Retro: Spicy hiking in Nuth

Walking, getting to know plants and dealing with them. We get to know nature and nature gets to know us! It is mid-April, the cycling weekend of the Amstel Gold Race. And also the second weekend of the herbist training. This time in Nuth not far from Valkenburg in the southernmost tip of the Netherlands.

Mighty beautiful weather. So we walk a little more. We leave at the listed and restored farmhouse, the last house of Nuth to the left of the road to Wijnandsrade. A narrow, first some paved field road with beautiful hawthorn hedges, most natural closure for the meadows to keep the horses and the cows inside and the hikers outside.

Hawthorn and Dandelion

At the end of April, the first white blossom of hawthorn has already been opened, it is the blossom against age heart, rhythm disturbances and high blood pressure. Along and below the hedge we find very common but useful weeds such as hedwort, trot and bird wall. All to eat, though many Nuthse people walk here with their dog pets. Still watch out when picking. We enter an open meadow and field landscape. In the meadows it is dandelion time, another super weeds, the young and the bleached leaves under the molehills can be eaten as crispy and slightly bitter lettuce and the older bitter leaves are good digestive, bile drifting and diuretic. They are not called pisflower everywhere for nothing. The flowers especially the petals can be processed into jelly, it tastes honeyy with a slightly bitter aftertaste.

Arable weeds: chamomile, gooseweed and deaf teats

At a crossroads, a crucified Kristus is waiting to show us the 'path'. We more or less opt for straight ahead, attracted by the river valley with trees in the distance, towards Swier. At the marshy brook valley we find a very different plant growth, blooming Pentecostal flowers but also giant horsetail that proudly raise their prehistoric, fertile spore stems.

Along the field on the other side some rosettes of the not yet striking poppies, but also the fresh green of the false chamomile (Anthemis arvensis). False because he pretends to be real chamomile, but he does not have the “apple” scent or the exceptional calming and disinfecting properties of the real chamomile (Matricaria recutita).