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July 30 2010
potatoes
pink and white tatties
Never before have we had so many of these beautiful apples of the Earth. Pull a stem and reach into the ground for tuber after tuber – the plot is full of them 
Weather conditions have no doubt contributed to this abundant harvest but I’ve also been a more diligent waterer on dry days. Sunshine finds me standing at the well, filling cans with the water so rich in iron it smells of metal. Plants love it. Potatoes are thirsty roots.
…and we do love these pots: in salads with mayo and chives; as a side dish with marg and parsley and in soups with kale and onion from the garden too
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July 22 2010
a blackcurrant smoothie
blackcurrants
Very blackcurranty and lovely, makes a big jug (about 3 and a half pints, good for 4 people, quantities very adjustable):
lots of blackcurrants, about a quarter blender jugful
lots of borage flowers (optional)
huge bunch of parsley
a handful of brazil nuts
1 banana
1 avocado
1 apple
1 litre of orange juice
Blitz it all in a blender…
enjoy in the sun
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July 21 2010
the tale of the strawberries
Once upon a time a princess planted 3 tiny strawberry plants in her garden.
carefully planted in the newly created bed
They began to grow. Then, despite being guarded by a beady eyed and brave fox, they were eaten down to the quick by saucy young rabbits who were very numerous throughout that kingdom. Over the summer one of the plants recovered and produced 2 strawberries
Many years later (well, 3), many self planted runners later, this is how they looked:
a wild and mysterious forest had grown up around the fox
Rosemary and lovage were shunted to the side, still doing well at the edge of the forest (one of those stray potatoes growing among them too). And what a royal harvest there was! Big bountiful bowls for all the family several times a week 
with soya cream
with a cherry on top
a strawberry from this magical garden was even purple-ised and put on a t-shirt…
purple strawberry tank top
the frog prince
Frogbert called from beside the pond, “I’ve found the golden ball that you dropped in here some time ago!”, but nobody heard as they were all too busy with their strawberry obsession 
There is even a strawberry Lucy now
Related posts:
July 20 2010
how does your garden grow?
Wildly. Freely. Abundantly. Rather similarly to Cat’s I see this morning! Sadly my courgettes are nowhere near as good as Penny’s (I’m hoping they’re late developers ).
Some very early pics from before the sun was properly up this morning:
raised bed with kale, onions, radish and some small tomatoes
the small toms are ones I took out of an organic tomato and just stuck in the ground as an experiment – they are doing amazingly well though were started off a bit late. In there are also the four surviving cabbages that I overwintered. They gave us green leaves for smoothies right through to the end of January when most of them died (very low temp was hit one night). I should have put plastic over them… gardening is a constant learning experience.
This is a long post with MANY pics so click below if you want the rest of it
raised bed of broad beans, peas, sunflowers, leeks and the odd potato
odd potatoes are everywhere in the garden grown up from layers of kitchen compost – I let most of them grow and they’re already very delicious cooked with mint and then served with marg and parsely
broad beans - pods growing about 1cm a day just now with the heat and rain
peas, best straight from the pod into your mouth
amazing kale - harvested everyday, it just continually grows back
French beans in the tyre garden (no actual beans as yet)
growbag on patio - with last years lettuce and more of the experimental toms
Leaving things in as opposed to tidying everything up for winter, while disorganisation/laziness was the reason, has proved very fruitful. We use most lettuce as cut and come again – these are similar to iceberg and leaves are frequently nabbed for sandwiches, juice and salads. Some more winter surviving lettuce:
in the cold frame, a more likely place to live through winter
the jungle of the allotment bit at bottom of garden
Lots of potatoes in there (officially this time), purple sprouting broccoli, leeks, lettuce, chickweed, some late peas, beetroot, carrots, kale, leaf beet, rhubarb, parsley and garlic.
keenly awaiting broccoli
I planted rows of leeks between most things down here and in one of the raised beds – good for biodiversity and avoidance of pests (and another wonderful winter survivor/grower). I didn’t grow these from seed but bought a pot of about 300 from a small local hardware and garden shop for £1.75. This was a rather fabulous price – when visiting a popular big garden centre I saw a set of 12 leeks there for £2.99, only very slightly larger then the potted ones I bought!
beautiful leek
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July 14 2010
July 12 2010
new designs in shop
borage being my favourite
Great program photoshop I’ve created a few new designs for the spreadshirt shop, some based on flowers from the garden, some ballet, old pictures and still the original vegan and home ed categories too. There is an offer on from today, 12th July to 30th July (2010 for future clarification) – if you buy £40 worth of stuff you can choose a baseball cap, messenger bag or apron for free with the voucher code ADDONFREE
Other designs:
pink
little flowers
rose
ballet shoes
purple pointes
sign at Findhorn
and the old faithfuls, gorgeous...
