GAULTHERIA

The Gaultheria or Checkerberry as it is sometimes called is an evergreen, frost tolerant shrub, which is low growing and spreads to about one metre. It flowers from July to August, and the seeds ripen from October to December. The flowers are hermaphrodite (they have both male and female organs). The plant prefers light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils and can grow in nutritionally poor places. It can grow in full shade or semi-shade and requires dry or moist soil. It can tolerate drought, making it an ideal plant for those awkward spots in the garden or in containers. The plant comes into its own though with other properties that we may not be so familiar with. The fruit can be eaten raw and it has a very strong spicy taste of germolene, (a bit like a hospital waiting room). It improves after a frost. The fruit hangs onto the plant until spring if they are not eaten by birds. The berries can also be used in pies, or made into jams. A very agreeable tea is made from the fresh leaves. A stronger tea can be made by first fermenting the bright red leaves. It is also used to flavour beer, sweets, chewing gum amongst other thing.


MEDICINAL USES
Checkerberry leaves were widely used by the native North American Indians in the treatment of aches and pains and to help breathing whilst hunting or carrying heavy loads. An essential oil (known as 'oil of wintergreen') is obtained from the leaves and contains methyl salicylate, (which is closely related to aspirin and is an effective anti-inflammatory). The plant, especially in the form of the essential oil, is most useful when applied externally in the treatment of acute cases of rheumatism, sciatica. The oil is sometimes used in the treatment of cellulitis, a bacterial infection that causes the skin to become inflamed.

Caution is advised, especially if the oil is used internally, since essential oil is toxic in excess, causing liver and kidney damage. Seek professional advice before you try. The essential oil is used as food flavouring, and in perfumery and toothpastes. So there you have it, this plant has everything, it is a great ground cover and it can also treat your ailments and flavour your ale! Again though a word of caution - make sure you have the right plant and you are sure you are not allergic to aspirin.

Horticultural.

WORKING ORGANICALLY

Photo:Organically grown ornamental onion seed head.

Ian
I get a bit confused when you talk about working organically in the garden. Could you make my life a bit easier by compiling a list that I can work to as a rough guide please. Thank you.
Sam, Carndonagh.


10 STEPS TO WORKING ORGANICALLY

Here is a Top Ten list to be going on with.


Manage the whole garden organically - not just the fruit and vegetables


Make the garden 'wildlife friendly', encouraging natural creatures to control pests.


Learn to distinguish pests from predators


Play to your garden's strengths, capitalising on its particular characteristics


Make soil care a priority


Make compost and leaf mould to feed the soil


Reuse and recycle, to cut down the use of finite resources and reduce disposal problems


Use organically grown seeds as far as possible


Consider the environmental implications when choosing materials for hard landscaping, fencing, soil improvement and so forth


Collect rain water, and reduce the need for watering by improving the soil and growing appropriate plants


Make local sources your first choice


Stop using slug pellets!


Control weeds without herbicides


Avoid the use of preservative treated wood ·



Say 'NO' to genetically modified varieties





Horticultural.

HEDGE BOTTOM

Photo: Nasturtium can brighten up the area underneath old leylandii hedges.

Ian
I have a leylandii hedge around my garden (it was here when I moved in). I keep it under control but over the years the bottom of it had gone bare. It looks unsightly and I was wondering whether it would grow back at all. If not, what could I plant underneath it to tidy it up? Thanks G.B. by e-mail

Reply.
Once a leylandii goes bald there isn’t much you can do to start any regrowth. Like humans though we can cover up those bald patches with a bit of careful planning. If the hedge is large and you have the room, planting Escallonia underneath looks very good and if they are kept watered over the first few years they will establish very well. Leylandii are very thirsty hedges so lots of water will be needed to ensure that they take well If the hedge is north facing, and completely in the shade, or even south facing so completely dry, then do not despair. There is still a plant that could survive such conditions. Try the scented sweet box (Sarcococca confusa). This plant will tolerate the driest dullest place in the garden. The Sarcococca confusa has glossy, dark evergreen leaves with clusters of highly fragrant, creamy-white flowers in winter. There is also the Sarcococca humilis, which is a dwarf, clump-forming shrub with dark green, glossy leaves. In winter, fragrant, pink-tinged white flowers are produced. After flowering, both varieties bear attractive blue-black, non-edible fruits. The height, when established is anything up to up to 60cm. And the plant quickly establishes a great ground cover. Throw on a few nasturtium seeds too for a bit of summer colour

Horticultural.

