Blogging in a storm

CONDITOR HORTI FELICITATIS AVCTOR
Or more simply put - "Those who plant a garden, plant happiness".

Isn't that grand! I love it.  I think I'm going to inscribe it across the arch of my shed, since I doubt I'll have anything grander to display it for a while yet!

This month I've started planning what improvements I'd like to make for next year's garden, and started choosing what plants I shall move around in the coming weeks.  The most important thing to remember I find, is the fact that I have learnt so much in the past few months, and therefore not to be saddened by plants that haven't worked for me, or sowings that were badly timed, or crops that I couldn't keep up with. 

The main thing is to keep notes and these photos, and remember that this time a year ago, never mind two years ago, I was so much more clueless!  It was my choice after all to try to learn and enjoy learning as I went along, picking up bits of advice and wisdom here and therefore, but mostly through trial and error.  I must stand by that idea, and appreciate the mistakes to learn from as well as the successes, as I'll learn better this way.

Not that I've managed to do much last weekend with the end of Hurricane Katrine that is whipping Scotland at present.  I'll be very grateful if I manage to keep a hold of my Eucalyptus, which is mostly horizontal in the wind but for the post we have tied it to as support.  Some of my hardy herbs that I planted out last week having grown from seed, such as Russian Tarragon to rejuvenate the herb garden, have been clean blown out of the soil roots and all.  Daddy Native's flimsy plastic PVC greenhouse thing was annihilated, and all his lovely tomatoes that were threatening to fruit any day now are in a pile waiting to meet the compost heap.  Never mind, once the storm is over we'll hopefully get a chance to build the proper greenhouse, and make sure it's secure enough to stick with us on top of the hill here throughout the wild winter.

And next year, it'll be even better, and the garden shall be stronger and more organised as I continue to learn a bit more each month.

On a foraging note - I had hoped to collect mushrooms this weekend as it's been so wet yet mild. But the severe weather put pay to that idea. Hopefully I'll have a hoard to show you soon though, I'm not giving up hope!

Test the pH of your soil for free

If, like me, you've wondered how to find out if your soil is acidic or alkaline without having to splash out on a test kit, read on.
All you gotta do is take some soil from your garden and put in a clean container. Then, add a half-cup of vinegar. If the soil bubbles or fizzes, it's alkaline.
If there's no reaction, try again with a fresh soil sample into a second container. Add a half-cup of water and mix. Then, add a half-cup of baking soda. If the soil bubbles or fizzes the soil is highly acidic.
If your soil is acidic, you could add wood ash or lime and give it some time, to try rebalance.  If it's alkaline, use sulfur or pine needles.  Much easier than you thought, isn't it?

I like free and I like simple.

Let the jam making season BEGIN!

I'm going to need a larger storage area for all the jams I'm making this year.  I hope everyone is practising their 'happily surprised' faves for opening their Christmas presents this year- as everyone's getting jam!

Last week I decided to make the most of the squillions of Rose Hips locally and try turning them into jam.

Baby Wild has a wee cold, so my intentions started out good with the idea to make her some Vit C packed Rose Hip Syrup.  I love this Ministry of Food release recipe during WW2 to encourage people to make their own medicine, and was going to use it as a basis for my recipe.

But then I read somewhere (maybe on the Cottage Smallholder?) that the syrup is best made after the first frost, and so until then jam is a splendid idea.   So I made jam with my pickings.  And it is DIVINE!

I topped & tailed the hips, boiled them up so soften them, mashed them up in the pot and then left them to drip slowly overnight through a double muslin lined sieve into a bowl.  Then I boiled up the resulting orange liquid with some pectin laced sugar and jarred it up.

Pretty eh!  Too pretty for my local flower show who turned their noses up at it!  I am planning on making more this week, and will tweak the recipe a bit.  Next time I'll chop up the hips first so that they don't need to be boiled so long as I bet this ruins the Vit C content.  I ended up with about 430ml hip liquid & only added 200g pectin sugar and it's definitely sweet enough at this ratio.

I had no idea jam making was so easy, and now there's jam everywhere!  I'll never loose the baby pounds at this rate, especially now that my local Tesco has finally started selling Sourdough bread. Thank god it's too expensive to be bought regularly.

PS check out these amazing sounding vegetable jam recipes from HFW via The Guardian! Oh YUM! I'm away to pull up some carrots already.....

Award winning flowers!

I won First place! Yay!

I was intrigued when the local town, which is not exactly renowned for beauty, community spirit or show gardens, was putting on it's Annual Agriculture & Flower show in the community hall. I had to go and see for myself, so I decided to enter it too. It doesn't take much to entertain me these days! It was a bit farcical when I showed up. Obviously they haven't had a new entrant for some time and were rather confused with what to do with this younger person showing up out of the blue. They were less than impressed when I tried to enter unusual jams, as they were only accepting lemon curd or raspberry jam this year. Obviously this is pretty daft and I found it very difficult not to giggle at the old fashioned-ness of it all.

The photos are a bit rubbish as I didn't get a chance to photograph the flowers until last night and they were already starting to wilt and the light was fading, but I think you can get the gist of them.  I called them 'Summer Scents (Sweet peas, apple mint, sage and eucalyptus) and 'Autumn Glow' (Nasturtiums, fennel flowers, beetroot flowers, fuscia, yellow daisies and bits & bobs).

I had never imagined myself as an award winning arranger of flowers!  In fact I've never been qualified to call myself an award winning anything except possible wine drinker & talker of shite.  As 1st prize was a mammoth 60p, I decided to leave it in repayment for the confusion I had caused, and promised to return next year better prepared!  There's another Flower Show in a nearby town next weekend, I think I'll enter some of my veg and see what happens there and hope they're a bit friendlier!

As a complete contrast to the fine art of flower arranging, I then spent Sunday bricklaying.  A woman of many talents, I am.  It may be the squinty-est wall in Scotland but I'm rather proud of it none the less.  Photos and description to come upon completion.

A productive weekend in all!

Growing colour combinations

It's taken me a whole week to get around to write this post - am struggling with work, toddlerdom, and the general 'stuff' that needs done daily!  So forgive me for being a bit lite on posts these days....

Last weekend we went to Kelburn Castle (again) for the Vikings.  We had a great time.  Check out our photos of the roaring Vikings on the other blog.  But this was the first time we wandered around the walled garden at Kelburn.  Man, I am a big sucker for a walled garden.  I WANT ONE!  And this was a big walled garden, full of various flower beds and stunning borders, Ewe trees that were over 1000years old! Wow!

It's a shame we didn't manage to see the borders earlier in the summer when they were in their full glory, but I could still admire the colours and textures, despite most of the blooms fading in the August rain and cool.

But the main thing I took away with me was the inspiration to be a little cleverer with the juxtaposition of colours in my flower garden.  I love both these combinations above and below, and hope to find some space in next year's garden to try to replicate such striking colours.

Imagine if this was the view over garden?  Swooning? I am...

PS. Can you tell I've finally got my new camera?!