and not a school bag
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July 10 2010
Silmarils
Listening to an audiobook of The Silmarillion just now while browsing the Atlas of Middle Earth. This follows on from our epic watching of the extended versions of all three Lord of the Rings films in preparation and inspiration for our own mountain quest. Nice to be back in Middle Earth
other jewels: smoothie and brambles. Todays smoothie consisted of LOTS of kale and leaves from the overwintered cabbages which are now huge, LOTS of borage flowers, cleavers, a few black and red currants that are just starting to ripen, bananas, brazil nuts and an apple.
a contrived pic of a smoothie with bramble flowers and honeysuckle
The brambles (blackberries) are growing all through the honeysuckle and produce wonderful big juicy berries in autumn so there is no thought of ‘weeding’… the flowers are very beautiful:
bramble flowers and buds
pink
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July 04 2010
rhubarb, tweets and elderflowers
rhubarb and ginger jam
We have a veritable forest of rhubarb so into jam some of it went yesterday! recipe over on frugal where there is also a twitter competition detailed on the front page to win my copy of The Moneyless Man (who is vegan by the way, don’t think I mentioned that before)
Gathered some elderflowers in the wood yesterday too and made some cordial sort of from this recipe though I made much less as I know it doesn’t keep for long even in the fridge, even with citric acid which I didn’t use this time… the taste of summer in it is amazing…
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June 29 2010
joyful swimming and pie
early morning swimming
When we bought this house the old endowments associated with our previous mortgage were no longer needed and we wanted to invest the money from them in this property (trying to be sensible). The kitchen was hanging by a thread so that got replaced and the children were given the choice of what the rest should be spent on. Their chosen pool has been a fantastic buy, on it’s 4th summer now, Charlotte being the most determined swimmer among us, beating her personal best every day!
from above
Wishes Come True Pie from the novel Hubble Bubble, very delicious even with some substitutions for things like grains of paradise and job’s tears
root veg, nuts, seeds, grains, gravy topped with pastry
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June 27 2010
green soup and juice, raw chocolate pud
minty pea and nettle soup
wheatgrass
been drinking wheatgrass juice with friends
slight deviation away from green
Raw chocolate pudding teamed up with Swedish Glace (booja booja stuff in a tub is raw if you prefer). Pudding was made thus: grind up some raw chocolate nibs (could use cocoa though of course not raw) then blend with a large avocado and 2 ripe bananas with a squirt of agave nectar – makes enough for four people. I also added a little water for a smoother result.
Poppies:
inside a flower
seeds within
Related posts:
June 24 2010
fruitful flowers and summer reading
pea
It’s wonderfully warm here just now. In between all the cycling, walking, climbing and meeting badgers in the woods were loving the cool of the pool and reading in the sun
Fiction being perused: Mariana, a gentle tale of reincarnation and time slipping and the latest Sophie Hannah, A Room Swept White – very impressed with this author’s progression. Non fiction-wise: The Moneyless Man, a guy who lived without money for a year (and continues to do so – see his blog), quite mind blowing, lots of info about the financial system as he was an economist and The Age of Absurdity, a great antidote to, well, total nonsense and status quo worship and it’s very funny too!
Jodie Picoult’s House Rules is also well worth a mention, though I read it a while back, as the main character has aspergers syndrome. He may have been given almost every trait going but he does come over as an authentic aspergian person and Picoult makes so many good points and references much current research, I feel it’s a valuable title to have in the mainstream.
borage
grapes
toms
red peppers, just watered
parsley, getting ready to self seed
melon
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June 22 2010
Mags May…
…I’ve found, if confined too closely, and without proper care and attention, become rebellious and may even launch attacks on humans, dogs and cats in frenzied bids for freedom! Let me explain…
I don’t buy many mags off the shelves these days. Have you seen the price of them? The cheaper celebrity and ‘harrowing real-life stories’ magazines have no appeal for me whatsoever and the magazines I like are over £3 each!
I do, however, have subscriptions to these mags…
Lifescape because it’s a glossy magazine that advertises only veg*n goods and runs articles about animal rights and other ethical stuff. History Scotland because Scottish history is one of my great interests. Writing Magazine and Mslexia because SOME DAY I may write for profit! (In my dreams!) And New Internationalist because I care about human animals, too!
