Handcrafted Herbals

🌼 Wild Radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) is growing in the chicken coop.🐔

Another different w**d to try in next week's workshop salad!

🌿 Wild Radish is one of those plants that many people pull out as a w**d without realising how useful it can be. The pale yellow, four-petalled flowers with their delicate dark veins, along with the rough, hairy leaves and stems, make it relatively easy to identify once you know what to look for. Later in the season, it produces distinctive beaded seed pods that help confirm its identity.

🥗 Like many members of the mustard family, wild radish is edible. The young leaves have a peppery flavour that works well in salads or cooked like spinach, while the flowers make a colourful garnish. The young seed pods can be eaten fresh or pickled, and even the root is edible when young.

Another reminder that some of the most valuable plants are often growing right under our feet—we just need to learn how to recognise them. 🌿

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🐝 🔐 While filming the bee hive and watching one of the "security guard" bees doing his job, I was stung on the cheek.

Guard bees stand at the hive entrance, checking returning bees to make sure they belong to the colony and defending the hive from intruders!

Apparently, I looked suspicious! 😂 One determined guard bee even chased me halfway up the backyard while I waved my arms around like an idiot. It would've looked hilarious!

I applied fresh honey straight from the hive to the sting for about 20 minutes, followed by my charcoal drawing salve. The redness and swelling settled within a few hours.

🐝This week, however, I was stung again on the right temple. Two days later, I developed a swollen eyelid, headache, sore jaw, and numbness through my cheek—a reminder that every bee sting can trigger a different reaction, even from the same hive.

🍯Honey has been used for generations as a simple first aid remedy. It helps soothe the skin, keeps the wound moist, and has natural antibacterial properties.

While it won't always prevent a large local reaction, it can be a wonderful way to support healing after a sting.

Bees may occasionally remind us to respect their space, but they're also incredible teachers—and I'm still fascinated watching these amazing little pollinators do exactly what nature designed them to do. 🐝💛

🌿🪰Meet one of the garden's unsung heroes... the hoverfly!

Right now I have hundreds of gorgeous strawberry flowers as my winter strawberries are booming and ripening on the rock wall. ❤️🍓

Although it looks like a tiny wasp with its orange and black stripes, it's completely harmless and can't sting.

Adult hoverflies are fantastic pollinators, feeding on nectar and pollen from flowers like this strawberry blossom. Even better, the larvae of many species are voracious aphid predators, making them one of the best natural pest controllers you can have in your garden.

If you see hoverflies visiting your flowers, welcome them! They're helping pollinate your crops while keeping pest numbers in check—nature's own little garden helpers. 🌸🍓

🐝 😪 Varroa Mites

We recently discovered that the bee hives have Varroa mites.😥 These tiny reddish-brown parasites attach to honey bees and their developing brood, feeding on them and weakening the entire colony.

As if that wasn't enough, they also spread viruses that can leave bees with deformed wings, shortened lifespans, and reduced ability to forage and care for the hive.

A Varroa infestation doesn't just affect individual bees—it impacts the whole colony. As more mites reproduce inside capped brood cells, bee numbers begin to decline, young bees emerge weaker, and the hive can quickly become stressed. Left unmanaged, Varroa can eventually overwhelm even a strong colony, making it one of the biggest challenges facing beekeepers around the world.

🐝💛 Healthy, thriving bees are so important—not only for producing honey but for pollinating the plants, fruit trees and vegetables that sustain our gardens and ecosystems. Every healthy hive plays a vital role, and these little pollinators are well worth protecting. 🌿🍯

🌿 Compost and Healing....As Above, So Below. As Within, So Without. 🌿

Who would think that composting and healing would have something in common?!?

🧩 I'm always excited about how the puzzle pieces of life fit together, the things I learn are always connected in such a profound way. The more connected you are... the more connections you see 😁❤️

🪵Every layer in this new raised garden bed has a purpose. I started with logs, sticks and cardboard to create the foundation, then added a thick layer of dried deciduous leaves from around the backyard. 🍂

On top of that went fresh comfrey leaves, 🍃followed by another layer of leaves. Next will come grass clippings, more cardboard, more comfrey, and finally a layer of rich soil.

It's a simple system that turns garden "waste" into a living, nutrient-rich bed that will continue feeding itself for years to come.

🍃Comfrey is often called one of the greatest compost plants, and for good reason. Its leaves are packed with nutrients and break down quickly, helping to accelerate decomposition by feeding the microbes and fungi that transform organic matter into fertile soil.

