Wot's for dinner?

WE DID IT!!!

This was way more than expected & certainly more than we dared hope for. Our beneficiaries include St. Richard's Hospice, Marie Curie, The Nora Parsons Day Centre, Wichenford Church & Memorial Hall and the Ladybird Trust. Once again - heartfelt thanks to all who made donations especially those who helped & laboured away behind the scenes. Give yourselves a BIG pat on the back & enjoy a well deserved rest! 

A more personal thank you goes to the team who helped at Pear Tree Cottage. You know who you are and we couldn't have done it without your generosity of spirit!

       

Flavours & Fruits + Fragrance & Flowers - all in one greenhouse!

This week and on one side of the greenhouse, Jasmines and Heliotropes are providing the scent whilst zonal Pelargoniums come up with the colour! It's a pleasure to walk into the greenhouse just to sniff the perfume in the air.

Meanwhile on the other side of the path, we have edibles in the form or tomatoes. The Tigerellas are just beginning to colour up whilst overhead, the grapes are swelling and ripening.  If only I could speed up the ripening process!

Now - just why is one label out of place?

Jasminum Sambac

When an expert visits.

 A few garden photos taken by a professional garden photographer: Ian Thwaites who visited Pear Tree Cottage back in May - when the garden looked very different with the limey fresh greens of spring. Right now, the garden is looking pretty parched and we really need rain. It's always so interesting to see what catches someone else's eye. 

Loads of Lovely Lavender

Preparations for yummy Lavender shortbread need to begin early! Lavender flowers have just been picked and bunched and are now drying ready for storage. The most tedious job is de-flowering the stalks when it has dried! Sometimes I make Lavender sugar as well as keeping the dried flowers for shortbread. 

This year, Chris suggested we leave some to self seed in the gravel by the summerhouse. Our Lavender came from a late customer/friend of Chris's and is known as Mrs. Slingby's Lavender! The flowers were all covered in 100's of bees and hover flies and not all enjoyed being displaced!

Enjoying our reclaimed view

On a glorious summer's day, we have been enjoying our view of Woodbury Hill once again.  It was exposed yesterday by the pollarding of a Tibetan cherry. A difficult decision but we believe that  the view is worth tolerating a rather bare tree for a while. Difficult to believe that the tree bottom left completely obscured the entire hill!

Woodbury Hill in the summer sunshine

The Joy of Jasmines

Jasminum officinale clotted cream

Jasminum trachelospermum Asiaticum

Jasminum Sambac

Got a but of a Jasmine thing going at the moment.  We have Jasmine officinale clotted cream in full flower on the trellis and in the greenhouse, we have a couple of Arabian Jasmines - Sambac (the one used as a perfume base) as if that wasn't enough perfume, we also have a Jasmine trachelospermum Asiaticum. 

Pity these pictures can't transmit their heavenly fragrance!