Yarrow and Oregano wildharvest!

Yarrow and Oregano wildharvest!

A casual visit to the garden can turn into a wildharvest excursion, if you let it!

Some days ago a usual scenario unfolded in our household: I was pretty busy with things around the house and would be happy to be left alone and keep doing what I was doing, when my little one asked that we go to the garden; he would not take no for an answer! He wanted to check whether there were any asparagus ready to harvest! So we went to the garden, and I took the opportunity to look at my plants and see whether everything was doing well. Looking at my oregano, one of the hardiest garden plants, that comes back every year and seems to be getting bigger and bigger, I remembered the wild oregano patch we had found last year close to the entrance of our property. I had harvested some and used it to make oregano infused oil. I remembered how healthy and abundant this wild oregano looked. So I asked my son if he wanted to go harvest the wild oregano. I anticipated his response: He jumped at the opportunity! On the way we saw the yarrow and, well, we could not resist! We took out our shears and got to work! The yarrow was so fragrant! This would be the first yarrow harvest of the year! 

 

Before getting carried away though and forgetting our initial intent, I urged my son to go to the oregano patch and see what it looked like. He ran down to where the oregano was last year, and to my surprise, the oregano patch was much bigger now! What a beautiful and fragrant plant it is! We got to harvesting and by the time we decided we had a good quantity our bowl was overflowing with yarrow and oregano!

Back home, I got to work cutting off the flowery tops of the yarrow plant and taking off the healthy leaves and placing them in a wide mouth quart jar. I just cut the oregano into pieces small enough to fit easily into a wide mouth jar. I use all the plant for the oregano oil whereas I only use the flowery top and the leaves for yarrow.

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Yarrow’s latin name is Achillea Millefolium, and as is the case with it’s Greek name, refers to the ancient Greek hero Achilles. According to the myth Achilles used this plant to treat the wounds of his soldiers. 

Yarrow flowers and leaves are traditionally used in the treatment of slow healing wounds. Yarrow oil or salve is applied on the skin to treat irritations, rashes, cuts and scrapes while preventing infection and helping them to heal faster without scarring. The fresh herb is often used to make salves since it contains volatile oils and resins that repair tissues and have an antiseptic and anti-inflammatory effect. Yarrow has also been found to cut down on pain in abrasions.

We are fortunate enough to have Yarrow growing around us everywhere and are able to wildharvest it from our property and make our aromatic yarrow oil with it. With the oil we then make our Yarrow Salve.



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