Tasty Herbalist

A birthday weekend

My usual Sunday post will be delayed by a day or two because my baby turned one yesterday...one!...and I have been so very busy baking cakes, entertaining relatives and being amazed by my little girl who has changed our life in all of the good ways. Happy birthday little one.

The first shoots of wild garlic

The first shoots of wild garlic have appeared and, while they are not large enough to pick, I am already dreaming of them in soups, dals, pesto and fritters/pakoras. I imagine they would be equally delicious dipped in a light tempura batter and quickly fried before being used to garnish a soup. The young leaves work well in a pungent spring salad. Perfect for warding off colds and flus. Instead of putting the in the salad blend them up with olive oil and lemon juice instead of normal garlic for a bright green vibrant immune boosting dressing. I'm longing for that first harvest.

The garden too is showing signs of life. The patches of earth I have dug over are now sprouting 'weeds'. These plants seem to  have the strongest life force and are the most determined to stake their claims on my garden. They all have their place, or so I tell myself on my lazy garden days when they have all gone to seed. The welsh poppies are visited by bees and the shepherds purse feeds the birds. The horsetail, invading from my neighbours garden, feeds nothing but can thankfully be used in so many herbal preparations it makes it's presence here less irksome. While weeding can become a never ending chore I remind myself to  be thankful as they are a bountiful harvest in themselves.

weeding

It's been a busy week in the garden. I have been weeding like a woman possessed! Surprisingly I have genuinely enjoyed the hard and repetitive labour involved in extracting the most stubborn of roots. I'm trying hard not to judge the previous owners choice of plants. They were clearly going for ground cover but, to me, all that screams is "weed"! They are also the type of weeds that seem impossible to eradicate: geraniums, welsh poppies, Alchemilla mollis, fuschias...I began to wince when I heard roots snapping as I dug frantically down. They will grow from the smallest part. Out they must come though as I must make room not only for my herbs but for plants that will attract insects and birds into the garden. It's dawning on me that I know very little about gardening other than very general snippets of information. I've muddled along so far but last years crop failures (leeks, onions and beet roots particularly) suggest that perhaps its time to outsource my information. The local gardening club might be the place to start if I can overcome my embarrassment and just join. Embarrassment because it will be painfully obvious how little I know about the maintenance of plants but then I've never needed to know up until now having always gathered my herbs from the wild. Here in the South West of Scotland I've got until mid March before I have to think of sowing any seeds outdoors and even then I'll be cautious; there is still a risk of frost here even in April.

Pots for planting and sprouting broccoli

Finally the weather has changed in my favour and while the rest of the UK is covered with snow we get crisp bright days. I have no complaints. I've been able to get outside, take stock of the garden and superficially tidy things up. Pots were unearthed from under a blanket of overgrown grass. I thought I was going to have to buy more this year but I found more than I possibly need.

I found more than pots too. The broccoli plants which have taken up so much space in the vegetable plot have started producing their wares. I'd love to say I'm blasé about it but I'm ridiculously excited! I have my suspicions that they won't produce that much to justify the space they take up and the length of time it has taken them to grow but I'll enjoy them none the less. Also found while emptying my old tea bags and potato peelings into the compost bin was a small mouse. I'm not sure who got a bigger fright. I probably shouldn't encourage it to stay but if I was a mouse a compost bin is where I'd live too.