Category Archives: Food

Loving the Lilac – Saving the Scent

I do love Lilac. There is something both old-fashioned and comforting about it. It brings to mind family teatimes enjoyed outside, beneath jolly bunting or inside blanket wigwams, with cake, scones and cream and pints of tea or lemonade. It’s … Continue reading

Posted in Flowers, Food, Recipes, Trees | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Wordless Wednesday – Ah, the forgotten, saved Oca from last year!

Posted in Food, The home garden, Vegetables, Wordless | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Foraged blossom, stone fruit syrup and sticky date cake

I love this time of year, when the hedgerows around about become billowing white clouds of stone fruit blossom: Damsons, gages, bullace, wild plums and sloes. It is very transient, but beautiful. A while ago I wrote a post sharing … Continue reading

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Afternoon tea in a builders yard!

Over the years we’ve spent a lot of time at Bannold building merchants, wandering around their display gardens, choosing various stone and building materials for our own garden projects. Having seen inside some of their on-site sheds, we were aware … Continue reading

Posted in Food, History, Out and about | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Late, late season plums … those would be bullaces

I’ve recently discovered that the fruit tree opposite the gardeners’ bothy at Wimpole is not just an oddly prolific, especially late-season plum, but is actually a Bullace. I’d never heard of them before! Both physically and in taste, bullaces lie … Continue reading

Posted in Food, Foraging, fruit, Trees | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Six on Saturday – Back to Black

OK, so this might be an admission of burning the damson jam this morning. (Yes, it caught on the bottom of the pan. Don’t worry, it is nothing a good soak won’t fix!) But no, it is rather a reference … Continue reading

Posted in Food, Foraging, Six on Saturday | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Wordless Wednesday – Apple Time

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Six on Saturday – Ripe for the picking

21/09/2019 Well, what a glorious week that was! But it’s been cold in the mornings. The car said 4.5 deg C on Tuesday morning and the heating came on unexpectedly on Monday morning (since I hadn’t bothered to turn the … Continue reading

Posted in Flowers, Food, fruit, Six on Saturday | Tagged , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Six on Saturday – Summer’s Swansong

31/08/2019 We are in that time of abundance in the year where there’s still plenty to harvest, pick and admire, but there are also overtones of completion and change. As a former astronomer I hold with summer stretching on till … Continue reading

Posted in Food, Six on Saturday, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Wordless Wednesday – All about my plot

Posted in Food, The home garden, Vegetables, Wordless | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments