Lavender dayzzz…

The lavender is a-buzzing.

This is one of life’s good things.

I have lavender in pots, but my main lavender event comes in the form of twelve L. angustifolia ‘Hidcote’ plants that edge the ends of my flower beds.

… That fuzzy softness…it needs off-setting with a tidy lawn (or better still, stone or brick).

L. angustifolia is fully hardy, and covered in deep purple, two-lipped flowers (which you can see are not out yet). The is the perfect time to harvest some stems for drying, (although do leave some for the bees – lavender being ultra-rich in nectar). To dry, just gather a handful, and tie the ends of the stems with a rubber band. Hang it in a cool dry place, upside down for a couple of weeks, and then you can make lavender bags, or get creative in the kitchen.

Here’s my lavender sugar (same concept as vanilla sugar) for which I plucked about a tablespoon of lavender buds and added them to a jar of caster sugar. I’ll leave that to infuse for a couple of weeks and then make biscuits or ice-cream, or something.

If you want to grow lavender in a container (and look how delicious it is with terracotta), choose a large pot, because you want to allow your plant to grow into a great big wafty hummock, and make it a beautiful one too, because lavender is no flash-in-the-pan plant, and then just mix up some peat-free multi-purpose with John Innes no 2 and keep it watered (though not fed).

Of course, angustifolia is not the only lavender – there is L. x intermedia (often known as English lavender), which is rather smaller, and with rather more rounded leaves, and then there is L. stoechas (or French lavender) which has those funny bunny-eared bracts, – deeply chic, but do watch out, because it is only borderline hardy, and a hard wet winter will nuke it good and proper.

It’s nice to sprinkle dried lavender on the floor, or on a table near a lighted candle for scented winter evenings, although with the extended winter we have just endured, I have been using Charlotte and Co’s exquisite scented candle from their collection of lovely lavender things, which took me straight to summer whenever I used it. I also have their pillow spray, to which I have become rather addicted, because I am convinced it helps me get to sleep faster, and dream about good things.

I rather long to be a person who wafts around in a silken dressing gown….perhaps this is my little piece of that…silken..ness.

But back to reality…I can’t post on lavender without sharing how I prune. This is pretty much the only plant in my garden (bar box) that I am fiercely strict with when it comes to chopping. The problem is that if you don’t do it, then you lose that gorgeous mound-thing and you pretty much have to start again with a new plant.

So…when the flowers are over  and the bees have had their fill, I cut them all off, (down to the top of the leafy bit of the bush).

Then, at the end of September I chop the whole thing down brutally to about one-third it’s original size:

…just like this. You will hate yourself, and it will feel terribly wrong, but it’s not wrong, it’s right. This way your plant will never get leggy or woody. It will always be like a soft, purple pouffe.

x

Enough with the rain already!

Here are some edible flowers … eye food as much as tummy food, and an antidote to this chilly rain…

Lilac is one of my favourite velvety petal foods. Fling it in salads or on top of a cake.

…but there is also sweet cicely

…and forgetmenots (of which I have an embarrassment) … and if this is just too cutesy for you, then have a look at my myosotis strawberry pot over here

Cakes are a good way of dealing with a rainy day. These ones are from a recipe in this book. If you can cope with the fact that the lady who wrote it looks a bit scary, then it’s really rather good. These cakes are proper delicious…better than victoria sponge ones, in my humble opinion, and really easy to make. I use tiny paper cases instead of big ones, and they produce the loveliest mouthfuls ever. Reduce cooking time a bit if you’re going miniature.

Sweet violets for a heady concoction

The lovely thing about mothers is that they love you … whatever.

This year, mine will get this:

I used to grow all my sweet violets in pots when I only had a balcony to play with, and one of the first things I ever did when I got to my new garden was to plant them all in the ground near my apple tree.  They have thanked me for freeing them and are flowering now as if the world were about to end (I hope it’s not, because my new book is launching tomorrow)…

If you want to buy violets then go to a specialist nursery and pick your favourites. I’d suggest sticking with Viola odorata, (I love V. ‘The Czar’) because although Parma violets look oh so tempting, they don’t like frost, so need special treatment.

Violets do this funny thing to your nose: After that sensational initial hit, the scent sort of overwhelms the olfactory senses, and you can’t smell anything any more. It’s quite a feat for such a tiny little thing…and knowing you’ve only got a limited time to experience the sublime smell is all part of the charm methinks.

