While attending to the no dig veggy beds, Dave muttered something about ‘all these weeds!’ and I suddenly had a moment of curiosity about the masses of tiny white flowers with fern-like leaves. Two of the wonderful women from Gamrie Gardens were picking gooseberries with me one day late
While waiting to see what might pop up in my garden over the first year, I noticed a terracotta pot with a broken rim, tossed over the pot as though it had created its own game of hoop-la. There didn’t seem to be anything in the pot in
The word Sage originates from the Latin word salvus, meaning safety or healing. Maybe this was because it had a strong reputation as having healing properties? A grey-green, shrubby plant with furry leaves and a pungent, herbal smell, it enjoys well drained soil and sunshine and grows to approximately
Pheasant berry or Himalayan Honeysuckle is Leycesteria formosa, in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae, and is native across the Himalayas into southwestern China. Some say it’s worth tasting the berries before cooking with them as each plant seems to vary a little in flavour and some plants produce quite bitter
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