Category Archives: Garden

Mostly garden pictures and maybe the odd poodle

Around and about (1)

The nuts are on their way…

In the garden the catkins have been replaced by nuts…

The second batch of ‘cold’ steeped elderflower cordial

On the kitchen window is the second lot of cordial, made differently from the first. Time will tell if they fizz, bubble, explode…. how exciting !

As inspired by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Jars of this and more tomato things are looking for a home on the shelves of the garage following Brian’s purchase of 12 kg of tomatoes the other week.

A rolled up babka thingy

One bit of test baking that sort of worked. But I can’t give you the recipe….

The lime trees are flowering….

I am going to  harvest some of the flowers and make my own linden blossom tea this autumn.  Lime trees, beloved of town planners for their sticky sap which stops people parking under them, and a great and glorious tree when left unpollarded like this one at Ashton Court.

American Readers please note : this isn’t a citrus lime tree (Citrus aurantifolia), but a tree also known as a small-leaved lime, one of the family of tilia trees and yes they get big! In England the tilia are commonly called lime trees. This is not confusing for English people as we don’t have citrus trees growing outdoor as you do in the USA, only a few in conservatories behind glass. I have just had a little scoot around and in the US they are usually known as linden trees. The tea made from the blossom of this tree is variously known as limeflower blossom tea, limeflower tea, linden tea, tilleul in French. Widely drunk in Europe, (Proust et al) and it is one of the safest teas to drink in the herbal range. I have some lovely scent from Jo Malone which is lime blossom too. You could say I am a bit of a limey :)

Harlequin Ladybirds

Anyone good at identifying ladybirds?

I’ve sent this  photo off to the Harlequin survey site, hoping they’ll identify it for us.

We have a dramatic influx of ladybirds on the cardoons. They are very busy, setting up home, reproducing, laying eggs, eating, generally marching about, arguing with the aphids and rarely stay still long enough for the man with the macro lens to get a clear shot let alone measure them!   We think they could be Harlequins but only read up about ladybirds and their lifecycle yesterday. We are watching out for the larvae to hatch now….

They arrived in Britain in 2004 and are marching westwards, no ordinary ladybird, bigger and meaner than our native species.  I usually pay more attention to birds, like the collared doves who are so successful here, and the rose-ringed parrakeets and the little egrets who now inhabit parks and wetlands respectively.  But not usually my garden!  The world is in flux constantly and the insect world is no exception….

So the question is, should I be grateful that in three days time their larvae will hatch and proceed to devour all aphids, butterfly eggs and everything else that stands in their path, or should I remove their eggs from the leaves and use dilute soap to wash away the aphids?

It’s National Insect Week next week apparently, so I’d love to hear what’s crawling and buzzing around where you live!

Here are two more of Brian’s wonderful pics…any experts out there want to have a go at identifying them for us? (Contact details for him here if you want to use one of his images)

Brian's battle picture

The aphids like the cardoons, and the ladybirds like the....

Sally’s Griddled Lettuce

We have a few lettuces, just a few, and we weren’t getting through them quickly enough. Then I read Sally BR at Bewitching Kitchen on an intriguing recipe for grilled lettuce. Read her post here.

I  have to report that it is the most popular lettuce dish in the house. It was requested again today. So maybe we will get through them all with luck, plus I’m hiding them under my coat and smuggling them out to the neighbours.

On the subject of growing your own;  you know, on those gardening programmes, they always talk about sowing little tiny quantities of everything every two weeks, so you have a constant stream of fresh vegetables, does anyone actually manage to do that?  We did it last year and found that they all catch each other up anyway, like the No 65 bus from Ealing to Kingston via Richmond.

I just looked it up here to check it still existed, as it’s been a while since I was on it, and am happy to see it behaves the same way as it has done since I was a child. The shape of the bus may have changed over the years,  but it is still notorious for its erratic regard for the timetable and its proclivity to travel in a pack with fellow 65s.

But I digress,  here are some pictures. So if you’re ever stuck with more lettuce than you know what to do with, what’s the answer?  Try this for starters.  I made a dressing with creamy home made yoghurt, crushed garlic, olive oil, lemon and fresh mint;  everything Sally says about this dish is true!  Completely delicious.  From ground to plate in ten minutes! Griddled lettuce tastes better than chinese leaves, and almost as delicious as asparagus cooked in the same way. Mmm. Thank you Sally!