🏥 It's fascinating that the same plant known for encouraging healthy cell proliferation and tissue repair when used topically also speeds up regeneration beneath our feet!

🔁 Nature has a remarkable way of repeating its patterns.
As above, so below. As within, so without. The principles we see in nature are reflected everywhere.

🌱The processes that restore our bodies are often mirrored in the soil that sustains our food. Healthy soil grows healthy plants, healthy plants nourish healthy people, and the cycle continues.

Sometimes the greatest lessons come from simply observing how nature does things.🪵🍂🌱

🌿 Why I plant comfrey under my fruit trees...🍊

Comfrey is often called one of the best companion plants for orchards. Since planting the comfrey under my orange tree last year, I have mature fruit, flowers and immature fruit all at the same time! 😁
The juciest fruit I've ever had, with my biggest orange weighing in at 605gm! 🍊⚖️

🌱Comfreys deep taproot reaches far below the surface, drawing up minerals such as potassium, calcium, magnesium and other trace elements that many shallow-rooted plants can't access.

🍂As the leaves are chopped and dropped around the base of the tree, they quickly break down, returning those valuable nutrients to the topsoil where fruit trees can use them.

🌱Comfrey also acts as a living mulch, helping to suppress w**ds, retain moisture and feed the incredible community of soil microbes and earthworms that keep healthy soil alive.

🍃A simple "chop and drop" a few times a year is often all that's needed. Instead of buying fertilisers, let nature do the work!

Comfrey is one of those remarkable plants that gives back again and again, making it a favourite in permaculture gardens and food forests around the world. 🌱🍊🍎🐝

You can NEVER have enough comfrey! 🌿😁🤣

🍄🌱 Who loves mushrooms? What's popping up in your lawn? 🍄

After taking a closer look, these mushrooms are most likely a species of Gymnopilus, commonly known as rustgills. They often grow in dense clusters from buried wood, old tree roots or decaying stumps, so even though they appear to be growing in grass, they're usually feeding on hidden timber beneath the surface. Their orange-brown caps, darker centres and tough fibrous stems are all characteristic features.

Gymnopilus species play an important role in nature by breaking down dead wood and recycling nutrients back into the soil. They're a reminder that healthy gardens are full of fascinating fungi working quietly beneath our feet. The mushrooms themselves are simply the fruiting bodies of a much larger underground network of mycelium.

⚠️ While beautiful, they should never be eaten unless identified with absolute certainty by an expert. Australia has many orange-brown mushrooms that look similar, including poisonous species. If you discover mushrooms in your garden, it's always safest to admire them, photograph them, and leave them where they are. 🍄✨

🕸🕷🌿 Sheet Web Spiders

Have you ever stepped outside on a cool, dewy morning and noticed what looks like a blanket of white lace spread across the grass?

These incredible structures are the work of tiny sheet-web spiders, whose delicate silk homes are usually almost invisible until thousands of dew droplets reveal their intricate designs.

Although they may look intimidating, these little spiders are completely harmless to people and are some of the garden's hardest workers. They patiently wait beneath or beside their webs to catch tiny insects such as mosquitoes, flies, aphids and other garden pests, helping to keep nature in balance without the need for chemicals.

The next time you spot these sparkling webs, take a moment to appreciate the hidden world beneath your feet. Every thread has been carefully spun overnight by a spider no bigger than a grain of rice, creating a masterpiece that disappears again as the morning sun dries the dew. Nature never ceases to amaze! 🕸️✨

🪹🐦‍⬛ Bird Nests

I absolutely LOVE finding old birds nests. ❤️ I have a few in my collection now, each one completly unique.

🌳 I discovered this one a few days ago beneath a deciduous tree in our backyard after the leaves had fallen, revealing a beautifully crafted home that had been hidden overhead.

Such a magical snapshot of our local environment, incorporating native plants alongside garden species.

🍂Looking closely at the natural materials woven together, I can identify twigs, paperbark, pine needles, dried grasses, which looks like Amaranth seed heads and of course some living Old Man's Beard lichen! 🤣 🌿 I thought this just made it way more special!

Every piece has been carefully chosen to create a nest that is both strong and well insulated. I love their creativity! 🍃🪹

Birds are remarkable builders, using whatever nature provides to create a safe place to raise their young. Finding nests like this is a wonderful reminder to slow down, look closely, and appreciate the incredible craftsmanship and ingenuity of the wildlife sharing our backyards. 🪺🐦

🌿 Herbal Workshops 🌱💜🌈

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