Herbal Tutorials

Elderberries are one of the great gifts of the late summer hedgerow, and elderberry syrup is the classic way to preserve them. In this short film I show how I turn a basket of freshly picked berries into a rich, dark syrup that keeps the taste of the harvest going long after the season has turned.

Always cook elderberries before eating them, and take care to pick only the ripe black berries, leaving the stems and leaves behind. Once ready, I freeze the syrup into ice cubes; an ice cube a day is a lovely way to remember summer through the colder months.

The kitchen cupboard is full of everyday spices that can be turned into simple, warming anti-inflammatory preparations, and in this short film I share how I work with turmeric, ginger, black pepper and coconut oil at home. These are ingredients most of us already have to hand, not herbs gathered from the hedgerow, so the method is easy to follow and make your own.

As with all home preparations, the quality of the finished remedy comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the care taken with them, so I always choose good, unrefined coconut oil and fresh, fragrant spices.

A single pine tree offers far more than most of us realise.

In this short film, I take you through the process of working with pine, from identifying and gathering the fresh needles to turning them into a collection of simple preparations, including tinctures, infused oil, an elixir, salve and tea.

You'll see how I prepare fresh pine needles for tincturing, packing them into jars and covering them with alcohol before leaving them to extract for around six weeks. I also share some of the other ways I use different parts of the tree, including pine pollen.

This is traditional home herbalism at its simplest: learning to recognise the plants and trees around us, understanding how they can be prepared, and making use of what nature provides.

If you're inspired to try making your own preparations, correct identification is essential. Harvest responsibly, take only what you need, and never gather from a tree unless you are completely certain of its identity.

One tree. Many gifts.

A salve is one of the simplest herbal preparations to make at home and one of the most useful to have in the cupboard. In this short film from the apothecary bench I show the way I make mine: herbs are slowly infused into cold pressed olive oil, the oil is strained, then it is gently warmed with local Welsh beeswax and poured into 50ml tins to set.

The method stays the same whichever herb you choose, so once you have watched it through you can work with whatever grows near you. The beeswax sets the oil into a balm that stays put on the skin, and the ratio of wax to oil is what decides whether your finished salve is soft and buttery or firm.

If you would rather have one ready made, every salve in the shop is made this way in small batches here in Mid Wales.

Late summer is the season for blackberries, and the hedgerows here in Mid Wales are heavy with them. Blackberry leather is my favourite way to preserve a glut: the berries are blended, the puree is spread thinly and then dried until it is chewy and rich, with no need for a lot of sugar.

Once it is dry I cut it into strips and roll them up, then store them in the freezer. Pulling a strip out in the depths of winter gives you a real taste of summer sunshine, and it makes a lovely snack on its own, chopped into porridge or tucked into a lunchbox.

Blackberries are one of the most abundant wild fruits in Britain, free and right on our doorsteps, so this is a good place to start if you are new to foraging and preserving.