thorns

Hawthorn in winter, Maine

Here is my wild thorny hawthorn tree friend I'm tracking through the year.  Its been cold and windy for weeks, a little snow, but mostly blown away.
She lives in a hedge row in the fields below my house, wedged between her kin, and apple, cherry and maple trees.  There are grape vines growing up into the trees.  Probably another 10 to 15 hawthorns in this hedge row- of small and large stature, they grow as multiple limbed small brushy trees, with 3-7 trunks, making a very tricky to penetrate thorny tangle of branches.  A good place to hide.  Safe. Protected.