COOLING TOWERS

WET WET WETTER

There has been a lot of flooding over the last few weeks. I was hearing from people who were in Derry the other week who witnessed the flooding first hand. I was also over in England last week and they too have had their fair share of water. My mothers village was under water last year, not because of rain but because someone (allegedly) forgot to close the sluices on the local reservoir. The people concerned were hosting a party for Dianna Ross and got distracted. The excess water was diverted away from the village back in the 16th century but over time the water has managed to find its original course, which goes straight down the high street underneath everyone’s house foundations. This makes me realise that there is little point in fighting nature, as she will invariably always come out on top.

There are problems that planners encounter as towns and cities grow over the years. Problems such as the size of the storm drains and the fact that in towns and cities there are so few areas for water to soak away that the water just builds up on the surface. Car parking is a big problem in these areas so front gardens have been concreted to accommodate them, which makes it even more difficult to get rid of a heavy shower of rain. There are all sorts of long-term problems that serious flooding can cause. In nature floods bring vital minerals down the hills onto the pasture ground. The unsavoury reality in towns and cities is that the floodwater is usually mixed with raw sewage and that can have a very unpalatable effect on your vegetable plot. Trees and shrubs may suffer too if the roots are under water for longer than a week they are usually severely checked back or even die. If anyone has been affected by flooding they shouldn’t be in too much of a rush to get out into the garden as walking on the wet soil can cause severe compaction of the ground and nothing will grow in it. Shrubs and trees that look dead could always pick up the following year too.

A LOAD OF HOT AIR

We don’t see them around here but cooling towers are a familiar sight in some countries. The purpose of these towers is to cool down the water in the power station after the fuel is burned and steam comes out of the top. There is a nuclear power plant in Dumfries (Scotland!) that is changing to become a wood burning electricity plant in an effort to transform these aging reactors. When it is set up it will generate enough power for 200,000 homes. The plant is going to burn willow, which has been especially grown for the purpose. This idea comes about as there is growing concern as to whether wind farms can bring countries up to the European standard of green energy production over the next few years. Although burning the wood will produce carbon monoxide, the willow plantations that are created to supply the power plant would more than absorb the greenhouse gas. If this one is a success then six more BNFL nuclear plants could undergo similar transformations.

A LOAD OF COLD AIR

We are all familiar with the bouncy castles that adorn front gardens when the kids have a birthday party. A few years ago I was in a town where there was a giant version of an inflatable. The inflatable structure was about as big as two tennis courts and instead of jumping up and down on it you put on a coloured cape and went inside (the cape was supposed to change colour in different rooms and mesmerise people!). The effect when you are inside one of these things is quite stunning as the natural light filters through it are intensified so the whole space glows with a rainbow of colour. The designer, Alan Parkinson has now made a structure even bigger than before and he has called it the ixilum, which is part of a tour called Luminarium. The inflatable is about the size of a football pitch and 26 feet high. You walk into the entrance, take in the colours and curves and hopefully come out again before whole thing is deflated and shipped over to another country. According to reports the inflatable is causing a great deal of interest with all ages.

Update: Last year there was a tragic accident where the inflatable structure was thrown into the air killing the people inside. I have not of heard the inflatable being used again

Environmental.

LOCAL FOOD

Photo: Bottle bank in Buncrana

There is a lot to be said for locally produced goods. Take hay fever cures for example. One of the most effective preventions to this irritation is to have a regular supply of local honey to eat. The fact that bees have collected the pollen from flowers around Inishowen helps the body build up immunity to the allergy in the same way that vaccinations work. Eating locally grown vegetables grown in soil made from composting of home waste is also great for the environment (food not having to travel vast distances) as well as for us -healthy soil means healthy food! The idea is simple and places like the country markets keep the tradition of local trading alive and well. The introduction of products from around the world has largely done away with neighbourhood trading though as we tend to all shop in the supermarkets for the bargains, regardless of where they have been produced. In the same way we buy clothes. Most of the companies here have either closed down or moved to a country with cheaper labour costs. We import an immense amount of goods every year and although Ireland does have a small export trade, a vast amount of our export goods is actually the waste from our everyday lives as consumers. Ireland as a nation exports nearly 1 million tonnes of waste a year. A staggering 800,000 tonnes of this “Green Waste” goes to China, where labour and environmental laws are not as stringent as most European countries.

It is a real eye opener for people who take their cans, bottles and newspapers to the recycling centres around Inishowen to learn that their empty dog food tin ends up in a field in China. The worrying thing about this problem is that the Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t know where all the rubbish goes either, as they can’t keep track of the stuff. Waste is sold on the open market in exactly the same way that any other product is. If someone is out to make a quick Euro, then, just like in any other industry, silly things can happen. One waste broker was quoted to say “Sending the waste over to the other side of the world is favourable to burying it at home.” Comments such as these tend to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of environmentalists as it just moves the problem to the other side of the world and uses a lot of fossil fuel in the process.

