Burning Bay Leaves

 Burning bay leaves

I’ve an overgrown bay tree (Lauris Nobilis) in the garden. Every week I take a few leaves off to throw into the spaghetti bolognaise but recently it’s getting a bit large for the area its growing in.

With a tree such as this I think it’s a waste to throw away the cut branches so I have been looking at alternative uses for the leaves.  They can easily be nipped off and then dried, which is something I will be doing straight away, but there are other uses.

For thousands of years bay wreaths were popular on doorways and adorning the heads of the educated. The word "laureate" in 'poet laureate' refers to the laurel wreath and Apollo wears a horseshoe shaped one in Greek Mythology. 

Bay Leaves

Going back just as far into history we also see that bay leaf burning in ceremonies was a popular pursuit.  Ancient temples routinely burned bay leaves to clear the space and heighten one’s intuitive powers. Now I must confess to burning the occasional incense stick in the room and even to wearing a dab of patchouli oil occasionally (it’s supposed to have a calming effect) so I thought maybe I could burn a few leaves in the house to see if there is any truth in all of the health claims. And there are a lot of health claims.

The Burning

Burning bay leaves are used in much the same way that sage sticks are wafted around in cleansing processes. 

Like all health claims we are told about every day which is mostly advertising and sales driven, it’s pretty hard to find any real facts. I can find a lot of articles on the ‘beneficial’ uses of bay leaves but very little research has been done on the burning of herbs in the house and if they pose a health hazard. So in this instance I have been asking around to see what people think. Not surprisingly I got mixed results.

Comments ranged from “All combustible items are carcinogenic (even burnt toast) so should be avoided at all cost” to a more liberal view of “I burn a leaf every day when no-one is in the room and I find the people in my house are a lot calmer and relaxed”.  I was even told that bay leaves in any form are toxic but that myth comes from a bit of confusion with Mountain Laurel (Kalmia Latifolia), which is related to bay but a lot different.

The Hype

If we believe the hype then burning bay leaves can relieve anxiety, give respiratory relief, help digestion, fatigue, tension, fight against cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, dandruff, kidney stones , insomnia and of course you can wish with the leaves too.  Burn the leaf and throw the ashes to the wind as you make a wish in much the same way you would with a dandelion seed head.

The Experiment

I left leaves to dry on the radiator for a few days and I am now ready for my experiment.

It’s recommended to burn the leaves in an ashtray but as I don’t have any to hand, one of the best dessert bowls from our dining collection will have to do. I have another 5 of them in the set of 6 so if anything goes wrong and it cracks then there's no great loss. 

I put a couple in the bowl and put the lighter flame to the end tip.  Within a second the leaf has burst into flames, crackled, glowed and gives off a plume of smoke.  I’m going to sit here for a few minutes to see if I get any calmer.

The Oil

The leaves burst into flames because if their high oil content. Bay leaf oil is widely used in essential oil preparations and seems to have different warnings about it compared to either burning or cooking with it. The oil contains eugenol, an antiseptic and may irritate the skin and mucus membranes. There are hundreds of health claims from using the essential oils but I won’t be extracting any of it from my leaves as it is a long process and I am not a chemist. So burning it will have to do for now.

The Conclusion

After 20 minutes, all I have managed to do is turn off the three smoke alarms that activated when the burning happened and removed most of the carbon and oil deposits from the ceramic bowl (apparently they were very expensive). There is still a faint, sweet smell of burning in the house.

At the moment then I can safely say I am not feeling any more relaxed. But give me a couple of weeks to get a new bowl and I will let you know. 

Spring Growth Bark and Gravel - A One Stop Landscape Shop

Spring Growth Bark and Gravel

I’m busy dividing my chamomile and replanting it in raised beds this week.  I’m anticipating a lot of demand for the small plantlets this year as more and more people appear to be opting for something that bit different in the garden. I’ve found small areas suit chamomile better as the plants only have to come within a foot of a weed and they bow down and surrender. Invasive it’s not. 

For a square metre of chamomile lawn you’d need nearly 100 plants. Good for me selling them but not so good for the buyer. That’s why I stress to customers to be patient and plan ahead, that way only a few plants are needed and offshoots can be taken and potted on. After a couple of years the customers can then set up in direct competition to me. I’m not much of a business person but my best “Get Rich Quick Scheme” is the one I haven’t started yet, so I’d be happy going on to pastures new.

