Handcrafted Herbals

🌸🌻 Winter Flowers... 🌼🌷

So many flowers are blooming! Spring will be amazing ❤️🌸

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🌿WORKSHOP DAY!🍓🍊🌸🫛

Trying not to eat everything as I pick it 😳🤣🌱

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🌿 Nodding Top (Cyanthillium cinereum) – More Than Just a W**d 🌿

Often overlooked, Nodding Top (Cyanthillium cinereum) is an edible wild green with a long history of traditional medicinal use. Its young leaves and shoots can be eaten fresh or cooked, while the plant has traditionally been used to support digestion, reduce inflammation, ease fevers, support urinary health, and aid wound healing. It has also been studied in Thailand for its potential to help reduce ni****ne cravings.

It's a great reminder that many of the "w**ds" growing in our backyards have been valued as food and medicine for generations. The more we learn to identify them, the more we discover what nature has been providing all along. 🌿

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🍓🌿❤️ Winter Strawberries

Finding the hidden gems in the strawberry patch, way more than I thought today. 😁

🦘 Black-striped Wallaby 🦘❤️

I think this beautiful mum and her little joey might be a Black-striped Wallaby!

They're one of Australia's shyest wallabies!
I accidentally startled her while trying to get some footage this morning, and she was gone in an blur... I've never seen a wallaby move so fast! 😳

The more I watch the wildlife around our place, the more I realise we don't just have one kind of wallaby visiting. I think there are a few different species, which makes every evening and early morning around the garden a little adventure.

I absolutely love these unexpected encounters. The other night I came home to another wallaby eating the clover at my front door, no barking dogs here... just a cute face looking at me as I interrupted her dinner . 🦘😁🌿

This morning watching this tiny joey peeking out from Mum's pouch was such a special moment, even if it was a very brief one. Nature always seems to have another surprise waiting for me to capture. 💚🌿

🌼 Wild Radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) is growing in the chicken coop.🐔

Another different w**d to try in next week's workshop salad!

🌿 Wild Radish is one of those plants that many people pull out as a w**d without realising how useful it can be. The pale yellow, four-petalled flowers with their delicate dark veins, along with the rough, hairy leaves and stems, make it relatively easy to identify once you know what to look for. Later in the season, it produces distinctive beaded seed pods that help confirm its identity.

🥗 Like many members of the mustard family, wild radish is edible. The young leaves have a peppery flavour that works well in salads or cooked like spinach, while the flowers make a colourful garnish. The young seed pods can be eaten fresh or pickled, and even the root is edible when young.

Another reminder that some of the most valuable plants are often growing right under our feet—we just need to learn how to recognise them. 🌿

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🐝 🔐 While filming the bee hive and watching one of the "security guard" bees doing his job, I was stung on the cheek.

Guard bees stand at the hive entrance, checking returning bees to make sure they belong to the colony and defending the hive from intruders!

Apparently, I looked suspicious! 😂 One determined guard bee even chased me halfway up the backyard while I waved my arms around like an idiot. It would've looked hilarious!

I applied fresh honey straight from the hive to the sting for about 20 minutes, followed by my charcoal drawing salve. The redness and swelling settled within a few hours.

🐝This week, however, I was stung again on the right temple. Two days later, I developed a swollen eyelid, headache, sore jaw, and numbness through my cheek—a reminder that every bee sting can trigger a different reaction, even from the same hive.

🍯Honey has been used for generations as a simple first aid remedy. It helps soothe the skin, keeps the wound moist, and has natural antibacterial properties.

While it won't always prevent a large local reaction, it can be a wonderful way to support healing after a sting.

Bees may occasionally remind us to respect their space, but they're also incredible teachers—and I'm still fascinated watching these amazing little pollinators do exactly what nature designed them to do. 🐝💛

🌿🪰Meet one of the garden's unsung heroes... the hoverfly!

Right now I have hundreds of gorgeous strawberry flowers as my winter strawberries are booming and ripening on the rock wall. ❤️🍓

Although it looks like a tiny wasp with its orange and black stripes, it's completely harmless and can't sting.

Adult hoverflies are fantastic pollinators, feeding on nectar and pollen from flowers like this strawberry blossom. Even better, the larvae of many species are voracious aphid predators, making them one of the best natural pest controllers you can have in your garden.

If you see hoverflies visiting your flowers, welcome them! They're helping pollinate your crops while keeping pest numbers in check—nature's own little garden helpers. 🌸🍓

🐝 😪 Varroa Mites

We recently discovered that the bee hives have Varroa mites.😥 These tiny reddish-brown parasites attach to honey bees and their developing brood, feeding on them and weakening the entire colony.

As if that wasn't enough, they also spread viruses that can leave bees with deformed wings, shortened lifespans, and reduced ability to forage and care for the hive.

A Varroa infestation doesn't just affect individual bees—it impacts the whole colony. As more mites reproduce inside capped brood cells, bee numbers begin to decline, young bees emerge weaker, and the hive can quickly become stressed. Left unmanaged, Varroa can eventually overwhelm even a strong colony, making it one of the biggest challenges facing beekeepers around the world.

🐝💛 Healthy, thriving bees are so important—not only for producing honey but for pollinating the plants, fruit trees and vegetables that sustain our gardens and ecosystems. Every healthy hive plays a vital role, and these little pollinators are well worth protecting. 🌿🍯

🌿 Compost and Healing....As Above, So Below. As Within, So Without. 🌿

Who would think that composting and healing would have something in common?!?

🧩 I'm always excited about how the puzzle pieces of life fit together, the things I learn are always connected in such a profound way. The more connected you are... the more connections you see 😁❤️

🪵Every layer in this new raised garden bed has a purpose. I started with logs, sticks and cardboard to create the foundation, then added a thick layer of dried deciduous leaves from around the backyard. 🍂

On top of that went fresh comfrey leaves, 🍃followed by another layer of leaves. Next will come grass clippings, more cardboard, more comfrey, and finally a layer of rich soil.

It's a simple system that turns garden "waste" into a living, nutrient-rich bed that will continue feeding itself for years to come.

🍃Comfrey is often called one of the greatest compost plants, and for good reason. Its leaves are packed with nutrients and break down quickly, helping to accelerate decomposition by feeding the microbes and fungi that transform organic matter into fertile soil.

🏥 It's fascinating that the same plant known for encouraging healthy cell proliferation and tissue repair when used topically also speeds up regeneration beneath our feet!

🔁 Nature has a remarkable way of repeating its patterns.
As above, so below. As within, so without. The principles we see in nature are reflected everywhere.

🌱The processes that restore our bodies are often mirrored in the soil that sustains our food. Healthy soil grows healthy plants, healthy plants nourish healthy people, and the cycle continues.

Sometimes the greatest lessons come from simply observing how nature does things.🪵🍂🌱