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New herbs, new bed

Yesterday I did something I’d been wanting to do for a couple of years – I went to one of Jekka’s Open Days. She has five weekends over the year when she opens her farm to visitors, and the September open days are the last ones of the season.

I did some homework and had a little shopping list so that I wouldn’t be completely flummoxed when I got there, but even so it was hard not to be confused by the wealth of plants on display. Especially since they were all laid out on the ground, so you had to bend down to read the labels :(

Although it was sunny when we set off (and when we returned), it was horribly humid at the farm and pretty busy, so we didn’t stay long. I picked up six new herbs in the end, five of which were from my list and one of which was an impulse purchase.

I bought a Buddleia mint (Mentha longifolia), which has lovely flowers that attract bees and hoverflies and which are good for flower arranging – it’s not a culinary herb, but I aleady have several varieties of culinary mint in the garden.

I picked up two wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca) – one which bears red fruit and one with white. Wild strawberries spread bu runners (as opposed to the Alpine strawberries that I already have), and so I will be able to pot those up to make more plants or go for the lazy option and let them roam and simply pull them up where they’re not wanted.

A plant I’ve wanted for a while is Siberian chives (Allium nutans), because they have lovely blue flowers, so I added one to my basket.

I also picked up a Stevia Stevia rebaudiana, which was the only plant I bought which is not a hardy perennial – it will have to live indoors over the winter, along with my perennial basil.

And my impulse purchase was a Buckler leaf sorrel. I already have two different sorrels. One (Rumex acetosa) came from the HSL and the humans in the household find it too sharp, although the chickens eat it like there’s no tomorrow. I also have some newly planted blood veined sorrel (R. sanguineus), which is very pretty but we haven’t tried to eat it yet. According to Jekka, Buckler leaf sorrel (R. scutatus) has a flavour like green apples, so I’m hoping we will like it better.

When we got home we planted up some of my new purchases with some of my existing herbs in my new herb bed. There is going to be a second herb bed, slightly higher up the garden, where I will put the herbs that like it drier, so this bed is for herbs that like it slightly wetter. I included French tarragon and feverfew with the new chives, sorrel and wild strawberries. I dithered a bit about the placements, but I can always move things around later if they’re not quite right.

Herbal Medicine

It was lovely and sunny this morning, although it didn’t last, and I felt the need for some time in the garden to enhance my sanity levels.

I went out with a fairly low-key agenda: potting on my new herbs and sowing some scorzonera seeds (having bought fresh supplies of potting compost earlier in the week).

After doing those I felt the urge to make some progress with the garden redesign – towards next year’s larger focus on perennials. Since altering the Grow Dome bed in June I have had 12 spare concrete blocks kicking around, ear-marked for a new bed. Having cleared the space where I thought it would go, I summoned Husband for a consult and he came up with a better suggestion. The result is that I Have used 6 of the blocks to make a low herb bed extension to one of the existing beds:

As you can see, it’s not level. The garden slopes there and although I could have made it level I have left it sloping by design – the idea being that the lower end will be wetter (for herbs that like wet feet) than the higher end.

My two dwarf buddlejas are temporarily holding down the black plastic that will prevent cats from crapping in the bed until it’s filled and planted up – the new bed is directly over one of their favourite toilet spots.

I have enough blocks left over to do the same to the next bed up – which will be more level! Those blocks are deceptively heavy, though, so that’s a job for another day. I did (finally) manage to pull up some of the Welsh onions that have been causing a problem for years at the front of the raised bed. One of them was home to a red ants’ nest, which made Princess Layer very happy as she loves ant eggs. Chewbucka and Cluck Skywalker were happier with the regular supplies of snails and slugs I kept fishing out of nooks and crannies for them.

The weather got steadily more grim as I was outside, and after a couple of hours decided it was going to rain properly, but by that time I was worn out and finishing up anyway, so it didn’t matter.