Bags of compost

I wanted a couple of bags of weed free compost to put the chamomile into so thought I’d pop into the bargain shops to see what they had to offer. The bit of sunshine we had last week must have started a mass panic for the stuff. The only shop with some was Lidl in Derry, which was just for ericaceous plants like rhododendrons; pity anyone sowing seeds into that. 

I remembered a great farm shop on the Springtown industrial estate and they had loads of really good local compost in 80 litre bags and it worked out cheaper than buying the discounted bags in the bargain shops. 

On coming out of the farm shop I noticed a new place selling gardening products. Through the railings I saw a very familiar face; it was Cyril Quinn who used to work for Buncrana Council and was jointly responsible for the fantastic floral shows the town has enjoyed over the years. I had to pop in and say hello.

It turns out Cyril has also moved to pastures new as well and set up his own business on the industrial estate. 

Spring Growth Bark and Gravel

His business is called Spring Growth Bark and Gravel and supplies all types of gardening and horticultural supplies. Cyril likes to keep things local too sourcing products from as near as he can to keep the carbon footprint to a minimum. 

As well as paving slabs of all shapes and sizes there are small concrete figures and plaques suitable for presents and gravesides. He also has some bedding plants, some really 10kg bags of “priced to sell” seaweed feed chicken manure and compost. I didn’t need compost but couldn’t resist buying some “barbed wire”plants (Tylecodon reticulatus) native to Australia and really drought tolerant. Cyril was thinking of putting them into hanging baskets as they will put up with neglect but as they grow upright don’t really work although they are looking very smart in my old enamel milk jugs in the garden. Cyril likes to experiment and it’s great to come across a bedding plant I have never seen before.

As well as bedding plants, there are hardy shrubs and Cyril will know better than most what grows well on our blustery coastline having worked on it for years.

Cyril has built large concrete bays and has a full range of loose gravel and stones on offer as well as different sized woodchip. If shovelling into a trailer isn’t your thing you can get them bagged up too and it works out so much cheaper.  

Hopper

I particularly like the large hopper on the site. It’s full of a dry sand and cement mix and as you pull the lever it is mixed with water to give you an instant mortar mix. It’s so popular and it’s particularly good for builders and landscapers who just need a bucketful for a small job. You can have as much or as little as you need at the pull of a lever. 

What initially caught my attention from the roadside were the paving slabs. I’m looking for some to put on top of the lawn that’s being taken over with algae. Cyril’s will be a one stop shop for the purpose. I can get the gravel base, sand and mortar to go with the slabs

You can find Spring Growth Bark and Gravel on Facebook or you could give Cyril a ring on (0044) 07725 460262. He says if he hasn’t got it, he will source it for you. Friendly and professional service doesn’t get any better than that.

Asparagus and a trip down Reminiscing Street

 A few year yet until it can be eaten....

I’m feeling spring in the air. 

Last week’s warm sunny weather gave me motivation to jump out of bed in the morning and head off straight into the garden. Such enthusiasm hasn’t been seen in the house since this time last year when I was creating the frog pool in the polytunnel. 

It’s more of a tidy up. I’ve been chopping back out of control jasmine on the patio, out of control groundcover, out of control weeds, you get the idea. Most of the jobs I’ve been doing are “out of control” ones and really need addressing before any seed sowing can be done. 

One fiddly job was to clear the weeds away from the young asparagus plants. It’s only their second year of growth and the young tender shoots emerging from the ground are much too small to be eating. I’m going to be leaving them for a few years until they are well established so the energy can go back into the plants to help them establish. I’ve never grown such a long winded crop before but I’m sure they will be worth the wait. 

I’ve cleared out most of the pots too. Most of the plants have died back with the frost except for a few fuchsias, which I can repot later. I’ll be using fresh soil and compost as there are a lot of overwintering grubs in containers that love to nibble on new roots.

A Million Geraniums

 All of the geraniums have died back too so I won’t have any cuttings to save and grow on for later in the year so I’ll need to go out and buy some plugs. I have grown them from seed before but for the small amount I need it’s not worth the effort.   It reminds me about when I used to work for the local council in Nottingham. There were so many parks in the shire that needed a splash of colour in the flower beds that they used to employ a woman permanently to grow, maintain and propagate geraniums for the year. That’s one full time job, just for geraniums. She had her own greenhouse, heating system, and even threw in a rented house into the bargain. I’ll have to check to see if the jobs still there, I wouldn’t mind that myself.

