Strawberry plants?

[leedarkwood]

If anyone has any spare strawberry plants, I have very good comfrey on offer, or exchange for my own comfrey and elder ointment or some soap?

[pureportugal]

hi lee
sorry i can't send you strawberry plants from portugal (had the first ripe ones last week - yummy!) but i would love a recipe for comfrey ointment! i have loads of comfrey but have never seen elder growing here.
xx sophie

[leedarkwood]

This is the time of year I find best for making Green Elder Ointment, here is the recipe

Also called `oil of swallows' as you make it in the spring, when the
swallows return! I try to make some between the time the Elder trees
leaf and the flowers are just ready to come out, but a few weeks late
does not seem to matter. Pick all fresh ingredients on a dry day.

Ointments have two parts, the active ingredients and the base. I use
solid vegatable oil for the main base, (the Trex type of stuff, use a
supermarkets own brand) and add a little glycerine, so that it is
slightly softer and easier to use. Solid veg oil goes into the skin
better than the oily bases of things like germaline, which just sits
there. Ok if licked as well.

Things to do

Find:

A selection of small jars, the ones on hotel breakfast tables for
jams are ideal. Wash.

An elder tree.

Pair of tights, pop sox etc.

Buy:
1 or 2 blocks of solid veg oil.
I small bottle glycerine, (comes in a bottle like food colouring)
This is not essential, just makes getting it out of the jar easier in
cold weather.

Some ounces of dried lavender flowers, I use a good hand scoop full per block. Should leave you enough left over for sewing little
sachets for Christmas presents!

Ditto of dried comfrey leaves if you have not got any plants of the
stuff. If you haven't, let me know, I am trying to hack it back and
will give you plants.

How to make.

Pick around half a carrier bag of leaves, this should be plenty. Take
them off the stalks but don't get picky. Flower buds are ok,

Pick about half quantity fresh comfrey to fresh elder.

Heat a large saucepan, give yourself some room here. Melt oil. Add
some fresh leaves.

NOTE: You are not frying stuff. If things start to crisp, oil is
way too hot. You want it clear looking, but no smoke coming off.
Fresh leaves should go into the oil and start looking sad and limp,
turning the oil gradually green as the active oils in leaves goes
into the base. If this is not happening, after say five minutes,
turn heat up.

After first handful of leaves looks like over cooked spinach, replace
with new leaves. You will need to do this over and over till oil
goes green

If you are using dried comfrey, do elder first. You are looking for
oil to be a nice deep green colour. Add dried comfrey to this and
cook a bit longer, maybe five minutes, keep the heat down, be gentle
with it.

You will now have either a pan of green oil and a sad heap of cooked
leaves, (fresh comfrey option)

Or a pile of cooked elder and a pan full of green oil covered bits!
Don't worry

Make enough room for the lavender and let it fill the air with nice
pong. Five minutes cooking should extract oil,

Now stretch a tights foot over a bowl or jug, and spoon contents of
pan into it.

Oil will run through, but there is a lot of good stuff in with the
leaves. Wait until it is just cool enough to hold, and start
squeezing. This is really good for your hands, but watch out for the
heat inside, don't burn yourself. Things tend to get a bit messy at
this point. Don't waste any, scrape hands off into bowl. Don't
worry about the odd speck of leaf.

Now keep an eye on it, it will change colour as it starts to set.
When it is cool but still pourable, add glycerine, half bottle per
block of oil. Stir really well, (it tends to settle to bottom) and
pot up.

Reason for doing this.

Elder is a powerful wound cleaner, it gets gunk out amazingly. It
also seems to stop irritation, great with allergic problems.

Comfrey kick starts the healing system.

Lavender is an antiseptic, and stops the ointment smelling like bad
cabbage.

Use on well, everything. I have used it with success on eczema,
cuts, sores, boils, wounds, boy's knees, horses heels, (greasy heel? My vet called it) invisible problems that children can see but you can't, dry skin, lab workers split skin (chemical reaction?), pigs, cats, dogs, and goats. A pot is always inside the porch, ready for any problems and has been for the last 18 years, since I started this. I must have given hundred of pots away. It is amazingly cheap and effective.