New herbs

As I said a few days ago, there is a new plan for my garden, which involves a lot more perennials and (hopefully) a lot less stress in the summer. Since the plants arrived from Rocket Gardens, there have been too many plants in the garden. Too many annuals, too many things in containers, not enough space and too much demand for watering. Gradually the excess plants have been planted out (or fed to the chickens) and although calm has not yet been restored there is a sense that it will come.

In the meantime, there has been an embargo on plant shopping. There was no room, I had no time. It was easier not to look than to window shop. But now that there is a new plan, with a different focus, the embargo has lifted a little. And as we were in Homebase anyway, I had a look in the garden section and came home with some (perennial) herbs. They are all also scented plants that hopefully the cats won’t like.

There was an offer on – 4 plants for £10 – so I chose:

Rosemary. I have one already, but I tend to kill them off so another won’t hurt.

Thyme

An apple mint, with deliciously furry leaves

And a gloriously stinky curry plant

And then I turned around and saw this wonder, and couldn’t resist:

Basil ‘Perpetuo’ is a variety I hadn’t seen before. It’s grown as a perennial plant (although it’s not hardy in my climate and will need to be brought inside for the winter). It doesn’t flower, and can’t be grown from seed, but can be propagated from terminal stem cuttings taken at any time through the year. So that was the first thing I did, take some cuttings, about half of which seem to be doing OK at the moment. Oh, and it’s variegated, and one of the most beautiful plants I’ve seen in ages. And although it is not as strongly basil-flavoured as ‘Genovese’, it’s cetainly tasty enough to earn its place in the kitchen.

Welsh Onion Weirdness

In previous years, the blooms on my Welsh onions (Allium fistulosum) much loved by bees) have always looked like this:

with the occasional one that did something slightly different:

This year the ones around the edge of one raised bed look the same, but around the second raised bed they are doing something very different:

I took that photo a couple of weeks ago; since then the little bulbs have developed more fully, and they look like walking onions. I was trying to remember whether those onions were, in fact, something different. They are not labelled, and I don’t remember planting them, which means they’ve probably been there for a while and they’re almost certainly Welsh onions – anything more unusual (by my garden’s standards!) I would have labelled; but my recollections of last year’s garden are a little fuzzy.

Then I went to CAT and saw that the plants they labelled as Welsh onions were doing the same thing:

So, the question is – is this a normal growth stage of Welsh onions that I simply haven’t been seen before, or is it something they do occasionally in response to something like the weather? I will certainly have lots of little bulbs to plant out and/ or pass on, but the bees have missed out on half their banquet this year. Does anyone have any thoughts?

More tea?

The flowers of Jasminum sambac smell gorgeous, and are used to flavour Jasmine tea

Back in November I was talking about how tea bags don’t compost completey – manufacturers have added plastic fibres to the mix to make heat sealing easier.

This morning there’s an article in the Telegraph covering a report from Which? who have discovered something that has been difficult for lesser mortals – 6 out of 7 of the largest tea bag manufacturers don’t produce fully compostable tea bags. Teadirect, Typhoo, Tetley, PG Tips, Clipper and Twinings all use polypropylene in their bags; Jacksons of Piccadilly does not.

WRAP suggest we rip open our tea bags before we put them on the compost, or drink loose tea – neither is an ideal solution. Of course you could grow your own tea, a topic which I also covered in episode 94 of the Alternative Kitchen Garden.

Or we could take advantage of the press coverage of this topic and ramp up the pressure on our favourite tea companies to make them change their bags.

Book Review: Wisewoman's Cookery

Wisewoman’s Cookery: Food, Sex, Magic & Merriment

Regular readers of this blog will know that as well as adoring edible and useful plants of all kinds, I am very interested in the uses to which they are put. The official name for this is ethnobotany (or economic botany, but to me that adds a different connotation). I’m always on the look-out for interesting information about how people use plants around the world. A lot of what I find is from exotic places, where plants I can’t hope to grow in this climate thrive without much effort.

And so when I came across a review of a book that would let you grow your own garden of erotic delights then I just had to read it!

