Friday Finds in the Irish countryside

Emi, Maxi and I have been busy catching up with my parents this week, going around all our old haunts and doing some serious amounts of chillaxing ... does that word even exist?

This is our village, Aughnacloy, set amidst the rolling, green hills of South Tyrone:

It's a pretty little corner of the world with lots of lakes and rivers, all teeming with wildlife.

The weather hasn't been all blue skies and sunshine, but, hey, there's a reason why Ireland is such a green and verdant place ... . 

My mum has an old-fashioned cottage garden with beds of hardy perennials, and a vegetable patch that always seems to have something edible in it whatever the time of the year. She grows a drill of sweet peas in with the vegetables, just like my grandparents used to do. Here are this year's plants:

I so wish that I could blog a scratch card to give you a whiff of their wonderful fragrance; they are simply divine. We entertain ourselves arranging them in vases to spread their fabulous smell throughout the house. It's such an evocative scent. Wherever I am, the smell sweet pea instantly transports me back to Aughnacloy in the summertime. 

In July the garden is a kaleidoscope of colour set against the vivid green backdrop of the fields all around.

And there are lots of other perks that go with living in such an out-of-the-way place. There's no one looking over the garden fence to notice that you're riding up and down on a too-small bike with a HUGE motorbike helmet on. If you fancy taking a spin, you can go right ahead and throw caution to the wind - unless, of course, your mum's around to take photographs and show the world ... . Oh, and please, nobody tell his friends that it's a pink bike.

When we come over here we do lots of long country walks, dogs at our heels, and our heads bent together as we shoot the breeze.

In Celtic mythology the lakes, the rivers and the sea shore were important: this meeting of the land with the water was believed to be a special place from which it was possible to access the world of the spirits. And for my part I've always found the lakes especially magical. Maybe it's some sort of inherited sense of awe and respect that's come down the generations from my early ancestors. Whatever the way of it there's an hour, just before twilight, when the last sunbeams of the day sink through the leaves on the wooded banks leaving a gentle dappled light dancing over the water when it's easy to believe you've arrived at the gateway to some other ethereal side.

At this time of the year we have loads of wild flowers in the hedgerows.

And, whilst we're feasting on wild strawberries and raspberries, we have the prospect of the blackberries and the hazelnuts that are soon to come. With the warm, early spring we seem to be on course for a bumper harvest this year.

So there they are: some Friday Finds that are really very ordinary, but at the same time quite extraordinary because they are so commonplace. It's a fabulous country where ordinary people like us can stumble upon such beautiful things on our doorsteps without having to make any effort or spend any money to find them. They're there, within reach of anyone who will take the time to see them.

Anyway here's to the simple pleasures in life and a great weekend!

All the best,

Bonny x

As shared on Friday Finds

Potpourri part 2 ...

I started making potpourri about a month ago, back in the heady days of May when my roses were just coming into bloom.You can find my potpourri recipe here: Recipe for Rose Potpourri.

This morning I had a look at my petals and flowers and came to the conclusion that they're sufficiently dry to move on to stage 2 of the process. Like to have a look at them? This is everything that I've dried spread out on the picnic table outside:

I'm pleased with how it's all turned out. I kept them in a cool, dark room in the basement, which was well ventilated. There's been no moulding and only minimum discolouration of the petals, which is brilliant.

The peonies, which were a bit of an experiment, have dried out beautifully. They're the smaller, thinner, darker petals. The bay leaves have curled up a bit, but have kept their wonderful dark green colour. The rosemary has also kept its colour well and the geraniums still look like ... well, geraniums, which is a good result.

After I'd done my little bit of admiring how nicely they'd all turned out I placed the dried flowers and leaves in a mixing bowl, added the cinnamon sticks, cardamon pods, coriander seeds, orris root powder and rose and geranium essential oils.

I gave it a very gentle shake around to make sure that the orris root powder, which is the fixative got everywhere.

 Now I've got a bit of a thing for old jam pots. I have a strange urge to hoard them and it's a real struggle form me to put them in the recycling bin. I've always got two or three boxes of them in the garden shed in all shapes and sizes. When I need a storage jar for something they're brilliant. As you can see from the photo above I've got an old mustard jar pressed into service so that I don't have to fiddle with the rather annoying plastic bag that my orris root powder was dispatched in.

