Scottish Gardens to visit: Applecross Walled Garden

On one of our rare adventures without the children, but in the lovely new car, (Mr Flowers had treated himself too recently), one weekend, as you do, we had an adventure down south on the mainland to Applecross in Wester Ross. A tiny village up and over the Belach na ba road, which I'm sure should feature in a Top Gear programme. Its a single track road that goes directly up and over the side of a mountain!

What fun, if a bit of a hold your breath kind of road! After a meandre down to the charming village of Applecross (resdients 234) with breathtaking views out to Skye, we had an amazing lunch in the famous Applecross Inn......which was indeed very good and the subject of another blog I'm sure! And, completely by chance I met a colleague who now lives there from the Botanics In Edinburgh, what are the chances, I last saw him on our field trip to Belize! Amazing! And, a lovely catch up we had too, Mr F is convinced I will find someone I know anywhere, then again, I'm great at talking to random strangers so the fact that I'd struck up a conversation in a pub garden was not unsurprising.

Anyhows, after a lovely local seafood lunch (seemed very rude not to indulge in the local seafood.... I thought I'd manage quite nicely to convince him that a garden visit would be great fun and something I'd like to do to walk off our lovely lunch, so we ambled off to the Applecross walled garden.

Applecross walled garden is an old garden 1675 (!) which is undergoing a  new renovation project, which is a remarkable feat of gardening - the committment to this garden is clear to see when you step through the door. These type of walled gardens are quite common on Scottish Estates, I've been lucky enough to work in a couple myself - great places to learn your trade in! More about the garden and its development here

 The walkways leads to the cafe/restaurant at the bottom of the most beautiful scented walk down through roses, nepeta, geraniums and many other delights, the scent was truly heavenly.

 And, from the look of the potting shed cafe window, the foods as heavenly too! You don't get that many awards without being seriously good at what you do, yum yum! And, a serious emphasis on local produce too...............probably why they've so many awards, that and all the hard work!

Great benches and effects about the place, clearly made from local material too - very nice to see improvisation in benches and beds along the way through the garden.

And, very nicely quite dog friendly too - and we met more than a few dogs (all very well behaved) in the garden too, that's nice then isn't it, alot of gardens don't let dogs into them, while I can see why, to be honest, most folk know that they have to be respectful of other gardens and therefore dogs being allowed to come in and not stay in the car is quite nice.

The garden is a great mixture of herbaceous perennials, herbs, edibles and fruits adorning the walls of the garden, which I guess was always the purpose of a walled garden anyway, to be productive and comprehensive. And, of course if I haven't had enough of a time weeding out ladies mantle from garden gravel I've been working in, there we go more of it again, its a really useful plant, going bonkers in the Scottish climate, but very useful for both the border and as a cut flower, so you can forgive it the tenacity it shows. Fruit trees, crocosmia's, euphorbias and ladies mantle adding to the riot of late summer colour.

What I like about walled gardens is that the variation of interest you get, abundant flowers and scents with fruits and veggies all often on prime display too and Applecross garden certainly didn't disappoint me, I like looking at vegetables and I love when they are displayed. The nice thing here too as well as railway sleepers the raised beds were also made from whole trees or thinnings during felling, more local material, very well used. And, don't the onions look great all like little soldiers? Persuading Peedie (the not very well behaved garden dog) that climbing on the bed was not allowed, was a whole other conversation........but we did manage to leave their beds alone!

Lovely edges of box with beds of veggies all nicely shown off, I did like this.

And, old benches tucked into the orchard which was clearly being rennovated - I wonder how many folk have sat on that bench and looked at the apple trees?

Further around the garden more herbaceous planting and ambles over to a nice little fun 'folly' - tucked into the wall.

 The Love Boat, how very funny and lovely - well, nothing else for it when away for a weekend on your own, off we went to sit in the love boat! Seemed rude not too really!

 Inside a lovely little sign, very sweet! I like garden follies, even little ones, they smack of fun and not taking yourself too seriously.

 Ok, we even attempted the random, couple shot, however, I'm not very good at taking pictures so thankfully only Mr Flowers was captured! And, a handsome devil he is too! You can almost see my hat, but not quite, its such a fun photo though I thought I'd put it in, hello Mr F! My best photographic side is my wellies, which were unfortunately absent from this trip (travelling light on the ferry) I'll bring them next time!

Ahem, right, love boat swiftly invaded by Peedie, so off to explore more, the right hand side of the garden is more productvie and raised beds galore, my favourite kind of garden...............what have they got growing in there I wondered, off to explore.

This bit did use railway sleepers, I do like them, I love the formality they give you and the structure whilst being very productive little beds, one day, in a garden of mine, the scene will not be very unlike this, can I put a walled garden on my future house checklist (*Mr Flowers has now choked to death*), um perhaps not a walled garden, but I will have raised beds like these, with nice veggies to boot. Fingers crossed!

 Calendula and lettuce all sit happily by each other, nice to see them - I do like the formality of these plantings..........

 I rather liked the labelling too, often this is hard to get right in a garden but this worked quite well I think................all the veggies and herbs were nicely named, very helpful indeed.

And that Red Russian Kale is going to be lovely later in the winter I think. What a great little amble around a garden we had, and of course, with that quality of a tea room, be rude not to have a cuppa too, and a bit of cake/shortbread. Each table had a sweet little watering can filled with flowers and herbs from the border. No pictures of cakes and tea, too busy scoffing I'm afraid!

A great place to visit if you're in the area, as you do, when adventuring in the North West of Scotland - garden is free but donations are welcomed - the project is truly inspring and the garden full of helpful, complimentary planting ideas. Lots of inspriation about planting and local food/flowers.

Oh, I see they also do lunches, dinners and um weddings.........................food for thought indeed!

A syrup of sweet sonsie, peelie-wallie flouers - Elderflower cordial - a good life lab experiment

The good life gardener, in action, best wellie forward,  knee deep in an elder..........

You may indeed think I've completely lost my marbles or I'm typing when tipsy. Neither of these are true right now, although I've been upto my wellies and armpits, often on my tippie toes, in elder bushes (sambucus niger) lately picking elderflowers, so I may be giddy or intoxicated from the pursuit of this task ! I've got all inspired by several folk to have a go at making Elderflower Cordial, whilst the season is over for most of you, the flowers are only just going over here, so I've been busy plucking flowers and making home made cordial or syrup to reduce our buying at home and to have a yummy stash of local home made cordial in the larder at home. And, me being me, means with the best of intentions, I often forget to do things when they are ripe/ready. But, not this year!

A sonsie plump elderflower head

And, why a 'sweet sonsie of peelie-wallie flouers' you may ask? Well, flopped out on the sofa, on a saturday night, as you do, I spied quite accidentally across the BeechGrove Garden on BBC TV, a local scottish gardening programme. I'm not great at sitting and watching TV, I think I have an attention problem, I have the attention span of a gnat and I'm also a figdet - these two qualities do not readily inspire couch potato behaviour. Anyhow, good old Jim McColl's first words contained some scots phrases I absolutely love, they roll of the tongue, I learnt many of them from my Grannie! Phrases you don't hear much now like 'peelie-wallie' {meaning pale, delicate, or often insipid} and 'sonsie' Jim was bestowing on their rather fine cabbages. I'd heard of 'sonsie' but didn't really know what it meant, I kind of knew the gist of it, but not the true meaning ' a sonsie cabbage, do I want one? Jim what on earth is that?' - being a fidget, out came Mr Google and the online scots dictionary told me the following:

sonsie ['sonse]

adj. Enjoying good fortune, fortunate, prosperous, attended by good luck. Engaging and friendly in appearance or manner, hearty, jolly. Of people: sound, sensible, shrewd. Of women: comely, attractive, good-looking. In respect of the figure: buxom, plump. Of things or personifications: fine handsome, impressive, pleasant, cheery, big, ample, roomy, capacious, substantial, abundant, characterised by plenty.

What a fine word that  is for a gardener to be learning! Therefore I thought I'd use it today, whilst I don't sound scottish in real life, I am scottish and I'm clearly scottish in my own head as I talk to myself in scots dialect quite alot. Funny that isn't it? Not the talking to myself bit, the talking to myself in dialect bit. And, I found out the dialect word for flower = flouer - nice to know!

Elderflower cordial, a brewing...............

Anyway I digress - back to the sweet sonsie syrup of the peelie-wallie flouers. Elderflower cordial, is, it has to be said, delish and easy to make. No special equipment needed, you can be all romantic and take fancy equipment if you like to make this but to be honest all you need is a bag, a pot, and/or a tub to steep (infuse) it all in and a teatowel/colander to strain it all in and a jug to decant the stuff into bottles after you're done. There you go it really is that simple, here in the goodlife lab, we try and find the laziest (um, I mean easiest) way to do things, with the least fuss and clobber required to make life simple, cost less and tasty. Well thats the remit anyway!

OK, cordial - recipe came from here at the Jammy Chicken thank you very much for the recipe, this blog has truely beautiful pictures, mine are at best comedic, as I can't possibly compare with the fine photography over there! And thank you to Wittgenstiens Watering can for putting me in the direction of the recipe!