The book is called ‘Wisewoman’s Cookery: Food, sex, magic and merriment’, with a subtitle of ‘A Guide to Aphrodisiac Cooling, Sensual Simples and Folklore Erotica’. It is self-published by Shannon Loeber and Mary Edwards and available from bookstores in their home town of Vancouver, but for those of us a little further away it can be ordered from ChaptersIndigo.ca and Amazon.ca.

The book itself is divided into four main sections. In ‘Herbal Lore’ you can read about the erotic history of herbs such as parsley and rosemary and there are delicious recipes for both enticing meals and herbal body preparations to enhance all aspects of your wellbeing. For example, the first recipe is for a lover’s massage oil, but there are main courses and baked goods as well.

Things heat up a bit in the next section, ‘Spice Sorcery’, as you discover sensuous uses for cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and more. Here there’s an ancient recipe for the spicy elixir hippocras. According to the book the “seduction of its erotic aroma combined with the therapy of it’s mind-calming effects and heart-warming afterglow make it a perfect aperitif”.

Section three is ‘Bountiful Earth Fruits and Vegetables’ and shows us how to turn the common fruits of our kitchen gardens into enticing edibles. The tomato (in past times known as the love apple) is here, but so is the beetroos, and I’m guessing that most gardeners don’t know that beetroot has a sensuous side!

The final section, ‘Garden Alchemy’ is all about the spiritual connection we make to nature when we garden, and use the produce we grow. It’s about the magic of following natural cycles and closing the loop as we watch seeds sprout and grow into mature plants, harvest their fruits and compost the remains. Here you will also find a section on moon planting and some lovely recipes for enchanted bath salts.

Shannon and Mary spent about five years researching this book. They travelled to folk lore libraries in England and Ireland and collected stories about the great lovers of history and the contributions that strong and vibrant women have made. Their stories are woven into the books with the recipes, all of which have been tried and tested by Shannon and Mary and their families. They also took most of the photographs in the book.

The result is a beautiful and fascinating collection of folklore and history, recipes for food that is simple and healthy but tasty and enticing and for herbal products that you can make in your kitchen that will enhance your love-life but are also healthy and chemical-free. This isn’t a gardening book, it doesn’t explain how to grow these plants in your garden, but if you’ve been looking for interesting ways to add another aspect to your garden or make better use of your produce then this may be the book for you. It is very much in the wisewoman’s tradition of using herbs and natural ‘magic’ to help and heal, and you can find out more about the book on the Wisewoman’s Cookery website.

While I was waiting for my copy of the book to arrive I got in touch with Shannon and Mary and asked them whether they would like to be on the Alternative Kitchen Garden Show. They said yes, I interviewed them last week, and you can now hear them talking about the book in episode 105. They are really down-to-earth and fun, good natured women, and that comes across both in the book and in the interview. They’ve also kindly offered three copies of the book to give away to listeners, so if you’d like to be in with a chance of winning, listen to the show!

Cold Weather

The unusually cold weather at the moment (particularly at night) is slowing down gardening progress. I have trays of tender seedlings that can’t go outside, which is causing a backlog. I am awaiting herb and vegetable seedlings (mostly salads) from Rocket Gardens, who I am trying for the first time this year, but they have been delayed by at least a couple more weeks.

In an attempt to make some progress, yesterday I potted up my caper seedlings which I sowed from seed last year. I have three varieties from a seed swap with Michelle at From Seed To Table. As the capers we eat are pickled flower buds, these plants are one of the new things I’m trying for my Edible Flowers project this year.

I have also potted on some nasturtium seedlings. I have three kinds – tall, dwarf and trailing/ climbing.

Doing that freed up three plug plant trainers, so I could sow some more seeds. Yesterday I sowed cornflowers, opium poppies and lemon marigolds. I also made the first comfrey cut of the season, and packed the leaves into my old bokashi buckets to rot down for comfrey liquid feed later in the season.

Today I have sowed the other two sets of modules. In the first are Abutilon x Suntense, Honesty and Marshmallow.

In the second are seeds that may not germinate until they’ve experiences fluctuating temperatures – which they may get in the next couple of weeks, or they may not! If they don’t then they can stay in those modules until the winter. Those are rosa rugosa (alba and rubra), malva moschata, viola odorata and daylilies.