Anyway, I have enough now to make violet syrup, which was one of the first floral concoctions I ever tried. I used to drink it with champagne (those were the days) – as a sort of violet kir royal. Now I just lick it off a spoon with my daughter….smiling.

You need:

15-20 sweet violet blooms, stalks removed

150ml water

Granulated sugar

Method

Boil the water and add the flowers. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 24 hours or so. The next day, weigh your liquid and add twice that weight of sugar, heating slowly to dissolve it. Put a lid on the pan and leave it to infuse again for three days. Put it back on the heat and reduce it to a syrupy consistency. Strain and devour.

You can get a taster of my new book in You Magazine on Sunday. Very much hoping you like it…

x

Something to soothe

Never parTICularly been one for an ‘erbal infusion’ (unless it’s lemon verbena or peppermint)

I’m far more likely to munch leaves or a flower in a salad…

or cover it with sugar and put it on a cake…

… but stuff’s wee bit stressy at the moment, and I went out to pick a tiny posy because I thought it was something rare, and non-computer-based…and then I found myself marvelling at these pretty things, and I picked up Jekka’s Herb Book, and it said  that a tisane acts as a ‘mild sedative’…’good for anxiety and insomnia’, so I chucked some leaves and a flower in a cup.

Primula vulgaris are mighty easy to grow, particularly if you have a deciduous tree kicking around, under which they can live in a nice, moist, partly shady world.

Wild primroses are less common than they should be, so don’t pick them unless there are absolutely loads, and certainly don’t pull them up by the roots.

Colours vary from the palest of creams to much deeper, eggy yellows, and look how pretty the buds are:

You can grow them in a pot – just use JI No2 and water regularly, and you can divide them in the autumn if you’ve got big clumps.

The scent is sweet.

I think the small bottle of blooms did more for my jitters than the tea

My new book is coming out soon – and people – (people I admire and respect) are being SO nice about it. This is totally wonderful and deeply gratifying and NOT what I expect…So thank you English Mum and Fennel and Fern.

This site came under attack a while ago and I basically lost the whole caboodle. It was the brilliant Neil who resurrected it, and who is now helping me to improve it. My beloved Lust List has completely disappeared and I am re-writing it (slowly but surely…a little bit every day….). I am hoping to have it back up soon as poss.

A father’s day cake

The Hunk is one of those people who appreciatively wolfs down anything you put infront of him – it’s one of the (many) things I love about him. So when I placed the pelargonium flowers on top of this cake and it looked unspeakably girly, I knew it wouldn’t matter a bit. Sure enough, when I gave it to him and harrumphed about it being a bit ‘princessy’ for a boy, he said ‘babe….it’s CAKE!’ – enough said.

Scented leaved-pelargoniums are one of my favourite plants…mostly because they appeal to my nose. You can get them in little plugs in the springtime and in rather larger pots right now, and their scents range from violet to rose to coca-cola (yes, indeed). i like to use rose-scented Pelargonium graveolens, for punch (see The Virgin Gardener) and cakes, but any scented-leaved pelargonium will add something to your baking and this time round I used a deliciously apple-rose scented pele (whose label I have, predictably, lost).

I grow all my pelargoniums in pots of John Innes No. 2 compost. I keep them outside in summer and bring them inside my kitchen window for the winter. Those I don’t have space for but don’t want to lose, I take cuttings from (incredibly easy….I will show you how very soon).

I got the recipe from the gorgeous book River Cottage Cakes by Pam Corbin. I love this book because it is pink, but ALSO, because it has a recipe for dog-biscuits in it, in which Pam begins by saying ‘I do think it’s important to keep everyone in the family happy’….Mr Pug would agree wholeheartedly.

This cake is called Scent from heaven cake and calls for lemon verbena (which I’ve already blogged about here). She uses rice flour in hers…I had none, so just used self-raising flour. It’s delicious…mostly because it’s one of those cakes that you ‘feed’ with flavoured syrup (in this case, pelargonium-flavoured), so that it gets saturated with yumminess.

Enjoy your weekend…it’s gonna be a scorcher apparently
I’m on the tellybox tonight, on ITV at 8pm for THREE WHOLE MINUTES…go me!