Wednesday 30 May 2007

Chamomile


Not only is this a lovely, cheerful little plant, it is so very useful as well. I like that William Morris quote, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." It is something that we have been working on in our home for years. Well, it seems to me that could apply to the garden as well.
E and I spent some time this evening picking the chamomile flowers so that we could pop them in the solar dryer (the dryer is not entirely finished yet because we still need to find something to use as an absorber plate as we want all the parts to be recycled - in the meantime we just put stuff in the dryer on an old blackened cookie sheet ).

Gardening is so much more fun with a helper, even when that helper gets distracted and goes off taking pictures of ladybugs and newly hatched spiders. (Do you say hatched for spiders or is there a better word? Can you ask J please, Katherine?) Anyway here is a batch to get started with, these ones will be used in soap, shampoo, hair rinses and skin balm. The boys are going to learn to make soap and since our lavender is almost ready it seems like a good time to learn.

4 comments:

Katherine said...

Wow! That's quite the crop of chamomile, Heather. Love the sound of all the body care items you will make using the chamomile. You could have quite the little cottage industry making such stuff...

As far as I know, "hatched" is the term to use for the spiderlings. What kinds of spiders did E find hatching?

Nicola said...

So that's why you wanted the soap recipe! I love daisy-type flowers - they are so cheerful.

Mary-Sue said...

WOW! How do you grow chamomile? is it a perennial? or a seed? (to share! hee!) guess what cute little flower will be gracing my garden NEXT year? can't wait to hear how your soaps turn out. wow!

Anonymous said...

Nice story, thank you! Does naybody know a good soap recipe with a daisy-type aroma? Please post it, and I will be glad to add it to my collection of soap recipes here. thanks!