Butterflies in the Garden

Gardens are a lovely place to enjoy birds, bees and butterflies. Do you want to attract  more butterflies to your garden? Besides being beautiful to watch, butterflies also pollinate our gardens.

Butterflies eat liquids that include the juice from fruit and the nectar of flowers. You can probably attract some by leaving out pieces of cut fruit for them to dine on. Butterflies eat, or rather drink through their proboscis.  Flowers that butterflies love include lemon balm, lavender, fennel, anise hyssop, bee balm, catnip and yarrow. These are all herbs that we grow on our Colorado Aromatics farm.

proboscis

proboscis

proboscis

Be sure to feed the larvae, or caterpillars too. This early stage eats only leaves and includes many vegetable plants unfortunately, but also clover, fennel, hollyhock, hops, lilac and mallow.

Want a butterfly to land on you? They enjoy the salt in sweat, so exercise a little first to increase the likelihood of one landing on you. Butterflies are very active during the day looking for food. At night, they tend to sleep on the underside of leaves or in small crevices between rocks.You can also build them a house that has narrow openings where they can hide.

A butterfly has 4 stages to its life cycle. The egg,  caterpillar (or larva), chrysalis (or pupa) which overwinters on a plant, and the butterfly. The lifespan of a butterfly is only 2-4 weeks, so enjoy them while they are around.  There are 28,000 different types of butterfly species worldwide, find out about species that are common near you.

Beer Brewing Herbs

If you like beer you may be interested in growing some of your own ingredients. Hops are the most common herb used in beer and are used for  bittering. They are relatively easy to grow and make a nice vine to grow up your deck or elsewhere.

hops

I've been reading "The Homebrewer's Garden" by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher which details many of the other herbs that are and have been used in beer.  I was not only amazed at how many herbs have been used in beer but also realized that I grow many of these herbs.

Hops are my favorite as I am a fan of great IPA's. They not only bitter the beer it but to create a variety of unique flavor profiles that include floral, piney and citrus. There are some beers that taste very similar to grapefruit juice just becasue of the hops they use. If you are not a beer drinker you may not realize that there are actually many different varieties of hops all producing different aromas and flavors in a beer because of their alpha and beta acids.
 
We grow hops here on the farm and use them in dream pillows as they are a good for destress and to promote sleep. You may have experienced relaxation after you've had a few beers! Hops are also good for skin care and help decrease irritation and promote hydration. I've written about the benefits of hops before, here.

thyme

There are additional herbs that are used in beer for bittering, flavoring and giving the beer a nice aroma.

Herbs used for bittering include yarrow, horehound, sage, dandelion, costmary, and clary sage. They are typically added at the beginning of the boil phase and need to be balanced with hops which are also bitter.

Flavoring herbs include rosemary, hyssop, borage, oregano, mint, bee balm/monarda, lemon balm, sweet woodruff, marjoram and thyme. Add these carefully as they can have rather strong flavors. They can be added at the beginning or near the end of the boil.

Other herbs can be added for aroma including rosemary, hyssop, lavender, chamomile, lemon balm, bee balm, elder flowers. If adding them for aroma they are added toward the end of the boil. 

Yarrow apparently was commonly used to bitter beer before hops were used, a beer known now as Gruit Ale. I don't know if any commercial brewers use this but I did find a lot of interest in it on several beer brewing websites.

Other herbs that I grow that are used in beers are Horehound, Coriander, Summer savory, Nasturtium, Raspberry Fruit, Rhubarb, Rose Hips and Valerian leaf. Not mentioned in the book, but herbs I think would be great in beer include rose petals, red clover, violets, calendula, salad burnett, and feverfew.

I'd love to taste a good hoppy IPA that is flavored with lavender. I've seen several Saison styles with lavender but never an IPA. So, local breweries, make my dream come true please!

Besides using these herbs in beer, they can be used for skin care and bath herbs. Beer Spa is a concept that is gaining in popularity and many of these herbs can be used in conjunction with beer to provide skin benefits. We just put on a beer spa event and hope to do more in our area.

Yarrow

I am trying to learn more about the native herbs that grow in Colorado so I can rely less on the European herbs that were transplanted here. Did you know that the common yarrow which is native to Colorado has been called ‘field hops’ because it can be used in making beer? It’s young leaves are also edible and can be used dried or fresh in soups and stews. Medicinally, yarrow is an antiinflammatory herb and contains a high amount of saponins which are cleansing, or sudsing agents. Yarrow is also useful for calming irritated and inflammed skin which makes it great for use in skin care products.  Some herbalists use it for cuts as well as bruises and even as a tea to help with colds and flu.

Here is a great blog I came across about the lore of yarrow. http://blog.whitelotusaromatics.com/2011/10/plant-lore-yarrowmilfoil_02.html 

Do you have a favorite native herb that you use. 

Brewers Herbs

Beer is an ancient drink (and food) that I happen to be quite fond of. I especially like beer with lots of floral hops. Hops were not always used in beer though, and may not have been used until the 9th century. Before that, a mixture of herbs referred to as gruit was used to flavor beer. Although I don't brew beer, I do grow hops and other herbs so am interested in what herbs are used in beer. I recently read "The Homebrewer's Garden" by Joe and Dennis Fisher to learn more about herbs in brewing, a very interesting book by the way.

