Sage Advice

Herbs are an integral part of our garden. Now is the time of year to start cooking with fresh herbs again adding them to salads, soups and other dishes. Another way of using them is putting them in a bottle of good olive oil to use over the winter.

 

 We have a herb border in the kitchen garden and also some baskets near the back door . These are for folk in a hurry or that can't be bothered going all the way to the kitchen garden especially when it's raining.

Many of our herbs are of the better known varieties but we do have some more unusual ones. But that's for another time and another post.

Sage comes in several different colours. It's a strongly flavoured herb and we use it sparingly in general cooking.We grow the plain green one and two of the variegated ones.They tend not to be hardy over the hard winters we've had recently and need to be replaced through overwintered cuttings. Tangerine and pineapple sage have got very fine green eaves and are not hardy at all. We grow them for their bright red flowers and they only go outside in high summer. They don't taste very pleasant although I'm sure they could be used in cooking.

The plain green sage bush overwinters well and gets cut back hard in early spring.It looks like twigs for a while but soon bounces back.

We like to do sage leafs in tempura batter and then fry them. They come out very crispy and are a real treat!

Parsley. Do you like yours flat-leaf or curly?

 I think they taste much the same but the curly parsley has a better texture. Flat leaf is great for decoration. and garnish. We use them both in general cooking as they have a great flavour and a bright fresh colour. The hens are also very partial to the odd stem and make straight for the parsley whenever they get a chance.

Chives. The prettiest of herbs with their straight stems and frothy and pale purple flowers. Freshly

chopped they add a real zing to potato  salad. We also keep chive (and parsley) butter in the fridge for fish and chicken dishes. It also makes a lovely garnish and decoration. The flowers are a great addition to a summer salad as are nasturtium flowers and leaves.

 Tarragon. French, that is not Russian. For years we used to grow the Russian tarragon because it could be grown from seed. French tarragon was hard to come by except from specialist growers. But is it often said that the French variety has a finer flavour. I have never compared the two so I really couldn't comment.....

 When we moved south french tarragon was added to the herb garden. It's got a reputation for being on the tender side but so far it has coped with two harsh winters and comes back better than before.

It's great in sauces especially with fish or chicken. it's also reputed to aid sleep if taken as a tea before going to bed. 

 

Mints. The varieties of mints are many and we only grow a few. As every knows they are thugs and should be grown in pots or in the ground with some sort of restraining order.

At the moment we grow apple mint and spearmint. We also have orange, Russian and ginger mint.

Most are great for making mint tea and putting with new potatoes and in soups.

 These are some of the commonly used herbs that we grow. Others include basil, coriander, bay, thyme and oregano.

Plants for sale???

Well, would you buy these?
I'm always tempted by plants that need a bit of TLC but these needed total resusitation! This DIY shop has got a reputation for not looking after it's plants but why leave them out for sale when they look half dead? They should have found their way to the great compost heap in the sky by now.

I nearly asked the member of staff putting out yet more trays of plants (still healthy but for how long?) if the horticultural expert was on holiday.  Maybe  killing off new plants is something that comes naturally to the staff there. Just don't water the plants very often or give them any light that should do the trick!

It's just a very sad sight to see all these yellowing decaying plants.

It's still raining...

 It's been raining off and on for nearly three days and everything is looking much fresher and greener as well as having put on a spurt. If plants could have sighed with relief at the rain fall they would have done. In spite of brief glimpses of sunshine the soil is too wet to work, so I went out with my camera in between showers..... The following photographs are a white peony, hosta sioboldiana, epimedium, mecanopsis sheldonii, clematis armandii and box.

It's raining again....About time!

It is weeks since it has really rained in this part of the east of Scotland. Our sandy soil was like a dust bowl in spite of my efforts to add lots of home made compost. I even go as far as to add wet newspaper and compost to trenches for really  hungry veg such as potatoes, beans, peas, courgettes and the like. So in spite of this lots of watering has been the order of the day. In fact it seemed to take up a lot of my gardening time.

