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Borage - effect, application, recipes and seeding
contents
- Occurrence
- names
- Cultural history of cucumber herb
- The hands of Christ
- What is borage??
- blossom
- Ecological benefits
- Borage in the kitchen
- Beware of alkaloids
- ingredients
- Use of borage as a medicinal plant
- Where does borage grow??
- Grow borage
- Borage branches dry
Occurrence
Cucumber herb comes from West Asia, North Africa, South and Southeastern Europe and came in the Middle Ages to Germany as a coveted plant of peasant and monastery gardens. He came into fashion because his flowers and leaves as a miracle cure for melancholy, the former term for a mental state that corresponds to today's depression. Bororrhea spreads rapidly, and it swelled rapidly. Today, the cucumber herb populates America, Australia, the Canaries and the Azores as a neophyte.
Borage belongs to the family Raublattgewächse and is used as a kitchen and medicinal plant. (Image: paulst15 / fotolia.com) names
The taste of the leaves is reminiscent of cucumber, so the borage bears the name cucumber herb. Other names cite its importance as a mood brightener: Herzfreude, Wohlgemutsblume or Liebäuglein.
Cultural history of cucumber herb
From the Middle Ages to modern times, borage was used as a means of purifying the blood and against "excess melancolia". As symptoms of "melancholy" interpreted the contemporaries while sadness, fainting, heart failure, palpitations and fever. The plant also served to soothe people who were "out of their minds", presumably suffering from psychosis or being in a state of mania.
The hands of Christ
The treatment of heart disease with borage flowers and sugar had a religious background and was called "Manus Christi", ie hands of Christ. In the early modern period, the wealthy added to this flower sugar still crushed pearls and gold powder. The flowers of the Raublattgewächses were together with those of violets and ox tongue as the first choice among the medicinal flowers.
1991 was the end of the mass consumption of the "magic leaves". The Federal Health Office declared borage to be unacceptable for therapeutic use because of the toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids contained in the plant.
What is borage??
The Raublattgewächs is one year old, grows up to 70 cm, the stems and leaves carry eye-catching "bristles"; the leaves are dark green and have a lancet shape.
blossom
Borage flowers from May to September with five-fold hermaphrodite flowers in a double pericarp. The sepals are lancet-shaped and the sepals grow together. At first, the stamens bloom and release the pollen, then they wither and the scar picks up the pollen that insects carry with them.
For humans, the flowers look blue, but they have bright signals that insects react to. They are sought after by bumblebees and bees.
The borage is used by bees and other insects as a valuable source of nectar. (Image: paulst15 / fotolia.com) Ecological benefits
The plant is a late bloomer and therefore important for bees, bumblebees and other insects.
Borage in the kitchen
Borage bears the epithet Gurkenkraut, because its taste reminds of cucumbers. Leaves and flowers go well with salad and soups. The Frankfurt green sauce contains the kitchen herb, along with cress, chervil, pimpinelle, parsley and chives. Also cabbage, mushroom soup and the cold kitchen are suitable for borage leaves.
The leaves can also be prepared as vegetables, such as spinach.
Leaves and flowers can be used to flavor cold drinks.
With the sweet flowers you can decorate cakes, jams and other desserts, but they also taste good candied. The flowers are also excellent dried tea. In Iran, this Gole Gaw Zabun is called, and people drink it for coughs like colds, and to calm the nerves.
Beware of alkaloids
Attention: Borage contains poisonous alkaloids that can not be removed by cooking. These serve the plant to prevent predators. In large quantities these substances damage the liver. Moderate consumption, however, is harmless.
ingredients
The plant contains mucilage, tannins, resin, saponin, potassium nitrate, silicic acid, fatty acids and essential oils, as well as vitamin C in a veritable amount.
The seeds consist of up to 38% oil with the highest content of gamma-linolenic acid, plus linoleic acid, oleic acid, palmitic acid, gadoleic acid, stearic acid, erucic acid and nervonic acid.
However, borage also contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and of those 2-10 mg per kilogram in the dry state, including amabilin, intermedin, lycopsamine, supinine, and which are toxic to the liver. That's why we should not eat borage leaves regularly but only sometimes.
In the flowers, seeds or seed oil, these alkaloids are present only in very small amounts.
The Frankfurt green sauce is traditionally made with borage and other herbs such as Parsley, chervil and dill prepared. (Image: ninami / fotolia.com) Use of borage as a medicinal plant
The flowers used in folk medicine for fever, mucous membranes, diarrhea, inflammation, rheumatic complaints and to purify the blood. Borage seed oil can be applied externally to eczema, including against eczema.
Cucumber herb is also used as a remedy for sleep disorders and nervousness, so his old reputation for "fighting melancholy" probably stems. In pharmaceutics, it is a component of cough syrups.
Where does borage grow??
The plant grows wild in Germany in the bank area, in ditches and marshes in middle layers up to 1400 m.
Grow borage
The Raublattgewächs likes a bottom that lets the water through, but is always wet. The plant is annual, and we sow in the field in spring. It is a dark germ, so the seeds need a thick layer of earth above them.
Borage does not tolerate over-fertilized soil and also does not like clay. Loamy soil should therefore be loosened up with sand.
Either we plant it in a swamp bed or on the shore edge, or we pour it in the summer at high temperatures regularly in the evening.
In no case should we use chemical fertilizer (which is anyway a no-go in the nature garden).
If the soil is suitable and the moisture given, we have no problems with the propagation. On the contrary: the plant overgrows the garden by self-sowing.
In May, we sow at a distance of twenty cm per plant and forty cm per row and press each seed about a cm into the ground. If the soil is moist, the seeds germinate after five days.
Cucumber herb needs a moist soil and should not be chemically fertilized. (Photo: lyosha_nazarenko / fotolia.com) As borage proliferates, an open-ground raised bed is an option to limit the wild spread. Pots are not suitable because it forms tap roots.
The spice and medicinal plant is suitable for preserving. This is also necessary, that he brings a big harvest and because of the poison content should not be consumed immediately in these quantities.
Borage branches dry
We harvest only young leaves, from June to October, when we process the borage fresh. For tea blends we pick the whole flowering branches in July and August.
We cut off whole branches, wash them with water and dab them dry. The branches are hung in a warm and dark place and dried there for two weeks. We store this in a container that does not let light through. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
swell
K. Hiller, M.F. Melzig: Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants and Drugs 2010.
http://www.garten-des-lebens.de/bluehender-sommergarten/
http://www.heilpflanzen-online.com/heilpflanzen-a-z/borretsch.html
http://www.kraeuter-buch.de/kraeuter/Borretsch.html
http://www.natur-lexikon.com/Texte/MZ/002/00192-Borretsch/MZ00192-Borretsch.html