When you think of all the pests that menace garden flowers and vegetables, the score for herbs is very low, perhaps owing to the potency of their aromatic oils, many of which insects of all descriptions cannot stand. So great is their dislike for garlic chives, tansy, rue, lavender, santolina, that they will never come near them; so these herbs together can be made into a very powerful insecticide. Wormwood and southernwood are other pungent herbs which no predator will eat or destroy, because of the strong smell of ether given off from their foliage.

So in this way these herbs can help keep the rest of the garden free of pests if planted amongst the flowers and shrubs, and if bruised gently to free their aromatic oils. One large rose nursery, now sells plants of garlic chives with each rose order, to keep the aphis away and increase the perfume of the roses. It really works!

If you have only a small herb patch, insects are best removed by hand. This does not involve much time or trouble, and you know then you have herbs in perfect condition for the table or the hot “brew”. However, if you cannot keep an eye on the plants each day, you may prefer to spray or dust them with several of the following:

Derris dust is a pure organic powder made from the derris root. It kills on contact caterpillars and grasshoppers, but is even more effective when mixed with pyrethrum (Pyrethrum cinerariafolium), the South African plant which now figures largely in many proprietary insect sprays. Incidentally, this plant is not the ordinary white garden Pyrethrum Daisy, which has no effect on insects at all. If you can obtain both of these unadulterated by chemical additives, you can spray or dust your herbs just before dusk, and have them safe by morning, ensuring that the bees will not be driven away or killed too. Both these preparations have been extensively tested and found to be safe for human or animal consumption, provided the recommended instructions as to the amount to be used are followed.

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When my sons were young and going to kindergarten, my friends and I often sorted out all our own and the world’s troubles standing on the footpath beside a car-load of impatient children waiting to be taken to or from. We were christened the “footpath philosophers”.

The knowledge of herbs and their uses I have gained since that time has changed altogether some of the views I held then. No longer does it seem so important to “get on in the world”. Now I feel that a natural and satisfying existence can be more readily attained by sacrificing much of the technology and artificiality of that life presented to us as “good” in our constant exposure to advertising and economic pressure.

Do we have to consume foods with all the vitality processed out of them, because we have never bothered to find out for ourselves the nutritional gap between them and natural foods? (It’s so easy to open a packet!) Do we have to take pills and potions blindly, without inquiring into their long-term effects and the unnatural body balance they create? Doctors are not really to blame. They can prescribe only what is available and publicized to them by the drug and chemical companies, who, after all, are not philanthropic organizations, but competitive businesses required by their shareholders to make a sizeable profit. How many times has someone said to you, “The pills I had to take made me feel worse than the disease did in the first place.”

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Homemade rosemary oil can be used like thyme oil to dispel a headache caused by overstrain or prolonged concentration, and prevent unwanted crows’-feet forming around the eyes. Just rub a few drops into the temples, and feel the tension relax in minutes.

Dried rosemary and coltsfoot have been used together with sage to make a smoking mixture that will not irritate a sufferer from asthma who refuses to give up his beloved “chimney”. This mixture is not only quite harmless, but is indeed beneficial to health, for these herbs are used to combat chest, lung and throat complaints medicinally. A quick whizz through the kitchen blender will shred the herb “tobacco” nicely for you.

On the food front, rosemary oil can be rubbed over a joint before baking. Cut a few slits here and there in the meat and rub the oil well into them. I have already mentioned its wonderful way with the lowly sausage. Add a rosemary sprig to all boiled meats, corned beef, lamb and pork. Ham, either baked or boiled, must have rosemary to give it that pine flavour and perfume. Be a bit sparing with the fresh herb until you find your family’s tastes. One lady complained sadly to me that her husband and children would not eat the lamb she had roasted with rosemary. She had cut many little slits in the skin and put a large sprig of rosemary in each one —baked rosemary flavoured with lamb! Just add a little at first. Too much can be overpowering.

Rosemary and remembrance are often mentioned in the same breath. The origins of its association with memory and constancy, friendship and trust, go back to man’s very earliest records in the western parts of Asia where it was grown on the graves of ancestors to invoke their help and guidance for the living. Sprigs are still traditionally carried at weddings, and also at funerals, and on many occasions where solemn vows and pledges are made. Rosemary tea was taken to improve and strengthen the brain and failing memory.

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Marrubium vulgare LABIATAE

This is one herb which has proved invaluable to me. Everyone knows the prickly sensation in throat and nasal areas which heralds an old-fashioned, heavy cold. I have proved to my own satisfaction, over and over again, that 8 or 10 small leaves of horehound, crushed and eaten slowly mixed with a tablespoon of honey to counter their very bitter taste, can stop a cold before it really starts if taken as soon as the first uncomfortable “cold feeling” is noticed, within the hour if possible. You can repeat the treatment again several times during the day to be doubly sure if you wish; it will not do you any harm, and the natural vitamin C will most certainly do you good.

I must admit this sounded too good to be true to me when I read repeatedly in old (and newer) herbal writings, “fresh leaves of horehound will ward off colds”. However, I have proved it so often now that I no longer doubt the skill and knowledge of the first herbalist to discover its uses to man, and to prescribe it for colds and chest complaints. Plant minerals and vitamins are easily assimilable into the human body, and quickly go to work against that unnatural state called “illness”.

Horehound has been prescribed for many generations for chest, nasal and sinus congestion, and was often an ingredient in snuff, a social habit that should be revived for its healthy protective cleansing of the nasal area.

The popularity of horehound beer for sufferers from any of these conditions has carried down from the Middle Ages to our own day. One large commercial group I know of markets many thousands of bottles of horehound beer yearly.

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Nepeta cataria LABIATAE

Catmint, or catnip, is a delicately perfumed shrubby perennial, growing some 2 to 3 feet high and about 3 feet across. It has pale soft-green serrated leaves set opposite on rather woody stems, and beautiful tiny creamy flowers with a mauve patch, growing in clusters at the stem tips for most of the spring and summer. If the bush is cut back hard after each flowering flush, it will come again with renewed vigour. The seed is tiny, and the best method for harvesting is to cut the ripe branch, shake it upside down in a plastic bag, and recover the seed by putting the resulting mixture of pods, stems and trash (and probably one or two bugs) through a fine tea strainer.

The plant can be propagated by dividing the clump, or severing some of the new outside growth from the side of the clump with a sharp spade and planting anew. Layering is also a useful and time-saving way of increasing your plants.

In the eighteenth century tainted meat seemed to be the usual fare for those too poor to obtain regular fresh supplies. With no refrigeration, meat was salted or stored in cool rooms, in wired pantries or primitive “cooling boxes”, and various methods were used to take away its strong rather off-putting taste and aroma. Catnip, being a native of Britain, was one source of a readily available, pleasant purifier for meat that was to be stewed. It was often cooked with the meat or steeped with it in water for many hours before cooking. Another way of purifying meat was quoted by Audet in 1818 in the City and Country Cookbook: “The best way to rescue meat with a bad taste: drop the meat into boiling water. When foam appears on the surface, remove from fire and drop in two red-hot coals.

When the coals have ceased to hiss, the meat is ready for use.” Perhaps catmint was a more pleasant alternative.

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