In late spring and summer is the time when spices and healing plants are growing literally everywhere in Bozevce. Once you go for a walk, you see mint growing on your right, you might see some Arnica on your left and chamomile between your feet.
We took a bit of time to get into the topic – and now we are collecting different plants for different reasons. Some of them are good for health, some of them taste nice and some of them have even both! So we are drying them and conserving them for winter. Here is a list of the herbs we found around here and what they are useful for. Check it out! Maybe you will find one of the plants in front of your doorstep in the next days. And you will know that you have a useful medicine there or a yummy herb to improve the taste of your next meal. Here is our list (which is definitely not complete):
Daisy (Bellis perennis): This little flower is gorgeous. It is white with a red dot in the middle and the leafs are on the ground and small, long and a bit hairy. It smells good! And the whole plant can be eaten in salad. If you make a cream with the flowers, this cream can calm down your skin after sunburn.
Dandelion (Taraxacum officiale): Dandelion grows everywhere in spring. The plant is up to 25 cm high, the flowers are yellow and the leafs are green and look a little bit like teeth. That’s where the name comes from; it means “tooth of lion”. These leafs are very tasty in salads when they are young. The roots are eatable as well, and from the flower you can make a delicious dandelion “honey”.
Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria): This plant covers the ground in shady areas which get some water from time to time. Its leafs are always arranged in a group of three and the flower looks like elder, which means that it is white and it is arranged in a creeping with white umbels.
Marjoram (Origanum vulgare): This plant has sma
ll leafs which occur more often near the top of the plant on small branches. The flower is pinkish-purple. It gives your food a lovely Mediterranean taste.
Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica): This is a plant almost everybody knows and most of us hate it: Because it hurts you, as soon as you touch it! The leafs are dark green and in a triangular shape and the plant is up to 1.50 m high. The young leafs which do not sting yet are very good in salads and once the plant gets older, you can use it like spinach. But nettle is not only tasty, you can also make a very good fertilizer for your garden with it: Fermented for two or three weeks in water and then sieved, it becomes a good treat for your tomatoes, beetroots and other plants.
Mint (Mentha sp.): There are many different types of mint, but all have long 
green leafs and all have this typical mint smell. They grow up to 70 cm high and the blossom is slightly violet. A tea from it helps against digestion problems and against a cold.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis): If you rub a leaf of this plant between your fingers, your fingers will smell like sweet lemon for a while. You will also feel the tiny little hears on the down face of the leaf 
and the “edges” which let it look like nettle a little bit. Lemon balm can grow up to 80 cm high and it prefers cool and shady places. The blossom is white-blue, small and not very spectacular. The tea of the leafs is good for treating nervous complaints of stomach, intestine and heart. It is anti-depressant and oil of lemon balm can help to heal wounds.
Mallow (Malva sylvestris): This plant has beautiful flowers;
they are red-violet and they have darker stripes and five parts. The leafs are parted into five sections. This plant is marvelous as a tea against colds and it strengthens the immune system in general.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium): Yarrow grows in abundance in grassy places. So everywhere in Bozevce! It has very small, long leafs with a lot of little “fingers” on them. That’s where the latin name comes from: “millefolium” means “thousand fingers”. The flowers are creamy white in clusters and it grows up to 1 m high. The plant has a strong smell. The leafs give your salad a slightly bitter addition. But there is something even better about this plant: A tea from the dried flowers and leafs is a pretty good pain killer. And, given to a bath, it helps to heal wounds and muscle pain.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris): This plant you probably know from pizza. The Italian kitchen is famous for using it which is not astounding since this plant prefers the hot Mediterranean climate. It often grows on rocky places and dry grassland. Thyme basically has tiny leafs and tiny flowers which can appear in different colors. It can be recognized by its characteristic smell. In tea, it helps against colds and in oil it is antibacterial. So if you plan to make your own toothpaste, thyme gives you a good smell and a good outcome in the same time. And of course, it tastes very good on pizza!
Rue (Ruta graveolens): This perennial plant grows up to 50 cm high. It has yellow flowers in a kind of little “crown” at the top of the plant and it has small and long leafs which are arranged to little “hands”. Rue prefers a rocky and sunny surrounding. It helps against blood pressure and vein problems as well as against epilepsy. Furthermore it is good to have one in your property if you have animals since fleas don’t like its smell and so your animals will be free from them.
Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla): This little flower is actually a wonder-healer. The blossom is white with a pretty big and outstanding yellow “ball” in the middle, the leafs look like tiny little feathers. The plant is little itself, it can grow up to 40 cm high, but most of the time it covers the soil on the corner of paths. So watch out, maybe you are stepping on a treasure! The smell is strong and aromatically, and the tea out of the flowers as well. It helps against multiple diseases, first cold, but also womanlike diseases, it brightens up your mood in general and it helps your digestion system. You can also make oil or crèmes for the skin from it and this will calm down irritated skin.
Plantain (Plantago sp.): This is another plant we are often stepping on and we should pay more attention to: Planatain has either big or thin and long leafs, depending on the type of planatain, but they have in common that each leaf has some strong little strings crossing it in a distance of 2-5 mm. The leafs cover the ground, while the blossom grows up on a long steel and looks cylindrical, up to 7 cm long and covered with little pink or white flowers. Tea of the leafs and the flowers helps against cold, chewing the flowers helps against toothache. If you have a stitch of a bee, you rub a leaf between your fingers until the juice comes out and you put the juice on the stitch. The swelling will disappear.
That’s it for now! But before you now start to collect plants and eat them: Check several times if you really have the plant you want! Some of those plants have brothers or sisters which look very similar, but are not good or even poisonous.
Permaculture as a Path to Peace 