Weeds and Wild Medicine

Reconnect to our native and sometimes not so native) wild medicines. This 8 day course is based in a permaculture project with access to the woodlands and grasslands of Towneley Park. We run the course for one day a month and follow the turn of the seasons. Working mainly outside, we learn to identify wild medicinal plants and follow their growth and change from early spring to late autumn and utilising them in medicine making and wild food. Guided by two qualified and experienced Medical Herbalists, you will learn to make salves, creams, vinegars, tinctures, lotions, herbal oils, honeys, elixirs, teas, nettle beer, fruit leathers, glycerites, hydrosols, flower essences, dandelion coffee, wild garlic pesto,  and more; some of which you will be able to take home for personal use.

.

The cost of the full course (8 days) is £480 which works out at discounted rate of £60 per session.  To do an individual day, the cost is £70.  Payment by installments can be arranged. The cost includes all handouts and products made 

 – The first stirrings of Spring and time go deep into the dark earth and  work with roots and shoots, exploring and working with  kitchen ingredients to add power to our medicines, when there is little growing outside. This is a good time to work with dandelion root, horseradish and burdock root – making fresh dandelion and burdock root tonic,  joint and muscle rub and  dandelion root coffee. Its time to  bury the fire cider vinegar in the cool soil allowing the horseradish, ginger, thyme  and all the lovely warming herbs to infuse for a month.  

  The Greening – See how the land awakens and is filled with lush green medicine. The air is scented with the aroma of wild garlic and there is an abundance of cleansing,  nourishing herbs to help clear out the sluggishness of winter and clear out the last of coughs and colds.

Here we make Wild Garlic pesto, Cleavers succus, Nettle beer, Nettle soup, Spring greens juice. We  dig up the fire cider vinegar put in the earth last month to infuse with healing and roast and grind some of the dandelion we prepared last month for delicious dandelion coffee.

 The First Flowers of Spring - The woods are yellow with archangel and the lawns are dotted with  Daisy and Dandelion flowers.  This month were working with Daisy, Yellow Archangel and Dandelion flower medicine, with a focus on making  herbal oils and salves. Daisy makes an amazing, healing skin salve and lotion and we infuse it with plantain or Elder leaf to use on bruises and cuts. Using the aromatic Lemon balm leaves we make a lush lip balm, excellent for cold sores. This is also a good time to tune into the more subtle realms of plant healing and we make our first flower essences.  

June is a lush and vibrant month. The trees are abundant with blossom, the days are long and the sun  at its highest in the sky. This month we learn to tincture the abundance of summer; working with the medicine of Hawthorn, Lungwort, Lemon balm and Plantain.