Workers in China are reportedly sorting and burning toxic substances out in the open air with no protective clothing. Workers are underpaid and operating in very dangerous conditions. Precious metals such as lead and mercury, which is known as “e-waste” are melted down on open fires and the toxins run directly into the rivers. Chinese environmental authorities have found that more than 70% of the water in five of their seven major river systems is unsuitable for human contact. Plastics are big business as well. More than 3000 tonnes of agricultural film and even more food containers are melted down for recycling, which usually means that the melted down plastic has to be moved from China back to Europe for re processing into other products. The fuel to do this far outweighs the benefits to the environment.

Some of the statistics are enough to make you just give up the recycling habit. There is hope though as companies get more competent. In some countries the collection of waste is in place long before the actual recycling is established. A city in England asked everyone to separate all of the plastic, paper and tins for the bin men to collect. For years the public watched as a lorry collected the different products and threw them all into the same container for disposal in landfills. The council eventually established a network of recycling companies, but it took time. Now markets are in place the products are collected separately, (hopefully it isn’t all going to China). Ireland is just beginning to get to grips with the idea of selling waste as a product. Hopefully the recycling companies will be ethical and sell it closer to home to be processed. We might see recycling companies set up closer to home if they can compete with manufacturing costs. In the meantime we can carry on buying less packaging and composting our green waste in the back garden.

SINUS PROBLEMS

Ian : I have a blocked nose a lot of the time of the time. Someone suggested horseradish as a remedy, how should I take it?

Reply: You can dig up the roots of horseradish plants at any time. These roots can then be ground up to make a powerful sauce that will clear your nose in no time. A word of warning though, the sap is really strong so wear protective gloves and don’t get the liquid anywhere near your eyes. The fumes alone will get your eyes streaming. Here is a recipe to get you started. Don’t give it to anyone who has ulcers or digestive problems!

Traditional horseradish sauce

2 tablespoons full of finely grated horseradish root.
1 tablespoon full of white wine vinegar.
½ teaspoon of mustard.
¼ pint of cream
2 teaspoons full of extra fine sugar (or to taste)
salt and pepper (also to taste)

Mix all of the ingredients, apart from the cream together Whip the cream into a frenzy and then fold into the mixture. Chill to serve.

Horseradish is a bit like chilli peppers. Start by using a small amount and then you can build up slowly. It also goes nicely with roast beef.

Houshold,horticulture,environmental.

TRAVEL SICKNESS

Dear Ian: My family and I enjoy day trips out at the weekends. The experience is being spoiled by both my wife and youngest child being affected by travel sickness. Is there anything natural that we can do to try to eliminate the problem? Regards George by E-mail

Reply:
Motion sickness comes about because your eyes perceive one type of movement whilst your brain is processing another. The phenomenon can affect anyone regardless of the mode of transport being used. A car, bus, boat aeroplane, roundabout or even a swing can bring on nausea and dizziness.

HERBAL REMEDIES FOR MOTION SICKNESS
If you are anxious when travelling then herbs such as passion flower, kava-kava or valerian can be taken to calm you down. Here are a couple of others you could take. Consult the staff at the health shop though if you have any doubts about using them.

Ginger. This root acts as a strong wind dispeller and also settles the stomach. You can take capsules or a tincture, up to three times a day. Take it a few hours before you travel for the best results.

Peppermint: This is one of the most common and oldest remedies for calming the stomach. Tincture can be taken along on trips and drunk with a drop of water. Caution: don’t drink undiluted peppermint essential oil, it could irritate. Use peppermint with caution if you are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Fennel: Fennel seeds have been held in high regard for generations as gentle digestive aids. If you don’t fancy chewing on 20 seeds then the health shop will have some capsules you can take.


HAPPY TRAVELLERS
There are also some other things you could do to reduce the risk of feeling travel sick.

Avoid alcohol, both before and during the trip. It can upset the stomach and also the driver when they have to pull over every ten miles for you to go to the toilet.

If you are on a boat then try to stay as close the centre of the vessel as you can. Go to the upper deck if there is one. If the sea is rough, try to imagine you are on a fair ground ride and go with the ups and downs (I works for me anyway!)

Sit on a cushion so you can see through the windscreen of the vehicle. It helps if you can see the world go by.

Don’t sit in a seat that faces backwards. Trains have these seats and they can make even the most seasoned traveller nauseous.

Wear headphones and listen to soothing music.

Don’t take nutritional supplements on an empty stomach. The same goes for a lot of prescription drugs, they can cause nausea.

Avoid reading or other activities that force you to look down.

Try an acupressure wristband; these can work on some people.

Avoid heavy meals with a high fat content; don’t travel on an empty stomach either.

Keep your area well ventilated. If the cabin is too hot or stuffy this can aggravate the feeling of nausea.

Household,environmental.