Basically its 10 sonsie (plump and extravagent) peelie-wallie (beautifully pale, not insipid) elder flouerheads to each 2lb sugar, to 1 pint water, to a handful of lemon (in my case frozen sliced lemons unused at xmas and bagged up for a later use) and 35g of citric acid, which makes it nice and tart, although you can avoid this and use more lemon if you like. Its YOUR cordial, have a bash and see what you prefer, I experimented and I prefer it with the citric acid, but its your show. Basically, I ended up with a bag of sugar (minus a bit if I remember otherwise I put in 1kg) to a pint of water with random amounts of lemons added and roughly 35g citric acid. Lifes too short for measuring too precisely in my life. Enjoy experimenting, don't be stressed by getting everything perfect, lifes not! Lob sugar and water into pot, bring to boil, dissolve sugar then let it cool whilst you're off communing with nature. I popped in the frozen lemons when it was cooling to get that bit out of the way unpeeled, ungrated, just lobbed in. Purists can grate and peel, I, I'm afraid am more of a lobbing kind of cook. Zesters and graters cost money, whilst I own a grater I don't own a zester, so thats my excuse. Add citric acid once the mixture cooled down.

Anyway - if in full cordial making mode, I'd make the syrup before you go out and don your finest wellies and pick flowers when in season - ours are only just going over here in the frozen northern isles and we don't always get berries here (due to the wind) so to be honest picking flowers is a safer bet than hanging out for berries in my mind. I've been making larger batches - that way the process is more rewarding, but its upto you, I stick to the bag of sugar to 10 flowers, to a pint of water. And when picking the flowers you want right 'sonsie' ones, big plump lush flowerheads - they make great cordial, but I'm not a purest, the peedie skinny ones get grabbed too. I'd say only that not to take all the flowers from one bush, remember the bees and butterflies love this plant, and the birds will love the berries later, so pick carefully and don't gorge yourself from only one plant. Be respectful of other users, be them birdies or beasties. And talking of beasties, give the flowers a shake to make sure you're not taking any home, but don't wash them (the flowers not the beasties), you'll lose that gorgeous flavour...........



An elderflower head, is a mass of flowers, in a corymb..........

Individual teeny tiny elder flowers, aren't they very pretty and cute? I think they look like flower confetti.

Back to your own good life lab for the messy bit. Well its not exactly messy, but you have to, um, deflower, the flowers. That got me giggling as to be fair it sounds a bit rude, but its not. Basically the only way I can describe it is you clasp the flower head in your hand and gently rub off the flowers - an elderflower is a flat head is a branched cluster of many flowers in what they call a corymb, just alot of flowers in a tight cluster, great for picking them. Each actual flower is tiny! I'm glad they grow in corymb's - imagine picking them one by one - bleurgh! Anyway, the easiest way found to work is to almost think of crumbling the flowers, gently like when you add a stock cube to soup or crumble a bit of cheese. Using your two forefingers and thumbs gently tease the flowers straight into either a bowl or a tub or the syrup.

I started using a bowl with a tea-towel over it, but found it a bit messy to move, so I've settled on a large old plastic tub which has a lid, (a recycled ice-cream tub would do) it keeps the flies out and if I want to put it in the fridge to do its magic, its easier to move. But, its your cordial, do it with what you've got to hand and however suits you. And, thats it, once you're sweet sonsie peelie-wallie flouers are in the syrup, go off, enjoy your life for 1-2, maybe even 3 days if you like and then strain it through a seive, or a colander or through a jelly bag - whatever you've got to hand. I have found using a clean tea-towel does fine, if its placed over a colander. You can leave it to strain or squish it through yourself - depends how you're feeling.  The cordial can be ready after 24 hours, but leaving it longer also works - I've left it upto a week the strained it, not much improvement in flavour, but I was going away for a few days on another adventure and wanted to do it when I came home.

Once strained, put into a container, bottle, jug, in the fridge, I'm told it can last for a year, probably not in this house, Mr Flowers has taken a real liking to the flowery cordail. We've got it hidden, um I mean, stored in well washed out recycled milk containers, old tomato sauce glass bottles, old bubble bath bottles, wine bottles, jars and old pop bottles. Whilst this cordial is very gorgeous, its not a drama queen and won't object to being in a recycled bottle, it probably quite enjoys its 'vintage, recycled, shabby chic' new home. A label is probably a good idea, I've used a garden label pen to write on the containers, but if you forget, then just sniff it, you'll know what you've got. It's really that simple. The recipe worked for raspberries too, I'd try out more things and see what you like.

