“Please put the money in the mailbox with the right size,” says a cardboard box at the entrance to Maria Anna Braunschmidt’s garden in Vierkirchen. Next to it the company sign “Blattwerk” and a couple of pots with lemon balm, houseleek and sage. There are also rather unusual flowers growing in the front yard, on the table behind the herb lady has placed a carafe of water for visitors, scented rose petals and lemon verbena are swimming in it, “a wonderful taste of summer,” says the herb expert, and she’s right in the middle of it: “The plants are ours teacher, but people have forgotten so much.”
The 58-year-old horticultural engineer would never have thought that she would one day become an independent herb producer and direct marketer. With her additional training in environmental education and garden therapy, she worked for the disabled for a long time and was very happy with it. Until the facility closed the garden operation. “That was a blow for me, I really put my heart and soul into it,” she says. However, a ray of light soon shone in the professional hole: a neighboring farmer offered to lease her a piece of land for her own herb garden. And so began the next professional life of Maria Anna Braunschmidt.
Greek mountain tea even grows in the herb garden
Plants and nature have always played an important role in her life, she comes from a farm in Lower Bavaria. She studied horticulture in Freising, where she also met her husband. Years ago, the two then moved to Vierkirchen with their children, “back then you could still afford houses out here”. And right next to it, on 300 square meters in the middle of meadows, the initially delicate plant of her company Blattwerk began to grow: Together with two friends and her family, Maria Anna Braunschmidt planted beds, meanwhile around 50 different plants are sprout. Among other things, Greek mountain tea, “regional Greek mountain tea,” as Braunschmidt adds with a smile, “that it grows here surprised me, I thought it needs a certain soil.”
At the same time, the freshly qualified herb producer trained in direct marketing, and she obtained the certificate for this in 2018. With the active support of her team, she built a commercial kitchen in the basement of her house, which meets all official requirements, from hygiene to cosmetics regulations. “It is very difficult for small producers to fulfill all of this,” says the Vierkirchen native. Actually, she would also like to acquire an organic certificate, but she certainly meets the requirements, since Braunschmidt only uses organic fertilizers and only buys organic seeds. “But the whole thing is just too complicated for me,” she says.
Maria Anna Braunschmidt grows herbs on 300 square meters right behind her house in Vierkirchen.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
Each leaf from Maria Anna Braunschmidt’s herb garden is hand-plucked. Now in summer, when the weather is nice, the harvest takes place every day.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
There is also a small stall at the garden door in front of the Braunschmidts’ house.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
Your customers also appreciate the “herbs with a heart”. The Blattwerk team sells at markets in Indersdorf and Dachau and farm shops in Munich and Karlsfeld, and they have even stocked two supermarkets in the Dachau district. Blattwerk operates an online shop for this purpose. If there is not so much to do in the garden, Maria Anna Braunschmidt works in the herbal kitchen. This is where things are chopped up and packed, and this is where she invents her spice mixtures, herb salts and chilli pastes. The shelves are stacked with boxes and buckets, woodruff, linden blossoms, oregano and fennel.
She proudly tells that she even “recreated” a Georgian spice. A nephew brought this back for her on vacation and because it tasted so good, she researched the ingredients. The main ingredient was Schabzigerklee, which Braunschmidt already knows as “Grillmeister”. “I got it pretty accurate, it was really exciting.” Because of the many minerals and the better taste, she also includes wild herbs, nettle or garlic mustard in almost all of her mixtures. Parsley is usually accompanied by a little goutweed, which is also present in the soup spice “Soupenkasperl”, “goutweed tastes similar to parsley, but is more varied”.
The solar dryer is self-built
She owes it to her son that she can now dry her own herbs on a large scale and yet in an environmentally friendly way. He built her a solar dryer from a foil tunnel with a black floor, in which fans powered by solar panels blow the warm air over the drying goods. The first marigolds, elderberries and fragrant roses are just drying. Sounds easy, but it’s not, because every plant has its needs, and those who don’t pay attention to them will harvest brown, dried-up goods. So there are two floors, the sensitive herbs dry below, the more robust ones above.
Braunschmidt’s son built the solar dryer for her.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
The shelves are stacked with boxes and buckets, woodruff, linden blossoms, oregano and fennel.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
The herb lady also puts together gift baskets, from scented sachets to chilli paste or fish spices, the range includes all kinds of things.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
And so Maria Anna Braunschmidt has long been grateful for the change that her professional career has taken. And she does a bit of environmental education on the side in a social farm. Otherwise, she broods over new product ideas, “a jelly made from herbs with apple juice and mint,” for example, “a spread, maybe with thyme, you can eat it with cheese,” or apple juice with woodruff, “the sweet forest fairy.” The herbal expert finds it a pity that she is not allowed to sell medicinal teas. But this is prohibited by the Medicines Ordinance. After all, she has found a way to do what is important to her, “to let people participate and to show them what a treasure plants are”.
Oops, since when has the county been this hip? More and more people in the district are producing their own trend products – and thus reflecting the zeitgeist. In the series “Hippes von hier” the SZ Dachau shows local producers and their hashtag-ready handmade: from veganer Fashion to coffee and herbal mixtures to gin that changes colour.