Reminiscing Street

As I am on Reminiscing Street, I remember having a few long term jobs to myself when I worked for the council parks department. Job one was digging a trench well over 1000 yards long across a hillside to put pipes in. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details but the size of the trench would make you believe they were laying oil pipelines.  It needed to be over four feet deep and the ground was very wet and sticky.  I was there for three weeks on my own until one day I just cracked. The sheer physical hardship, loneliness and lack of progress made me walk off the job and go to the nearby trainline and watch the carriages go by.   

I did that for four full working days until anyone even noticed I wasn’t digging. They put on another worker who could actually use a shovel and I just watched him for three weeks until he finished the pipeline trench. A digger would have done it in less than a day. 

Shovelling

The second challenge I was faced with was thankfully inside a large storage bay so I did manage to stay dry.  I was given the task of shovelling 75 tonnes or rough soil through a screen to grade it for topsoil for the bowling greens.  I did it and I was elated, but it was short lived. My reward was a second delivery of another 75 tonnes of soil to do the whole thing again. It took me a long time and I’m sure there’s an automated sieve out there that could have also done the work in one day.

I’m of course not implying that my working career in gardening started before machinery did the work for us. Lawnmowers had been invented.  I remember six weeks of my life was taken up defining the grass edges on park pathways with a half-moon tool. Every clump had to be dug out and removed. There’s a machine that does that now and I reckon it would take less than a day to do that job as well. 

Thankfully the smaller jobs in the garden haven’t been automated yet, back to weeding the asparagus.

Preperation for Seed Sowing and a Wheatgrass Update

Some seed packets appeared on our kitchen table this week. Julie had been doing a spot of shopping and some starter seeds caught her eye.  They are all pretty good ones to get started, sunflowers, purple sprouted broccoli, sweet peas, lettuce and coriander. So will be a great introduction to the start of the growing season.

The thing is it’s not just a question of sowing a few seeds is it?  Like most jobs around the house there are all the hidden preparations to contend with before even one seed is sown.. I my case it goes like this:

Jobs to do before planting ONE seed

• Make a cup of tea.
• Sort packets of seeds out into date sowing.
• Find seed trays left scattered around the inside of the polytunnel
• Clean and disinfect the afore mentioned trays.
• Find somewhere for the trays to go. Make room.
• Head on down to the local garden centre for some ‘proper’ potting compost
• Be tempted to buy lots of spring bedding at the garden centre but resist temptation.
• Unload the compost and clear are for storage.
• Clear the work area in the tunnel, cleaning and disinfecting the work surfaces, plastic sheeting and patch up the char so the stuffing doesn’t come out of the seat.
• Clear the paths, feed the soil in the beds.
• Clean out the pond (bucket) and collect frog spawn
• Drink more tea.

It’s around this time that the lines get very blurry. I can’t really tell if the last few jobs are really necessary or if I am just procrastinating.

You get the idea though?  When something as harmless as a rectangular packet of seeds is put in front of you, it opens up a hundred things you know you should have done or really need to do to make the gardening year a success.  Because the whole thing is quite overwhelming I’ve come up with a shorter list to get myself started, one step at a time and all of that. Here’s what I have come up with so far:

• Read back of seed packet as I drink a cup of tea.

I’ll take it from there.

Wheatgrass Update

The novelty of wheatgrass growing is quickly diminishing.  I’ve now got twelve trays in various stages of growth and am quickly running out of windowsill space to put them on although I try and juice one tray a day there are more coming from the airing cupboard to fill the spaces. 

For some reason it’s suggested that it’s not grown in a polytunnel but I’m going to make my own rules up this week and  grow them on outside. I’m such a hortirebel. 

It’s handy to keep an eye on the trays to make sure they don’t dry out when on the sills but it does make drawing the curtains very difficult. You might think I have gone a bit overboard with the actual tray quantity, and under regular plant conditions I would agree. 

In this instance though, large quantities are required to just keep up with Julie’s half a cup a day habit.  Out of one tray of the wheatgrass we are getting anywhere between one to four half shot glasses of juice.  If we centrifugally extract the chlorophyll in a juicer we get half a shot glass, to manually extract via the masticating method we’ll get around 3-4 half glasses.  

A lot of the sales pitches about the trays state you get up to six full shot glasses per tray. All I can imagine is that they use larger trays than us or we have not yet perfected the art of masticating.

The extracted juice is pretty potent though, the smell is divine albeit an acquired one and when it’s being extracted the aroma fills the house. It’s a pity I can’t bottle the smell, I think it’s be a good seller as an eco-perfume.