I have also sown a tray of clover, to see how it grows – the clover is actually for my Herbal Tea project – an idea I got from Subsistence Pattern. And a tray each of calendula and dwarf french marigolds, thickly sown to use up seeds well past their use-by-date (I have home-saved supplies that are fresher).

And it was time to brew up the chamomile tea as some of the seed trays and pots were getting a bit mouldy. A weak solution stops fungus in its tracks and makes for a healthier growing environment for seedlings.

Sorrel Supplies

We’ve had sorrel in the garden for a couple of years now. It’s a variety called Schavel, from the HSL, and there are three plants that for the most part take care of themselves. Pete and I tried a few baby leaves in a salad last year, but it was far too sour for our tastes and its main use has been to provide the chickens with some greens.

Since the arrival of Cluck and Chewie, it has been under pressure. They love it – they think it’s the best thing ever. Chewie, in particular, would eat her own weight in the stuff every day. Princess Layer has succumbed to peer pressure and now eats more than she used to as well. If I let her free range, she jumps up in the raised bed and browses the sorrel directly.

I’ve given the plants a feed, but I have also sown some more seeds. And I’ve been in the garden for an hour or so today and I have sown another batch of sorrel seeds – this time blood veined sorrel from the OGC.

The rest of the hour was spent sowing flat leaved parsley, Sub Arctic Plenty and Tumbling Tom tomatoes (for a new project, of which more later), potting on my basil seedlings and two new peppermints (one orange, one lavender) and rearranging the seedlings that are living indoors.

I managed the foliar feed I didn’t get around to last time; this time the item bumped onto the next to do list is earthing up the potatoes :)

Flavoured Oil and Vinegar

As you know, my 2010 garden plan involves lots of edible flowers and herbs that can be used for tea (as well as plenty of veggies that we and the chickens can eat).

And so I’m thrilled that I will have another use for all of the herbs as I have received a lovely flavoured oil and vinegar kit from Love Thy Space, which I won in a giveaway on their blog.

It has two packets of seed (basil and peppers) and two ceramic bottles with metal pouring spouts, plus two metal plant labels and a booklet of instructions and recipes. It’s fab – it would make a lovely gift for a gardening foodie.

I have sown my pepper seeds this morning, along with 6 other varieties from my collection. I already have some basil seedlings on the windowsill, but will sow some more of that later in the year as well.

Given that we will have exciting herbal oil and vinegar this summer, it’s a good job I have finally begun to appreciate a bit of salad!

Grow Your Own Drugs: Christmas

I’ve just been catching up with the Grow Your Own Drugs Christmas Special via iPlayer (it’s also being repeated on tv a couple of times before Christmas).

It’s a really fun programme, with presenter James Wong going out and about to see plants in their natural habitats (or where they’re being grown) as well as turning them into plant-based treats and remedies for the festive season.

First up he made Yerba Mate Chocolate Truffles, which use a Latin American variety of holly, Ilex paraguariensis to provide a caffeine boost to prevent those post-Christmas lunch slumps. Apparently Yerba Mate tea is big in Argentina, but don’t use regular English holly (Ilex aquifolium) instead. James visited a great holly orchard, where one male tree is enough to pollinate 50 surrounding female trees, which are the ones that bear the berries. It had a lovely viewing platform, which would be a great addition to a large garden with lots of trees and gives you a view of the canopy.

The second treat was orange and clove massage oil, which can also be used with an oil burner as a room fragrane. Then James turned ivy (Hedera helix) into a toning beauty cream.

You may not have thought about tucking into your Christmas tree, but James put his (a Fraser fir, Abies fraseri) into a hot toddy to help relieve colds, and it went down well with his party guests.

After seeing wild cranberries growing in Scotland (a segment worth watching to find out what ‘bog ripple’ is!), cultivated cranberries (they’re much larger) got turned into mince pies, and then it was off to Wales to see a saffron farm and then make a soothing egg nog with saffron. Although it was probably the rum content that was relaxing!