When it'd all been given a gentle shake-around so that the orris root powder had coated everything in a powdery dust I decanted the mixture into an old sandwich box, placed the lid on and left it to mature on a dark shelf.

Every day or so, for the next week or two, I'll give the box a gentle shake around to make sure that the powder doesn't settle to the bottom. I'll have a sniff and maybe add extra spices or essential oil if I think the fragrance needs a bit of tinkering with. After that I'll just leave it for the scent to mature and strengthen until the autumn when it'll be ready to mix with the other things that I want to include.

I've got some fabulous dried lavender, which I'll mix in, and I've got some pretty little pine cones which will add texture. I found these on my travels and have them stored in another small jam pot (what else!) where they are also infusing with rose and geranium essential oil.

I haven't added the cones to the general mix of infusing petals because they would damage the flower heads and petals when I give the mixture a shake about every now and then.

So that's it. Everything is brewing nicely and should be ready for use in the autumn. If you'd like to make some for yourself, there's plenty of time and loads of roses still in bloom. As I've mentioned you can find the recipe and method in my earlier post: Recipe for Rose Potpourri.

All the best,

Bonny x
As shared on Creative Mondays

Killing weeds without deadly chemicals ...

Today I 'm waging war. I'm having my revenge on all the nasties that grow between my paving stones. And I'm determined that my battle will be won without recourse to chemical warfare.

Normally this is an issue that gives me serious pause for thought. The thing is that, whilst I don't much like the nasties growing in the gaps, I don't want to poison my son, my dog, myself or any of the other little critters who happen to pass this way. I'm sure that whatever they put into commercial weedkiller these days doesn't pack the punch of weapons-grade plutonium, but we just don't know what its long term effect will be on the chap with the fluffy paws who's forever trotting over the residue left behind, or on his human pets for that matter. So, you see, I'm all in favour of not taking any chances.

And that's why I'm using this little lot:

That's right, my arsenal for the fight consists of some super cheap, no-frills malt vinegar, salt and my any-old liquid soap that happened to be stationed at the kitchen sink.

I usually keep the spray bottles that household cleaners and laundry sprays come in. It's one of my little foibles: I can find a hundred uses for those things.

So I got this one, washed it out and put a label on so that I'd know what was in it. It would, after all, be a bad result if I sprayed it on the laundry, and we all ended up smelling like left-over chips!

Next I added a good pinch of salt to the spray bottle, along with a decent squirt of the liquid soap and then I topped it up with the vinegar and gave it a good shake to mix everything together.

Now for the before and after photographs ... .

 Some of my flowerbeds are bordered with flat-end bricks, where the nuisance weeds are difficult to dig out and like to make their home. This is how this one looked after I'd had a go at pulling them out in a hissy fit:

You can see that the leafless stumps still looking infuriatingly green and healthy, with a sort of 'I'll be back in no time' smirk on their weedy faces.

I sprayed them with my magic potion a couple of days ago, just after I took this photograph.

And this is how they're looking today:

Ha ha ... not so perky now! 

The spray bottle makes it really easy to direct the weedkiller to the cracks between the stones so that there's minimum wastage. And there's nothing in the mixture that's likely to cause much harm to man or beast ...

... which is a really good result for these guys!

Happy zapping,

Bonny x

Chelsea Physic Garden and the Snowdrop Parade

Today I took a trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden, which is an old favourite of mine. I'm keen on using plants and natural remedies when I can, and so I find the history of this garden irresistible. It was founded way back in 1673 by the Society of Apothecaries so that their apprentices could learn how to cultivate and use medicinal plants. Back then it was surrounded by market gardens and orchards, taking advantage of the south facing aspect, the free-draining soil and the easy access via the river to the City of London.

They still have lots of useful medicinal plants, but this morning pride of place was being given to the Snowdrop Parade. Right now they have over 100 varieties of Galanthus (that's the la dee da botanical name for the snowdrop) blooming around the garden in drifts and clusters and pots. My very favourite of all has to be the Galanthus Grumpy, if only for sounding like it has an even worse case of Seasonal Affective Disorder than I do! Here it is, the Galanthus Grumpy, in the Snowdrop Theatre:

There's a lovely woodland walk along the embankment with snowdrops blossoming all around.

