And Even More Nettled...

My garden is full of nettles, but not all the stinging variety.
Here are some pics of a few of the huge variety of ornamental and "Dead" nettles scattered liberally around.
The bees love them, They fill spaces where little else would grow and cover bare earth to give a luscious feel even to the broken wall of my compost heap!

Just at their peak of flowers, which, for a humble nettle look remarkably exotic - almost orchid like.

These are already past best, but have provided a symphony of buzzing bumble and honey bees

This one is rather easy to confuse with the stinging variety. I'm not sure it would make such good soup! It gives a lovely understated highlight of white among the colours elsewhere.

Getting Nettled

I love free food, and there is so much through the seasons to pick here!
The kids did draw the line at eating mushrooms I found in the garden (I was sure they were safe...!)
We have a nice crop of Stinging Nettles in our wilderness area. They have so many uses - food, wine, liquid plant feed...apparently the seeds have caffeine-like qualities!

Here is a recipe for soup that is so good you won't believe it! It has the sweetness of a pea soup with the savoury richness of spinach or watercress soup. Delicious.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp oil, nob of butter
A carrier bag loosely filled with tender young stinging nettles tops
A large onion
1 Clove of garlic
two large potatoes (I used a load of new potatoes that were starting to sprout)
1.5l (6 cups) hot veg stock
pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
pinch freshly grated nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
swirl of cream (optional)

Method:

1. using thick rubber gloves(!) thoroughly wash the nettles.

2. chop onion and potatoes into chunks about 1 inch cubed
3. peel garlic and chop in half

4. heat oil and butter until better melted. Add onion, garlic and potato, stir until coated with fat, turn heat to lowest possible and cover with tight fitting lid.   Allow to "Sweat" for 10 mins

5. meanwhile remove leaves from nettle stems, discard stems. Gloves still needed for this part!

6.when "Sweating" period is over, add hot veg stock, nettle leaves and cayenne pepper. I cheated and used hot water and a stock cube crumbled in. Hey, it works.
Cover and simmer for  10-15 mins, or until potato is cooked through.

7. blend soup, add freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a swirl of cream if desired, and some crusty bread. Yum.

Oh, by the way, once cooked, nettles don't sting any more!!

I am the Egg Man...

I have been making a regular rendez-vous for clandestine exchanges with the Egg Man.

When we first moved to Cambridge area, we were delighted to spend a year as members of a Hempsal's Community Farm  (http://www.hempsalsfarm.com/).
We had a wonderful experience helping set the place up and enjoyed the fruits of our labours with half a pig (pre-butchered I am glad to say), masses of eggs, a CHristmas goose and veggies in season.

Once we moved to our own home and garden, we ran out of time to have so much involvement, but are now on the "Friends" list, which means we can visit and help, still opt for half a pig, and buy excess produce.

Can you see the odd one out?
It is a duck egg, and I have cleaned it up with the plan that I will turn it into a Fabergé style decorated shell when I have a spare moment. Ha!
 

Eggs have been flowing in abundance for them this year. Here is a photo of a box I received recently.

The others remain a little yucky to look at as it is best to clean them just before use to prevent bacteria travelling through the porous shell with the aid of water.

Blooming Bonanza! Part 2

We've had high winds here....I'm so glad I managed to photograph a few blossoms before they all blew off!

Cherry blossom and a rare blue sky!

Cox's apple blossom - the plan is to espalier this tree once I have excavated space to plant it!

Quince - this was a tangled mess under a shady window.  I've managed to tidy it up, with resulting reward...

One of my favourites: Dicentra, or "Bleeding hearts" dangling delicately over the fish pond

Dicentra flowers a little closer up. Aren't they lovely?

Flowering currant blossom. We didn't realize we had this until we removed a tonne of ivy and mahonia. Its a huge leggy shrub - I'll prune it a little more each year to nurse it back to full glory.

 

And last but not least, the Bramley apple blossom from the two large cooking apple trees at the "Wild' end of the garden.

So far it seems to have been a good year for apples, unlike last year's disaster year.

Our two Bramleys are rather precious, as they produce marvellous apples which we can chop and freeze for cooking, and they are great for climbing for Anna.
This photo does not do them justice....but they are looking so much better for two years careful and consistent pruning (Using your advice Paula! Thanks...)
They were so entangled and overgrown that there was no light to the limbs.
This winter I will cut the height down, having shrunk the branches and removed the cross growth. Should have perfect  trees then.
There is plenty of new growth coming, so I am happy!! I didn't kill them!

