Words and pics by Jo BELASCO, a former allotmenteer, forager, amateur herbalist, pickler and jam maker who squeezed her allotment greenery into her tiny garden.

Now pain killers are rationed – it’s time to start thinking about making our own medicines.

Are you going to be driving down your road and see me scraping the bark off white willow trees to brew my own aspirin? – no!
But in recent years I have started growing mullein in my garden as every year I buy mullein oil for ear aches or glue ear.
I noticed some growing in the wild and took some seeds so that now I have my own patch for our own family’s use. From the garden to the kitchen and then the flower heads are stewed in warm vegetable oil for 5 or 6 hours, strained and decanted into little bottles with pipettes.
Witch hazel is another staple in my medicine cabinet and all you have to do is boil some twigs up, then sieve when cooled, to replicate what you can buy.
With many items becoming harder to get its just gives a person a feeling of security to know we can partially go back to making our own!

Photo: Jo Belasco

Before the 1940s, most families kept what medicines they had in the kitchen but that all changed. Medicines became things we bought and then stored in a cabinet in the bathroom. The connection between kitchen, garden and medicine was, if not quite severed, greatly reduced.

We still make honey and lemon for a sore throat and chicken soup for someone recuperating but its maybe time to extend the repertoire!