And this morning there were lots of other things in bloom as well: harbingers of better, brighter days to come. Check out old Sir Hans Sloane surrounded by a multitude of spring-time gorgeousness:

Want a close up of the great man's plinth?

Thought you might! Feast your eyes on all this multi-coloured loveliness: 

Now savour the intensity of blue in these dwarf irises: 

Lovely, eh?

And then there are the very pretty Hellebores. How I love the Hellebores at this time of the year!

And the humble catkin? Let's hear it for the lambs' tails!

And the flowering currant (I've given up on the la dee da botanical names - they just don't trip off my tongue):

And what do you know, before I came home the sun came out to make me really believe that spring might be just around the corner after all.

The Physic Garden will be open daily from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. for snowdrop viewing until 16th February.

Happy Monday Peeps!

Bonny x

The gardener stirs from her winter slumbers

What a lovely day we had yesterday in West London. The sun shone, the sky was blue, the temperatures were mild and, all of a sudden, it felt positively spring-like, which was a bit mad given how the day before we’d been hiding indoors from hailstones the size of Mint Imperials.

Anyway, I have a confession to make: I’m still a country girl at heart. I grew up in the beautiful rolling hills of South Tyrone, and every spring-time, when the sap starts rising in the hedgerows, I get a rush of something primitive in my veins that drives me out into the garden.

I know. I know. ‘Steady on, it’s only the middle of January,’ I hear you say, but yesterday’s burst of primal enthusiasm produced enough momentum to turn the pot of gloom that resides in my front porch into a pot of something approaching welcome cheer.

The problem is, at this time of the year, the garden centres and plant sellers don’t have much to offer in the way of plants for creating pots of welcome cheer. All the red and white Christmas cyclamens and berry-laden plants have gone, and there’s not a whole load of anything colourful left behind to use until the spring bulbs make their debut.

In the end I got some sweet little matching/ clashing garden primroses from the flower stall just outside Sainsbury’s in West Ealing. I’m very keen on matching/ clashing pinks, reds and oranges at the moment. But the resulting ensemble is only OK rather than eye-catching. I’ll blame the lack of choice for my failure to deliver pizzazz, and move on quickly without a photograph.

On our mini-plant hunt Maxi and I trawled through the Osterley Park, Wyevale (dog-friendly – hip hip hooray!) garden centre, where they have quite a decent half-price sale on pretty nearly all of their outdoor plants. We came home with this little trove: a blackcurrant bush, a loganberry bush, a white clematis that promises to have attractive coppery leaves, a buddleia bush that promises to attract swarms of butterflies in summer, a bag of seed potatoes, a tray of curly kale plants and some seeds for salad greens.

I’m looking forward to making preserves with the loganberries and blackcurrants.  I’m already imagining a rich blackcurrant jam, delicately flavoured with star anise and a hint of vanilla … . Hopefully they won’t wither and die in the meantime, or chose to do all their fruiting when I’m on my summer holidays!

We’ve already planted the white clematis to grow through the (rather bare) under parts of an old climbing rose that’s gone a bit leggy at the front of our house. With any luck it will do a good job of hiding the ‘bald’ bits.

Every year I get a few seed potatoes and plant them in patio containers to harvest in June/ July. It's like some kind of earth-magic how they multiply and grow in the soil when no one's looking. You see, you can take the girl out of Ireland, but you can’t take the Irish potato-mania out of the girl!

My garden isn't huge, but it's big enough for me to grow a few crops of this and that for the kitchen, which I find hugely satisfying. I love to be outside surrounded by greenery and birdsong. It's such a great stress-buster, and I've noticed that Emilio, my eight year-old son, gets a bit of a buzz out of it as well.

I've just learnt on my travels about the 'Edible Garden Show', a not-to-be-missed event that's taking place at Alexandra Palace from 28th to 30th March.

'Perfectly timed for the beginning of the growing season, the show is buzzing with tips on keeping bees, raising chickens, brewing beer, saving energy, mouth-watering baking and dishing up delicious meals using home-grown ingredients,' according to the website.

Sounds good to me!

You can check it out for yourself here: Edible Garden Show

Anyway, happy gardening, and maybe I'll see you at Ally Pally come March!

Bonny x