I have a philosophy about watering. There is no much point in little and often. It tends to make the roots come to the surface instead of spreading out and searching for water deep in the soil. Give plants a good soak. The plants in the flower garden only get a good watering (from me) in their first year or until they become established. After that they have to fend for themselves. They may get a bit of mulch after a shower if there is enough compost left.

The vegetables and fruit are expected to put on a lot of growth and  produce in one season so they need more cossetting. We have a drip hose round the main bed and I supplement this with the watering can. The hose is all very well but you don't know how much water you are giving to the plant.
A good way of finding out is to scrape back the soils and see if it is wet more than an half inch below the surface. You'll be surprised how dry it may still be.
You can also tell with pots by how heavy they are (or not). Terrca cotta pots hit gently with a tool sound more hollow when dry.

Rain was forecast yesterday and today and tomorrow. It certainly rained heavily during the night. But next afternoon it was dry and I ventured out to plant a lot of modules of small but perfectly formed vegetable plants that had been waiting patiently in and around the cold frames. I managed a couple of rows and then the heavens opened. I rushed for cover thinking the shower (one of the many forecast) would soon blow over. It didn't and I retreated to the house leaving everything where it was.

The Farmer's Market

We have  always been fans of Farmer's Markets and have frequented them both in Orkney and in Montrose.  We tend to go for the organic food and the plant stalls. The one here has been going for several years and has witnessed some changes. I still miss the stall that sold hot Arbroath smokies.....

For those that have not come across this delicacy, it is smoked haddock. See the following link:

http://www.arbroathsmokies.net/arbroathsmokie.php

The Montrose Farmer's market has a lot of variety and happens on the first Saturday of the month between 10am and 1pm. You got to get there early mind to get the best choice of products.....we got there so early that my photos are rather devoid of people.

 

The plant stall by Ashwood Nurseries

Stunning  willow structures made by Rachel Bower. I was sorely tempted but decided to have a look at the available space in the garden first.

The delightful Myerside Organics stall. It's early in the season so all the greens are grown in a poly tunnel but they look so much better than the limp efforts from the supermarket.

We came away with fennel and lemon sausages a piece of wild boar and some organic curly kale. The meat will be stored in the freezer for a meal with our next visitors. I also bought another plant (now there's a surprise!)  It was a heuchera this time.

I'm still tempted by the willow...

The Humble Radish.

These are our first radishes from the garden. They were grown under cloches and I'll admit some have been slightly nibbled by slugs. If you're growing without resorting to pesticides and insecticides, it's a small price to pay.

These took about 4 weeks from sowing to maturity.

There are three secrets to getting good radishes.

• One is not to let them grow too big and become woody. At the size I picked them they are tasty with  lots of crunch.

• Another is sowing seed little and often, so that you can have them from now until the end of the summer.

•  Lastly the fresher the better. This means eating the radishes freshly picked. I might eat two or three on the long meander back to the house. The rest make it to a mixed side salad with a dash of organic  olive oil.


 Bon appetit!

Pitmuies Garden

What better way to spend a warm sunny morning than taking a gentle stroll round the gardens at Pitmuies House, one of the best in the east of Scotland.

Come and have a look through the garden gate.....

 

One of the old estate cottages surrounded by trees and blossom. What a picturesque setting.......

Colourful show of tulips in the walled vegetable and fruit garden.

 

 Two mature weeping pear trees (Pyrus salicifolia "Pendula") mark the entrance to one of the herbaceous avenues.

 

A lowered grass area with centre piece and  borders around the edge.

 The delphiniums for which Pitmuies are renowned are on the left.

It's early in the year but the perennials are putting on a lot of growth and there's a wheel barrow full of weeds at the far end. Someone has been busy......

 

Pitmuies House from the front.

The start of the Woodland walk

Wild garlic (allium ursinum) also known as ransoms, carpets the banks of the burn.

This little cherub has only one wing..... and looks slightly forlorn.

Should you wish to explore further and hear the birdsong and smell the scent (including the wild garlic) Pitmuies garden is open between 10am and 5pm until the end of October.

