hawthorn 19

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hawthorn afternoon! with little or no forethought ended up gathering some of the beautiful blossoms for the annual tincture
do it now! a post mostly to remind you thus! they’ll be gawn in less than a week… i love the hawthorn, flower of aphrodite, queen of the may
such an opulent pungent pong, huge armfulls of the stuff, all sprawled across the kitchen table
sure theres lots of proper info out there, don’t listen to me, but what i do:
gather the flowers and some of the freshest tenderest leaves
lob in a big jar, pack down with a wooden spoon, then liberally douse with a litre of lidls finest (cheapest) Wodka…
a prayer then toast to the goddess, finally store in a dark cupboard
thats it!
after about a month remember to take it out, mash squeeze out all the goodness… muslin should be involved, but lawks knows where you get that from?!
in the autumn bung in some haws (the small Rosehip like fruit) to help ramp up the hawthorn-y-ness
it ends up as a rubicund brown, sometimes sludgy, liquid… i keep it in the fridge, super good for the heart!
throughout the autumn and winter start each day with a swig straight from the bottle
should imagine its supposed to be only a few drops? but wheres the fun in that? x

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grammar pedant-ry mz mole… tho this image gives me the creeps… first time i read one fish two fish to Finn when he was a nipper, got an eek flashback turning to this page
didn’t actually remember the image or anything, but knew that i’d read it as a kid, and not been in a very emotionally buoyant space at the time… books are powerful incantatory spells, sometimes there to unlock what is best left buried deep
all from a cheerful post about hawthorn! lummee eck! xx

chilli!

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chili! been growing plants from seed this year, first time, they really are lovely and astonishing critters!… sherbailey gave me a Red Thai Dragon last summer, the spiciest thing possible!
the madre has burgeoned into a monster and is flowering nicely… which is a suprise as i just presumed they were annuals, like toms, and she would keel over somewhere midst the dank british winter
i saved a few seeds, not really expecting them to germinate, then lo and behold, through the miracle of sunshine water and soil they are doing just smashing
garb is a homage to McEnroe circa 1980’s Vimbleydon, heatwave fire… tho as it often is with on here, bored with programming and seeking attention x

Garlic

(this post off the growing together newhaven blog)


Inspired by planting bulbs on the first day of the winter wonderland course
I thought I’d try a few at home, of course your supposed to raise bulbs from those supplied by seed centres as they’d be free from diseases
but i had a few organic ones left over from the supermarket which were beginning to sprout, so ever the optimist thought I’d just plant them and see what happens
Theres no proper beds in my small back garden, so i thought i’d try them in containers
I went for using old strawberry punnets from the summer, it rather irks me that they nearly always end up as landfill
the main drawback with this being that there might be insufficent soil for them to grow to their full size, but best just to try and see
this size container worked ok for my lettuce seeds over the summer

ok rather a dull picture, but i’ll update it if anything happens to sprout!

planting garlic bulbs
garlic is grown from bulbs, break the bulbs up into individual cloves
plant the right way up! the leaves sprout from the top

Plant in mid to late autumn
Planting distance: 7.5 – 10 cm (3-4 in)
Planting depth: 5 cm (2in)
Distance between rows: 30 cm (12 in)
Harvesting: Mid – late summer

Garlic (Allium sativum) has been used for thousands of years for medicinal purposes. Sanskrit records show its medicinal use about 5,000 years ago, and it has been used for at least 3,000 years in Chinese medicine. The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans used garlic for healing purposes. In 1858, Pasteur noted garlic’s antibacterial activity.
Currently, garlic is used for reducing cholesterol levels and cardiovascular risk, as well as for its antineoplastic and antimicrobial properties. good for cleaning the blood!

Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks on the piles of stones at cross-roads, as a supper for Hecate — a goddess of the wilderness and childbirth, or for protection from demons. The garlic was supposed to confuse the evil spirits and cause them to lose their way.


and vampires!

Plus the rather obvious point that its delicious and is hard to imagine cooking a meal without lobbing in at least a few cloves