Melissa officinalis LABIATAE
Lemon, or “bee” balm, known and used by the Arabians and Greeks in ancient times, is a cheerful, sunny herb. Its name comes from the Greek for bee, melissa, and it was planted by apiarists around the hives to enable the bees to navigate their way back home. Its scent appears to be one of the most powerful and pleasant to any bee-”nose”, and it was also rubbed around inside new hives to persuade the bees to stay.
Any plant bringing bees to a garden was very valuable in former times to the home gardener, as honey was the main sweetener used for foodstuffs, and its health-giving properties were well understood by the ancients. Gardeners and orchard-ists today who use cumulative and long-lasting toxic chemical sprays are killing not only predatory insects but bees as well. It is asking a bit much to expect bumper crops from their undoubtedly insect-free vegetables and fruit if there are no bees around to pollinate the flowers. One of the organic “safe by morning” sprays (see p. 36) applied at dusk after the bees have gone home will kill only the troublesome insects and leave the bees unharmed the next day.
So if you want heavy harvesting from your orchard or farm, plant lemon balm around the rows of vegetables and fruit trees, and bring all the bees for miles around to gather pollen from its flowers and fertilize your own crops as well.
Arabian physicians credited the herb with great healing, soothing and calming powers. It was known also as the “scholar’s herb”, and a tea brewed from the leaves was given each day to students studying for examinations, to clear the head and sharpen memory and understanding. To make the tea, pour one pint boiling water over 1 ounce of fresh leaves, infuse for five minutes, cool, strain, and drink several cups each day. Balm leaves can also be crushed and added to your can-nister of China tea if you are still a confirmed addict.
The learned scholars of ancient times placed balm astro-logically under the power of Jupiter, as a strong blood and heart restorative. The leaves of the herb, crushed, boiled, then mixed with oil, were used as a poultice for boils.
Balm is a member of the mint family, and can be propagated by root division in the autumn or spring, or from the tiny seed in the spring only. Soak the seed in warm water for 24 hours before planting, as the outside covering is hard and this will help it to germinate. The seeds keep their germinating power for years.
The plant can grow some three feet high in a wide-spreading clump, and likes room around it to ensure full sunshine and freedom from a virus that can sometimes discolour the leaves. In cooler districts, lemon balm may die down altogether in the winter, but will come again in the spring. Cut the dead stems off several inches above the ground. The new growth will come from the base of these old stems.
Balm leaves dried keep their fragrance for a long period, and dry very successfully hung in bunches of stems about 12 inches long, about 5 or 6 stems to the bunch. Use only the older woody stems for drying, not the tender new growth.
Give it full sunshine, good soil and enough water, and an honoured place in your garden, and be rewarded by its many uses.
*44\181\8*