Fortunately James has a great hangover cure after all that booze, with rosehips turned into sherbert, and if you eat too much at Christmas you might need his sugar mice – laced with fennel and peppermint to ease flatulence!

All of the recipes are available on the Grow Your Own Drugs website.

The last segment was all about decorations – with a festive mistletoe ball, dried artichoke candleholders (which looked really nice!) and snowy pinecone firelighters.

The good news is that there is a new series of Grow Your Own Drugs coming in 2010, and there’s a second book (Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year with James Wong) in the pipeline as well.

Hotting Up

Before I went on holiday I did something I have been meaning to do for a long time, and bought myself a piece of ginger root to grow.

I had a lot of things (gardening and otherwise) to do before I went, so when I read in Asian Vegetables that ginger can be safely left at room temperature for a couple of weeks, to sprout, I left my root on my desk.

Sure enough, when I came home it was starting to sprout. Yesterday I potted it up (bud facing upwards, about 5 cm deep, as instructed) and now ‘Ginger Rogers’ is sitting on my bedroom windowsill where it’s hot and sunny.

Le Manoir: Fruit

One thing the garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons doesn’t have at the moment is a lot of fruit. These strawberries are grown among the polytunnels. However, the estate has some fields, and these are in the process of being turned into productive land (they need drainage to be installed).

The plan is for an extension to the vegetable patch on fertile ground near the river, plus an orchard and a nuttery. Raymond Blanc wants around 30 varieties of apple (they’re currently trying varities out to decide which ones), almonds, hazels and walnuts and some soft fruit.

Inside the polytunnels, the overwintered leafy crops (including spinach, oriental mustards and rocket) are coming to an end. The rocket is bolting – but that’s fine because the flowers are used in salads as well. They have have the same flavour as rocket, but are a bit sweeter. Raymond Blanc prefers the pale flowers of salad rocket to the yellow ones of wild rocket for use in the kitchens.

In another tunnel there’s a bolting crop of coriander, but again it doesn’t matter because the chefs use all the part of this plant – flowers, stalks (thick stalks are dried), roots and seeds. Coriander is sown successionally to have plants at different stages of growth all season.

The final stop on our tour was the culinary herb garden – which provides the kitchens with almost all of the herbs they need throughout the year. Seasonal, local, sustainable and organic, the gardens at Le Manoir are a model we can all learn from. It’s just a shame that it costs a packet to visit!

Explore other parts of the garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons:

• Fish ponds


• Vegetable garden


• Mushroom garden


• Tea garden


• Exotics


• Field beans


• Microgreens


• Courgettes

Le Manoir: Microgreens

One of the latest things in vegetable growing is microgreens, or microherbs – essentially raising plants to be eaten as seedlings, when they are at their most tender, full of flavour and nutrients.

They use a lot of microgreens at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons and grow a lot for themselves, in high quality organic potting compost that is used once and then used as a soil improver in the vegetable garden. In fact, they’re currently the fourth largest microgreens grower in the UK!

I didn’t get the complete list, but some of the plants grown this way are amaranths (including the colourful red amaranth), oriental mustards, basil, parsley, watercress, beetroot and chrysanthemum greens.

For quality reasons, most of these are only cut once. It’s hard to harvest the first flush without doing cosmetic damage that affects future cuts – but on a home-scale you would be able to harvest most of these two or three times before they get too mature. Beware the mustards – each cut is hotter than the last!

Explore other parts of the garden at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons:

• Fish ponds


• Vegetable garden


• Mushroom garden


• Tea garden


• Exotics


• Field beans


• Courgettes


• Fruit

Welsh onion flowers

The Welsh onions are flowering again. This is about the only time of year that they’re not edible, although to be honest I think that’s mainly about not being able to harvest them because they’re covered in bees!

Flowering sorrel

The sorrel is flowering. I’ve tried removing the flowers, but it just throws up more, so I’m leaving it to it. It’s a perennial plant, so it should continue once flowering has stopped. Whether or not I will have fields of little sorrel seedlings to deal with once it has seeded remains to be seen!

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