Author Archives: admin

1. Herbs – grow your own ‘great flavour enhancers’

   March 7, 2014 2:20 pm Leave a Comment

   

   Growing your own fruit and vegetables has become very popular over the last few years.  However not everybody has the time, space or inclination to do this.  But if there is one group of plants I think everyone should have a go at growing it is culinary herbs, even if it is just a few pots of basil on the kitchen windowsill.  The reason for this is that fresh herbs can absolutely transform a meal; they are ‘the great flavour enhancers’.  It’s a simple joy to be able to collect some rosemary and a couple of bay leaves whilst cooking a winter casserole, (and once you’ve tried fresh bay leaves you’ll never go back to those grey cardboard ones from the supermarket!); or snip some fresh mint in summer and indulge in a luxury mojito…

   If you have a large garden then a small part of it could become a dedicated herb area.  In smaller gardens there are various options – herb wheels, (where a circular plant bed is divided into sections with different herbs planted between the ‘spokes’), herbs in pots and other containers, or, and a great idea to avoid having to bend down to cut the herbs, use a timber vegetable trug on tall legs.  Pots, containers and trugs all have the advantage of being able to be placed on hard standing just outside the kitchen door, so that you can easily get at your herbs all year round.

   There is lots of advice freely available for growing your own herbs and as a general rule it is often stressed that many, (but by no means all), like Mediterranean conditions – that is, lots and lots of sun together with free drainage.  So choose a sunny spot if you have one and incorporate plenty of grit into the soil when planting.  Some herbs are easy to grow shrubs such as bay, rosemary and sage – you can just have a bush of each of these somewhere in the garden; others are perennials that might be better collected together in pots or a dedicated part of the garden, these include thyme, (broadleaved thyme has relatively large leaves which makes them easy to strip from woody stalks when cooking), mint, (restrict the root run!), and chives; some herbs you will need to re-sow each year such as basil, (tender), dill, (an annual), and parsley, (a bi-annual); still others are perennials but will need indoor protection in winter months, such as french tarragon.  Once you’ve got the bug you’ll also find lots of varieties of your favourites – try morrocan mint, lemon thyme and greek basil for instance – as well as less often grown herbs, such as lemon balm, chervil and winter savoury.  And, perhaps stretching the point, why not then ‘graduate’ to those other great flavour enhancers – chillies, (a whole other subject in itself), and garlic, (although it is too late to plant garlic for this year).

   So why not set about growing yourself some real fantastic flavour and improve your garden, and your cooking, at the same time!

2. The Winter Garden

   January 31, 2014 12:24 am Leave a Comment

   

   Just when the weather is at it’s bleakest – grey, wet, cold and generally downright miserable. Just when we could probably all do with some cheer – some colour, some signs of life, some greenery – we give up on our gardens.  Or by and large we do.  This is a shame, because there are many plants that are at their most beautiful at this time of year.

   In recent years there have been efforts to overcome this tendency as various people and gardens have developed ‘The Winter Garden’.  Among the very first was at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire, a National Trust property, but others have followed, for example the winter borders at the RHS garden at Harlow Carr.  Other gardens, such as Hodsock Priory, near Worksop, open especially to display extensive snowdrop collections.  This hopefully gets us out and about, visiting these properties and getting some fresh air, but there is no reason why you cannot enjoy a winter garden, on a smaller scale perhaps, at your own home.  All it takes is a little foresight and preparation.

   The ground may be too wet at this time of the year to do very much actual gardening but there is no reason that you cannot have a garden that is still beautiful to look at, either through the windows, or by venturing out on sunnier days.  Even better, why not make use of the fact that we all see our front gardens daily, as we come and go about our business.  If nothing else why not have a pot of something with fabulous fragrance right by the front door.  All we need do is plant a careful choice of plants earlier in the year.  (This year I have taken some cuttings of the astonishingly scented winter honeysuckle to go in a pot by the front door for this time next year.)

   Our own front garden is now largely planted up for winter and early spring.  (The back is reserved for a riot of bad taste in summer when we want to spend as much time out of doors as possible.)  The display in the front garden starts with the coloured stems of the dogwoods – fiery orange, yellow and dark purple.  Yellow witch hazel with its delicious scent follows.  Then it’s the turn of the mass snowdrops and crocuses to show off.  (In a fit of pedantry I painstakingly transplanted all the orange crocuses we inherited into the back garden, leaving only the more ‘tasteful’ white and mauve ones in the front.)  As all this is going on we slowly move towards spring and there is always something to see, to go outside and observe.  The white and plum hellebores, the early primroses, the Viburnum carlesii with it’s heavenly scent.  Before we know it the early daffodils are out and the forsythia too; we have arrived at spring without knowing it.  The winter garden has carried us through.

   So this year, when the time is right for planting, why not think ahead and develop your own winter garden.  You won’t regret it!