Waste not, want not and being green

A title my mother would have approved of. Well, the first bit anyway. She never spent much on any of her gardens, growing nearly everything from seed, using yogurt cartons and toilet rolls and any other suitable container. She always had a compost bin and saved water whenever she could. Buying a plant was a rare event and something to be mulled over for some time before any commitment was made.


The push lawnmower (no fancy electrical machine in her day) was given an annual service by an odd-job man who came door-to-door. Secateurs were sharpened and cleaned at a local shop. Her Felco secateurs which I inherited are still working well although they are now cleaned and sharpened at home.


I do wish she had seen the light about the cleaning and sharpening of spades and other tools. That this might have made life easier didn't seem to occur to my mother. It certainly blighted my formative gardening years (see my post:  http://planticrunotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/blunt-spades-and-pink-phlox.html)
That and the pink phlox of course. But it was a small thing and didn't really put me off gardening once I got the bug.


In the light of my mother's example here are some of the tips that  I use to be a bit greener (and save money)


• Making paper pots for seeds (It's a bit fiddly but works well for seeds and seedlings)

• Putting all our food scraps and garden waste into the compost bin. The bedding from the hens is also added. This is made from shredded paper (a great use for bank statements and begging letters).

• Using second hand watering cans and garden tools from local sales and salvage yards

 

• Using lollipop sticks as plant labels. These are harder to come by than when I was a child. I need a steady supply of lollipop eating children.

 

• Keeping attractive tins for planting in. Cleaned with holes punched in the bottom they look good with herbs. I usually plant them up with basil. It must be the whole Italian thing.... Sorry about the advertising.

I wonder if my mother would have approved?

Arduaine Garden under threat

 Arduaine, meaning the green point or promontory, has come to be generally pronounced as Ar-doo-a-nie. Arduaine's originator pronounced it simply Ar-duan.

 Arduaine Gardens is situated on a remote peninsula in Argyl in the west of Scotland. It is influenced by it's coastal location and benefits from the North Atlantic drift.  This tranquil garden is about twenty acres in size and has many outstanding woodland plants and an important collection of species rhododendron. It also boasts spectacular coastal and island panoramas from a cliff top viewpoint. (You have to be everyday fit to get up there but not a marathon runner)

The garden is over 100 years old and in 1992 came under the ownership of the National Trust for Scotland (a conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland's natural and cultural heritage) Unfortunately the NTS has had some problems with managing their money in the recent past. This in my opinion (I'm a member so I can say this) was due the construction of over priced visitors centres sucking up most of the money and accounts generally not balanced over many years. Several houses and gardens have been threatened with closure. Arduaine was one of those.

The garden is still threatened with closure and the NTS have launched an appeal to save it. You can look at my photos from our last visit in 2009 and at the garden on this video:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ArduaineGardenSG

If you live nearby or are visiting Scotland please go to Arduaine gardens. It's a very special place.

 

Embothrium in full flower

What no lawn?

Comments about our zig-zag path and the lack of lawn made me ponder. We have never had grass in either of our gardens. I have to go back to the gardens of my childhood to the last time I felt grass under my feet on a warm summer's day and smelt it freshly cut.

Gardens were more traditional then. The lawn seemed to take up most of the space in my parents garden (room for a swing and a game of rounders) with a flower border on one side and  a fruit and vegetable on the other two.

 This is how it looked (well half of it anyway. No-one took photos of the vegetable border in those days) Please note the peony as my mother was very proud of it.

 I grew up with the lawn rituals of cutting, scarifying, edging and the twice yearly feed. And discussions about how to get rid of moss (more scarifying) and  dry yellow patches in the summer.

It all seemed a lot of work.....

We decided when we were planning both our gardens that the emphasis would be on plants. I've found you can never have too many of those. We don't use chemicals and we have a dog so keeping grass even in moderate shape would have been difficult.

But we do have a small dream of having a wildflower meadow one day.......full of buttercups, harebells, poppies and the buzz of bees.

Anyone got a spare field?