Hello! Thank you for coming along, have a seat and a drink and enjoy some comforting chat from Aberdeenshire. The free shop is open at the weekends, Friday to Sunday and filled with the abundance of the garden. Our neighbours and passers-by have helped us to rescue gooseberries, kale,
I first grew borage at Brownhill Cottage as an experiment. I wanted to see how well it would grow in the Scottish climate and to explore how much of the plant could be useful. The spectacular blue flowers decorated dishes and found their way into floral salads, while I cooked
I didn’t intend to grow peas. I thought they might be quite challenging to grow in Aberdeenshire with its wild winds and unpredictable weather patterns. It seemed a shame to waste the peas I’d spent days tending as sprouting seeds, though, when I had to travel. I hurriedly
Every year, around late August, the question around the Port of Ness begins to arise, “Are the boys back?” It is a simple question, but it carries more weight than the words suggest. The boys are the Men of Ness, the guga hunters returning from Sula Sgeir, a remote rock
When we moved here, I wondered where the blackberries were. I was genuinely disappointed not to find any. They seemed to grow almost everywhere else, in hedgerows, along country lanes, at the edges of woods and fields, gardens and urban paths but looking around this garden, I couldn’t understand
There are some plants that deserve more than a recipe. Some become so woven into everyday life that they almost disappear. They are picked without ceremony, stirred into soups, folded into curries, added to pasta, blanched for the freezer, carried to neighbours or tucked into the free shop. Their usefulness
Having a great-niece called Rowan introduced me to the name several years ago, and for a long time Rowan belonged to a person before I met the tree. I thought it was a beautiful name but, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t have recognised a rowan tree if
On the first day of the free shop, I put out a punnet of blackcurrants and hoped they would find a home. By the evening, they were still there. I felt disappointed for about thirty seconds and then, unexpectedly, I felt relieved. Not because I didn’t want to share
I have spent the last few weeks trying to understand why one plant has occupied so much of my attention. When we first moved here, I decided the wolfsbane should go. It seemed the sensible thing to do. It is beautiful, but it is also one of Britain’s most
Gardening has its own dress code. There are many glamorous gardeners but I’m not one of them. I scrub up fairly well for a night out but my plants don’t care about dresses and mascara runs in rain and sweat. My gardening style is more decades old leggings
There is an old crab apple tree at Deer Abbey, in Aberdeenshire. If you look carefully, you can see how it started life being carefully trained against the stone-walled garden wall and then at some point, it just goes wild. The abbey itself survives mostly as foundations, now. Stones
Tomorrow, I turn fifty seven. I love birthdays. I love the messages arriving from different places and different chapters of life. Friends from Hampshire alongside friends from the Hebrides, and new friends. Colleagues from past projects alongside neighbours from this new corner of Aberdeenshire. People who would never otherwise meet