When I was a little girl we lived for a time in an apartment off the house of my great-grandparents. The property was nice and large, with a corral and barn in the back and big lawns in the front. It was a great place for a little girl to explore. In the spring time the lawns would be full of fragrant little violets. That was before everyone was so obsessed with thick green lawns of Kentucky blue grass, the lawns were more diverse, along with grass there would be clovers, violets and other such small plants. It was beautiful and healthy for the lawn and land around it. I loved those violets, I would pick them by the fist full and breath in their fragrance.
We lived there a year or two and moved on to a newly built home in a new neighborhood. There were a lot of new lawns and no violets. I think I forgot about them for a few years until we moved again to the most enchanting house. The home was a the long time residence of an elderly couple who had raised their family there and then passed on. They were gardeners and created the most beautiful gardens, the perfect place for such a girl as I was, full of day dreams and stories, always looking for the fairies and talking flowers. There was a particular area on the side of the house that was planted with many low lying trees and to my delight that first spring the fiddle shaped heads of ferns started pushing up. I loved watching those green beauties making their appearance, ferns are very uncommon here in the high desert, this little micro climate was special indeed. Among the ferns, little purple ladies bloomed, my beloved violets! Once again I basked in the beauty and fragrance of my dear little violets.
We left that home too, after a couple years, but I never forgot about my violets and I’ve wondered how to get a hold of these antique spring flowers. Then about a year ago I went to see my sister’s new house, and what was there to greet me at the door? A carpet of sweet little violets “we are here!” they called! This spring my sister brought me a little pot of violets, they will make their home in the orchard meadow among my other little botanical treasures.
Interesting, in the year since I saw the violets at my sister’s house I researched them a little more and found they are a wonderful medicinal.
- Use the leaves, harvested any time, even during flowering.
- Externally: Eases pain and inflammation, heals mouth sores, softens skin, antifungal.
- Daily dose: Use without limit, non-toxic.
- Fresh leaves: in salad, as desired.
- Dried leaf infusion: up to one quart (1 liter).
- Fresh or dried leaf poultice: continuously.
- Internal and external use of violet can shrink a breast lump in a month.
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Not only will my little darlings bring a splash of color and scent to my meadow in the spring she will nourish and heal my body. I am so excited to make violet honey, vinegar, oil and tinctures in the next few years once she is well established here on the farm.
Violet Syrup
Yields 3 cups/750ml
½ lb/225g fresh violets
2 cups/500 ml water
2 cups/500ml honey
Enlist all the help you can to pick violet blossoms. Boil water; pour over blossoms; cover. Let steep overnight in non-metallic container. Strain out flowers. Reserve purple liquid. Alternate method for loners: pour 2 cups/500ml boiling water over as many flowers as you can get. Strain liquid. Reheat and pour over the next day’s harvest. Do this daily until your liquid is pleasingly violaceous (purple). Combine mauve-colored liquid and honey. Simmer gently, stirring, for ten or fifteen minutes, until it seems like syrup. Fill clean jars. Cool. Keep well chilled to preserve.
Preparation time: Hours and hours of picking await you, and all in pursuit of some purple-colored sugar water. Or is there more to it than that? Perhaps Aunt Violet will open a gateway to ecstasy for you. Uncle Euell Gibbons pours his on hot broiled grapefruit and proclaims, “Utterly delicious!”
Copyright 2011 Excerpted from Healing Wise by Susun Weed