NOTE: on unco-operative animals, heat ointment in spoon over candle
until it just melts. Pour over wound. Gets them every time!

..................
Ointments can be made from just comfrey (though the full recipe is far, far better) or you can make one from marigolds for small burns.

[pureportugal]

thanks for the recipe. definitely going to have a go but i don't have any elder so will try with just the comfrey and lavender - which we have lots of - i'll have to remember to dry the flowers so i can use them all year!

if you have a lot of comfrey you need to get rid of it's fantastic added to the compost heap or make comfrey tea to use as liquid fertiliser - great stuff.
you can also make a compress for wounds by just cooking up a handfull with a little water until you get a green mush. also very good for eczema and i used it after i had an operation to help the tissue heal.

[hedgewitch]

That sounds fantastic lee, I especially like the bit about invisible problems that children can see but you can't
Sadly, I only started my Comfrey last year so it's not big enough to harvest and I've never seen it growing wild here as of yet, but for sure you could use other Herbs for this simple yet effective method.
Thanks for sharing.

[Millymollymandy]

hi lee

Well that was a bit messed up... 8)8)

And your meaning? Or are you just here to promote your poker game, which hasn't got a lot to do with self-sufficiency, has it?

[Muddypause]

He's almost certainly the alter ego of 'shelf570' who was also doing this a while ago. Personally, I'd zap his messages and his membership, though this one seems determined enough to register in the first place. I'd guess by the meaninglessness of the posts, it may be an automatic posting thing.

MMM, it looks like you've been busy; we seem to have been getting a few zappable posts lately, and looks like you might be the only moderator around at the moment.

[Millymollymandy]

I deleted all the rest of his/her messages but this one I left (for fun?!) but deleted the website plug.

I can't delete members though - wonder if Wombat is still around or already left for Belgium?

[diver]

thanks very much for the detailed recipe...I have comfrey and lavender and I shall go hunting for elder...I'll have to find out what it looks like. I am baffled about the poker reference..but I think it's probably better that way. Is it someone else advertising?.If so they are probably wasting their time on this site.
I have spare strawberry plants but they are all in little pots....I have been giving them away and I don't think I could get them to Yorkshire intact but am prepared to have a go if anyone has any ideas as how to post them...they are all the runners off my strawberry bed

[Millymollymandy]

Hi Diver - I'm sure if you Google Elderberry you'll get photos of the plant/leaves so you can identify it. It's a pretty common tree/bush, could almost be a weed!

Don't worry about the poker reference, I deleted the link on that person's post. Suppose I should just have deleted the whole post.

[diver]

thanks, M3...just discovered that there are elder trees growing on our allotments ...so in the spring I will have al the fresh ingredients for the ointment

[Shirley]

WOW what a fab recipe! I'll definitely have to give that a go. Haven't got any of the raw ingredients yet, but we are planning our garden as we speak. Want to grow lots... will be planting 300 + trees that should be arriving very soon... and will be growing some native trees from seed as part of the Green Diary (moray & Aberdeenshire) carbon neutral scheme.

(Ina... do you get the Green Diary?? It's FANTASTIC and gives lots of news and diary dates for the north east of Scotland. I used to get it a few years ago and recently tracked it down with some detective work and what a joy it is to read.)

Shirlz

[ina]

Hi Shirlz,
I'm just back on after my time in Shetland... I used to get the Green Diary in shops or at the library, but around here nobody seems to have it. Is there a website, or an address where I could order it?

I want to plant some elder here, too. No reason why there should be any growing, but none seem to be in the wild. Same with sloes.

Ina

[Shirley]

Found this website -

http://www.reap-csv.net/the%20green%20diary.htm

it has news about the Green Diary and also back copies as pdf files going back as far as 2003 - old events, but the news in them is still worth reading.

I hope you had a good time in Shetland - is it snowing with you today?? We've got a fair covering already and there is a weather warning in place but they seem to issue those willynilly at the met office these days. You watch, will be snowed in now that I've said that lol.......

Shirlz xx

[Muddypause]

Welcome back, Ina. Wondered where you'd got to. Bet there was plenty of weather on Shetland at this time of year.

That Green Diary look interesting - I shall have a closer look in a minute, even though I'm nowhere near NE Scotland.