TV tip: Melissa, Masterwort & Co – A foray through Tyrolean herb gardens
Herbs are trendy, they delight us with their fragrance, they enrich the kitchen and the medicine cabinet.
In folk medicine, the valuable ingredients of many medicinal herbs were recognized early on, as evidenced by the pharmacopoeia of Anna Welser from the 16th century, which can be seen at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck.
The herb garden in the botanical garden of the University of Innsbruck is an outdoor lecture hall for prospective pharmacists. The arrangement of medicinal herbs depends on the organs on which they act. Cäcilia Lechner-Pagitz will show, among other things, the yellow gentian, the medicinal plant of the year 2022, from whose roots digestive preparations are made.
Kitchen spices are also “food medicine” and the passion of cook and pharmacist Karin Hofinger. In addition to balm, mint and evening primrose, Mediterranean herbs such as oregano, rosemary and lavender grow in their “Nature in the Garden” certified kingdom – a true paradise for bees and insects.
Herbs have also become increasingly important as a niche in agriculture. On the steep slopes of the Hohe Salve, the organic herb farmer Hans Baierl grows tea and aromatic herbs by hand on his farm in Brixental. As a career changer, Baierl was a pioneer of herb cultivation in Tyrol in 1992.
The largest Tyrolean (natural) herb garden are the alpine pastures, mountain meadows and forests, where the Zillertaler Joseph Heim collected his wild herbs, which he dried and processed into teas, tinctures and incense.
The higher up the herbs grow, the more power they contain, says the “sensible alpine herb grower”. He shows us his territory in the Sidantal, an almost untouched side valley of the Zillertal.
At EXPERIENCE ÖSTERREICH, Eva Rottensteiner and her team explore the power of herbs, which have always interested, inspired and served many people in Tyrol.