Hooray - we've got luscious local home made cordial stored for the loons (young men), quines (young ladies) and the bairns (kids), for the cost of a bag of sugar (80p) we get two pints of cordial, from a bit of a foray into the shrubbery and a bit of deflowering of sweet sonsie peelie-wallie flouers.  I'm trying to grow/eat more local produce and reduce both my food miles and my spending. Whilst there are a number of very lovely elderflower cordials on the market, they are expensive and YOUR own will be far superior and local and cheaper in money and carbon. 

I'd never considered growing elder before or even really an advantage to having it in my garden, the foliage smells a bit and I've never thought of it as an interesting shrub, shame on me, now I'll think again. What a brilliant little productive plant it really is. I've never really been foraging much, but I'll be looking out for other local things to be harvesting for my own storecupboard. I've even used a few of the flowers from the ornamental elder 'Black lace' which was flowering at work...........worked nicely too.

Another great good life lab experiment!

And, I've heard that meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) can also be used (although I heard mixed results about its flavour), which I have all down the track to the hoose so I'll give that a go too................found a recipe here looked pretty good.

Filipendula ulmaria, not a Harry Potter spell as my other half thinks I make up most latin plant names, its actually common meadowsweet!

Filipendula ulmaria, meadowsweet on the track to the hoose, fery leaving stromness taking Mr Flowers back to the deep south of the central belt.

If you think you're not sure what I'm blethering (talking) about, I've put a link to the scots words I've got up there and you can amuse yourself by putting in 'english' words and seeing what the scots are!

And, as the inspirational Beechgrove lot would say - Cheerio!

Ps one of the Beechgrove team was the guy who interviewed me, gave me my first break and was my main tutor when I studied flowers for the first time, I've so much to thank him for, his direction was indeed life changing. However, when  his booming voice now coming out of the TV it still gets me sitting up straight and paying attention, in case he asks me a question. Whilst I know that can't happen, you just never know with that canny loon! Mr Anderson, thank you and I'm absolutely paying attention!

The great 2011 canon ball (tomato) harvest - Part 1

Finally a bit of gardening, well, not much in the way of gardening really, more harvesting which is the greatest benefit of gardening, aside cooing at pretty flowers that is. Anyway, from the indoor allotment, windowsill tomatoes, on the inside of the windowsills of course, this is the frozen northern isles after all. It may be summer out there, but today I've got a wooly jumper on, its a tad chilly. The bush tomatoes however are nice and cosy and have gone crazy 'Red Alert' and 'Tumbling Tom' have done really well. 'Latah' did really early tomatoes as LBF promised, but I think they got blight - well, half an hour in a book tells me they'd had blight, I think. And, it appears to be passing itself around the others too - pesky pesky this indoor growing malarkay. The indeterminate tomatoes have not done well, me and them are not friends, maybe in a tunnel but for indoor allotmenteering, it just doesn't work. Chalk that one upto experience, I thought this last year, I think it this year, therefore I think I don't try that again. Remind me I said that, next year, when I convince myself to give it another go. But, by then the tunnel WILL be up!

I came home from holiday to find many a ripe tomato, I tend to pick them into a big box and freeze them straight away, for the pasta sauces the cellist loves so much. No one here much likes tomatoes except me and Mr Flowers, but I can't eat too many of them so the rest are frozen for sauce making. Picked, put in a box and frozen, to join the indoor basil in the big chest freezer, ready for action at some later pasta emergency requiring home made sauce. And in this house we have many an emergency in that department I can tell you!

Don't they look just gorgeous, there they are, growing away, enjoying the lovely view out of the window. I've not done much except give them water, they had a handful of slow release organic fertiliser when I put them into their window boxes in March/April. I'm a very lazy gardener or very green, I can't decide which.

 From the vine to the freezer in less than ten minutes, now that is freshly frozen!

Thus far we've a couple of kilos in there for freezing, which is brilliant. The other bush tomato plants I got later on from a freebie are now coming into flower, so we'll have another crop again after these are exhausted. Never had blight before, (the tomatoes NOT me I hasten to add) but it doesn't seem to bother the fruiting, however the tomatoes downstairs don't have it, and the upstairs ones do (its the better growing space) so I don't know if I'll move the ones coming along upstairs after these have finished or not? Anyone know much about blight?

Yay to a harvest of shiny red canon balls! That will keep the cellist very happy indeed. That girl sure does like her pasta, and demands only the best pasta sauce, just as well we've more coming along as well then isn't there? The indoor allotment basil has been brilliant too, its on its 10th harvest and I've a freezer load of that too. Hopefully the cellist won't sack me too soon, by the time she returns from her holiday at her dads, en france, we should have a plentiful stash of canon balls and basil for her sauces. Phew, I'd hate to be sacked, I rather like being her mother.