I’m also sent newsletters/magazines from the Vegan Society, Animal Aid, Viva!, Amnesty International and Dr Hadwen – all for obvious reasons! – and from the Barbara Pym Society: she’s one of my favourite authors.
And I keep them all for years! I mean, you never know when you’ll want to consult a back issue, do you?
And you’ll remember all those housey mags I got at the Meadows Festival? And when I saw digital photography mags being offered on my local Freegle group, how could I resist?
The problem was, my mag basket in the dining room was overflowing.
Mags were piled this way and that. No wonder they rebelled!
Every so often, a pile of them would gang together, sometimes with like-minded mags, at other times in an eclectic mix of genres, bonded by their shared desperation for freedom. Then, moving furtively to the edge of the stack, they’d bide their time before, gathering their papery strength together, they’d launch themselves at the first set of unsuspecting legs to walk past. Several bruises and scratches and some nervous animals convinced me that this could not go on!
So I bought a flat-pack shoe rack and some paint testers and turned this…
… into this…
Don’t these mags look happy? No more are they crammed together. They can be moved out and in with no dragging or damage. They have room to spread out their covers and fluff their pages! If only all really sentient beings could be as lucky…
Now, I’ll be honest with you… (Am I ever less than?) These aren’t all the mags that were in the basket. The colder season housey ones are tucked away cosily in an upstairs cupboard and will swap with the summery ones after the holidays. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
And on a nice summery day, what could be more pleasant than a break from studying, sitting in the garden with two snuggly pooches and a happy mag?
Today’s title: Maggie May, recorded by Rod Stewart
Today’s smoothie: Didn’t have one. I’ve just had a tooth out and am in too much pain to prepare smoothies… Made do with a fruit yogurt, eaten on the left of my mouth…
June 13 2010
Oh, what a beautiful day!
Well, I’ve been sitting here this past week, composing this blog entry, with the rain chucking down from heavy grey clouds, but last Saturday WAS beautiful, thank goodness. Why ‘Thank goodness?’ you may ask. I’ll tell you. It was the day of the Meadows Festival!!! Last year I blogged about this special event here. This year all four of us managed to go. We had planned to take packed lunches, as there’s rarely anything suitable for us to eat there, but this year we were just too pressed for time…
There are lots of stalls at the Meadows Festival.
John was thrilled to find a plant one right at the start. But that meant him lugging lots of plants around… Johnny and Jane enjoyed book and CD stalls and made a few purchases and I was looking for interesting things for the house, as well as books, of course. I was thrilled to find a wicker basket full of magazines including special treats for me: Country Homes and Gardens and Period Living magazines, which were selling at 6 for £1!
I bought 18, which John carried for me…
I also found a present for Sylvia’s birthday, which was VERY HEAVY. That’s all I can say at the moment, of course… I carried that…
I was NOT tempted to buy this book! Can you guess which one? Honestly! This was NOT going to be an addition to my recipe book shelves… ‘Almost vegetarian’, indeed! Oops, gave the game away there, didn’t I? Oh, well, I wasn’t offering any prizes for the correct answer…
I DID buy a bumblebee badge to add to the collection on my bag…
… but decided to give these a miss! I mean, revolting, or what?
We had high hopes of something to eat when we saw this place…
but although I loved the decor (very ‘me’!)…
… because of some misunderstanding between John and me, we both thought there was nothing suitable. This turned out for the best, though, as you will see, if you read on… (Are you excited? I like to keep the suspense going…)
Just past the cafe we met, and made friends with, this gorgeous wee fellow. His name’s Alfie and he was VERY ‘dog-nappable’! We could just see him fitting into our household nicely. Sadly, but understandably, his owner wanted to hang onto him, however…
A couple of days before, Trudi, from Scottish Vegans, had written to me on Facebook to ask if we were going to be at the Festival and had given me her mobile number. Of course, I forgot to take a note of it with me. (You’re not surprised?) I was wishing we could phone up Molly, the cleverest of our cats, to ask her to check Facebook for me, but she wouldn’t have been able to pick up the receiver. This lack of opposable thumbs can be a problem… However, after wandering around peering at the faces of total strangers I thought might be Trudi (I’d met her only once before) I suddenly remembered that Jane can go on-line with her fancy, new, 21st birthday phone! She logged onto my Facebook messages and there was Trudi’s number! I phoned her and we met up with her and her daughter and baby son. The wonders of modern technology!
By this time we were about to leave, as we all needed sustenance, but Trudi very kindly invited us round to her flat, which was only about five minutes walk away. There we had hummus and salad sandwiches, washed down with mugs of tea. Trudi said she couldn’t see vegans going hungry! Thank you, again, Trudi! It was very much appreciated!
Johnny then set off for a demo, against real fur sporrans, with Ethical Voice for Animals (EVA) and John, Jane and I, heavily laden, staggered off for the train home to Dunblane.
After a VERY warm welcome from the pooches, John and I settled down in the garden. He had a new gardening magazine (do you see Molly in the background? Apparently she’d been out all day anyway, so wouldn’t have been in to answer the phone even if she’d HAD opposable thumbs)…
…the sun was blazing down and I relaxed on the swing seat and browsed in my new housey mags. Bliss!
When Johnny came home, I made one of our favourite meals: Italian marinated tofu (from Vegan With a Vengeance) with potatoes, broccoli, green beans, peas and gravy made from the marinade. Mmmmm…..
Yup! It was a beautiful day!
Today’s smoothie: orange juice, apples, apricots, half a bag of mixed green leafies, lettuce, alfalfa and a wee piece of kombu. Delicious!
Today’s title: from ‘Oh, what a beautiful mornin’!’, Oklahoma, Rogers and Hammerstein
June 06 2010
mellow
iris by pond, cleavers among
a very mellow listen: Deltadream - based on the ancient lost Solfeggio frequency “Ut”, a tone linked with releasing guilt and fear, the shorter track there is a free download.
mellow and cooling eat: minted noodle soup
books weve been mellowing out to in the sun: Named of the Dragon, a gentle mystery, writers, Arthurian and Tudor themes; The Other Half Lives, from Sophie Hannah, the best of her psychological thrillers I’ve read so far and Ask Mother Nature, another nature spirity book responsible for me feeling happy about all the chickweed growing in with the lettuce now
chickweed helps retain water in the soil and is a nice inclusion in salads
bridge over totally calm waters
Had a nice time with some more pilgrims to the house, this time the grandson of the man who built it. We all learned much from each other – apparently the roof used to be covered in solar panels, was the first house up here to have them… no trace of them now… hopefully one day we’ll have them again
borage buds, soon time for blue stars and berries in the smoothies
fully open
June 01 2010
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I might There’s been lots of sunny days, there’s been lots of bike rides in various directions.
I love my purple bike - my first ever bicycle
I rather like these old railway bridges too
We were on The Buchan Way here, an old railway line.
found lots of apples trees on the line
the scent was astounding
bridges are good resting points on the normal road too
back home in the garden:
there will be a pop soon!
May 28 2010
a mouse and relaxation
mouse on peanuts - what a beautiful tail
off he goes
peanut acquired
We bought some Relax Kids CDs at Findhorn years ago and they have been used to great effect for relaxation and self esteem boosting ever since. They now have many new titles for children and teens and a wonderful website where you can listen to excerpts
Nature meditations being our most used
May 27 2010
coastal pics and pink meadow
Shipwreck!
washing lines - spot Nemo
what a wonderful airing the laundry must get!
melon, meadow, Lion
May 25 2010
faeryland
the borders
highly perfumed bluebells, wild garlic in back
on the faery path
path
flowers
These cards remind me of the woods – a lovely story telling tool
story telling cards
Other faery places:
gorse blooms
pink snow is falling in the garden
CD of ROC’s lectures UK and US, there is deep wisdom within, much before it’s time as concerns the environment.
May 24 2010
herbish
sage
dill
thyme
golden oregano and marjoram
self seeded borage
wild garlic in flower
blackcurrant leaves drying
fruitish:
red currants and apples
apple blossom
and finally some more plantings of lettuce and salad leaves:
salad station
a favourite book being perused just now – the complete book of herbs
May 18 2010
stones, chickens, nettles
stones in the light
Parkhouse stone circle – we have visited this circle so many times, having lived closeby for 12 years, that it always feels very welcoming and familiar
the circle
the large recumbent
At the farming museum we saw a Rhode Island Red mum with Silkie chicks (she had sat on the eggs):
mother and babies
silkie chick
another
The dandelion pancakes have been written up here, chive variant below:
chive pancakes
Drying some nettles for tea this morning, having worked out that it’s a bit ridiculous how we buy nettle tea (lovely as it is) when we are surrounded by them! Will finish them off in the dehydrator later.
nettles drying in sun
having said that no exotic planting experimentation would take place… well…
melon in the front porch
flowering rather later this year but so beautifully:
cherry blossom
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