Thinking Pink...

Gotta show off sometimes...
I decorated a cake for a lady from our church who has just turned 50. She is a breast cancer survivor, so this was a very special celebration for her.
Her two young daughters helped me decorate by making scatter flowers and models of things that are special to their Mummy to put on the cakes...
 Here is the result:

Blooming bonanza! part 1

The Garden seems to be marching into full spring action all of a sudden.
After all the cold and damp, a little sunshine has kicked it all into overdrive.

Here are a few of my favorite things to inspect daily in the wild garden at the end....

Comfrey - pretty, invasive, a favourite of bees, and great for making liquid plant food...

Stinging nettles - also an invasive weed, but I am cultivating my crops for tender young leaves which make the best soup. Recipe will follow soon...

Primulas - These are just past their best, but they have grown voluntarily under a Bramley apple tree in a little patch of dappled sunlight...

Car Wash

Our lovely son was feeling strapped for cash.
"Mum, what can I do to earn some money?"
"Wash my car!" came the immediate response.
This time, to my surprise, he didn't blanch or change the subject, but got straight to it.
Since then he has done four more cars, and has earned enough to buy the new DS games he craved.
Here he is on the final vehicle:

I had to hide behind a bush to take this - hope no one was watching!

And just to prove the car was clean enough to see reflections in...

Its so good to see the kids grow up and take initiative. Talking of which, Joel has just informed me that he will be charging me legal fees for posting pictures without permission!!  Clearly a good business head there.

Bunny irony

My dear friend Anne gave me these little stone rabbits when we first told her we were moving back to the UK.  She thought they looked very "English Country Garden"-ish.

They do don't you think?

Here's the irony: we get loads of little grey rabbits in our garden - about the same size too- but they have all fallen victim to our cats, who mostly leave a little fur and the entrails as a present for us.

We were devastated at first, and of course tried to rescue the poor little things, but they died anyway.
Then before long, the cats had dispatched 50 rabbits, at which point we realized there might have been rather a lot of them out there....

Our neighbours have been thrilled, since the bunnies would eat all their home produce, and for the past two seasons they have not had a problem.
Well, I guess it saves on cat food.....

By the way, Anne, there is the peony you sent me in the back ground....it is looking very healthy!

Hive Mentality

Last Saturday was Hive making day.
It was like being at a rock concert - loud banging leaving your ears ringing, huddled up close to a load of other people!
I completed a bee-keeping course run by the Cambridge Bee Keeping Association this spring, and part of the course was a 101 on building a flat packed "National" hive at a nearby scout hut.  

Of course I took along my trusty woodwork expert (and his tools), thinking:
"We should be done in no time - how hard can this be?"
Ha ha. Well, not so bad if you have an expert hive maker, an expert woodworker and access to tea and coffee....but it still took 5 hours!!!

First we had to pick up the basic kit which was tidily stacked into a hive lid.

It looks a bit weird in this photo - but this is a stack of lids all containing pieces of flat pack.

 The first job was to take out all the pieces and sand off the splinters.  Mark was much faster at than me of course....so I swanned about taking pics!

And here he is drilling pilot holes. There was a very specific way to put it all together, and the reasons became apparent as we went on....mostly we got it right first time!

First assembly was the Brood box where my future queen will lay her off-spring, and her workers will store honey and pollen to feed and nurture them.  It is all glue and nails. Mark was itching to get some screws into it, but he had to be good and do as he was told.

just proving I am handy with a drill too...

Here is the finished hive safely stored in the garage awaiting paint job.
We had to assemble one wax frame too, as nothing is obvious from the kit!

The pressure is then on to finish the rest of the frames - 11 for the brood box, and 11 each for the 'Supers" where my honey harvest will be stored. When a swarm is sighted, it's a question of dropping everything and getting it home, so I have to be ready...

MJ and me finishing up the frames. It went so much quicker with a production line!

Meanwhile Mark got busy with the paintbrush and wood preservative.
We decided against the traditional white paint job, as this is not a pretty traditional hive.
It is all about function and economy....so the paint job had to match!

Now all I need is a custom made stand to keep it off the ground, and...bees!!

Paper pots with occupants!

Here they are....my babies are growing!

So far, globe artichokes (to the left) and courgettes have burst their way through.
The Patty Pan Squash are creating pimples on the surface, ready to burst with green any moment.
I never tire of seeing the first signs of life!