Here are some of the herbs from this book that grow in my gardens.

Anise Hyssop - provides a licorice flavor to beer.
Basil - adds a slightly bitter, spicy flavor.
Bee Balm - often used as a tea, bee  balm provides a bitter, minty flavor.
Borage - gives a spicy, cucumber like flavor to beer. This herb can also be steeped in wine.
Chamomile (Roman) - is said to be one of the 'secret' herbs in Celis White beer. It gives an apple-like flavoring.
Clary Sage - provides a balsamlike aroma to beer.
Coriander - this is a flavoring in one of my favorite beers; Belgian Whites.
Dandelion - yet another use for this common weed. Use the tender spring leaves in your salad and the larger leaves later in the season to bitter your beer.
Elder - the berries are best know for making wine, but they can also be used to flavor beer. The flowers can be used for 'dry hopping' as well.
Oregano - adds a distinctive flavor to beer.

Horehound - this herb can add a warm, menthol flavor. I wonder if horehound beer can be used to control coughs?
Hyssop officinalis - this herb is used in Benedictine and Chartreuse. Using it in beer provides a minty, medicinal scent.
Juniper - commonly used in gin, juniper can contribute this taste to beer as well.
Lavender - oh, the many uses of sweet lavender. I would love to try a pale ale flavored with lavender. Let me know if you know of one.
Lemon Balm - this is used in many liquours and can add a lemon scent/flavor to beer.
Mint - there are many types of  mint, and although I love a mint tea, I don't know how this would be in beer.
Rhubarb - great in a fruit crisp, this is one fruit that would be interesting in beer.
Rose hips - apparently rose hips are used in some beers from Poland and impart a citrus flavor and red color to beer.
Rosemary - before the use of hops in beer, rosemary was quite popular.
Sage - was used in fifteenth century English beer recipes and adds bitterness and camphorlike scent.
Savory, Summer - provide a peppery, oregano-like flavor and aroma.
Spruce - was popular during the American Revolution spruce adds distinct, woods taste that is popular in winter beers.
Sweet Woodruff - this herb is what makes May wine what it is but can also be used to add a mild, sweet aroma to beer.
Thyme - used to give beer a spicy aroma.
Valerian root - is commonly used as a sedative so what better place to use it than beer?
Yarrow - both the leaves and flowers can be used to bitter beer.

I'd love to see more 'herbal' beers so I hope that if you are a brewer this gives you some ideas - and don't hesitate to share with me! I'd love to write reviews!

Saponins

Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis)

Solanine: a toxic saponin found in the nightshade family

Saponins are plant chemicals are used for their detergent-like or cleaning properties. Some of the better known are Saponaria officinalis from Europe and Quillaja saponaria from South America. Saponin molecules have two parts; a sapogenin attached to a carbohydrate molecule. These two part types of molecules are collectively called glycosides. The sapogenin portion alone, without the carbohydrate or sugar is an aglycone rather than a glycoside. Sapogenins are generally of two types; a steroid like form and a triterpenoid form.

Besides being able to produce a froth in water, saponins have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The sapogenin is hydrophobic (water hating) and the glycoside or carbohydrate is hydrophilic (water loving). This makes saponins in general a natural surfactant as well as a mild emulsifier.

Other plants that produce saponins include yucca, soapwort (Saponaria), licorice, ginseng, yarrow, viola, and soap nuts. Some saponins are also phytoestrogens and react with the estrogen receptor to provide skin benefits.

While I’ve never actually been able to work up a froth from agitating licorice, yarrow or viola, I do think they make nice additions to a mix of bath herbs for their cleansing properties.

Do you ever use saponin containing herbs

Regional Fauna (Ohio and Colorado)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

When traveling I can't help but notice the different plants from one place to another. My first experience in this was moving from Ohio to Northern Arizona for college (yes, ages ago). What a difference it was for me moving from lush, almost jungle like growth to the sparsity of plants growing from rocky soil. It took awhile to appreciate the beauty of those tiny mustards growing out of rock.

After spending this week in Ohio it again makes me realize how different Ohio plants are from those of my new Colorado home. Native plants of Ohio include far more trees than Colorado (much of which is considered grassland) such as maples, birch, buckeyes and oaks. Herbacous plants include meadow rue, rose mallow, black eyed Susans, and milkweed. One of my favorites is wild ginger.

Native Colorado plants I am used to include blue columbine, geranium, blue flax, yarrow, penstemon and grape holly. I'll be sure to plant some of these in my new flower bed next year.

Many of the plants we consider wild however are not natives but plants that have become acclimatized and in some cases are considered noxious because they drive out the native plants changing the ecology of the environment. For instance, burdock grows rampant in the fields in Ohio, but it is not native. It was transplanted from Europe centuries ago. Plantain and red clover, both growing in Ohio and Colorado again were brought over by European settlers probably for their medicinal qualities. Its good to know about native plants in your area so you can help preserve them by doing plantings that include them. Do you try to plant natives in your landscape?