Midsummer – time to make Elderflower Champagne – which is not champagne – or alcoholic – at all – but, according to my family, is every bit as good as champagne:
Elderflower Champagne
4 large elderflower heads
2 lemons – rind and juice
2 tblsp white wine vinegar
1 lb 8 oz of granulated sugar
7 pints cold water
You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the champagne in and another to strain the champagne into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Add water and vinegar and stir well.
Leave for 2 days, stirring night and morning.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Leave 24 hours then bottle in screw top bottles. (Plastic pop bottles will do fine.)
It should be ready to drink after about a week.
If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.
New Zealand White Rabbits – Holly’s litter at 3 weeks old
Both Holly and Eeny had litters this month – six babies each – and they are now 3 weeks old and hopping around their pens. It will be another 3 weeks before they are weaned and Mum can have a break. They will be ready for new homes when they are 10 weeks old – after 6th June. Won’t be able to tell what sex they are until then.
Now they are old enough to be picked up and cuddled – they are so cute – this is the best part about breeding rabbits.
There’s such a variety of spring plants – celandines, primroses, daffodils, hyacinths – and crocuses. I planted these bulbs about 9 years ago and the flowers have grown bigger every year. During the first year of home education, one of our days out was to Bridgemere Garden Centre and Kirt helped to choose a selection of bulbs for the garden – so every year, when these crocuses appear, they remind me of that day and happy memories of sharing life home educating.
Broad beans are very easy to grow but, for early beans, it’s always a good idea to start some off inside. My aunt advised me to get a big pot full of compost and push in as many bean seeds as possible and, as soon as they come up, you can plant them outside. These are ready for planting now, so I start the row with these then plant some seeds directly into the ground for the rest of the row. That way you get some early broad beans and some continuity. You can do the same with runner beans, French beans and peas. Peas are especially good planted this way because the pigeons don’t get a chance to eat them before they sprout!
Coltsfoot – it’s name comes from the hoof-shaped leaves.
Every spring, as soon as the daffodils start to come out, I start to look for coltsfoot flowers – then suddenly one morning, there they are, little yellow stars, dots of sunshine, decorating the path – the stems seem quite invisible until the flowers come out.
Like Butterbur, the flowers appear before the leaves. In fact, Pliny and many of the older botanists thought that the Coltsfoot plant grew without leaves. Rabbits like coltsfoot leaves but they will have to wait awhile for the foliage to appear.
Coltsfoot is a well-known herbal remedy for irritating coughs and respiratory disorders and Coltsfoot tea sweetened with honey will help soothe a dry cough.
The leaves were formerly smoked to relieve coughing and are even today included in herbal tobacco.
The seeds are crowned with a tuft of silky hairs which goldfinches like for lining their nests.
Time for planting onion sets and chitting potatoes.
Onion sets are basically partly grown onions – but most gardeners find them so much easier and quicker to grow that they buy these tiny onion bulbs, plant them in February – or as soon as the ground is workable – and by June they have usually grown into good size onions ready to eat.
Egg trays are ideal for storing onions until you are ready to plant them – and also for ‘chitting’ potatoes – this means putting them in a light, frost free place rose end upwards so they can begin to sprout while you wait for the right time for planting.
No-one ever really explained to me what the ‘rose end’ of a potato was but I have eventually discovered that it’s the opposite end to the ‘stalk’ end – where the potato was attached to the mother plant. So one end will have one mark with sometimes a tiny bit of stalk attached –and the other end with several marks where the new sprouts (chits) will grow from. Sometimes it’s extremely difficult to tell the difference – but if you put them out in trays, they will begin to sprout –and you can soon see whether you have put them the right way up!
Spring is in the air – the frogs have awoken from their winter sleep
I woke up this morning expecting to hear the dawn chorus, instead there was a gentle burbling floating in through the open window – the frogs were back in the pond – a sure sign of Spring. Later in the year, there’s sometimes a frog or two croaking in the shallows on the edge of the pond, but, this time of year, they make a soothing gurgling sound. I love to sit in the sunshine by the pond with a cup of tea and count the frogs – if I sit really still they bob up to the surface one by one and peer at me between the kingcup leaves.
When we first moved in there were no fish in the pond but lots of frogs – and one or two newts – and the frogspawn soon became tadpoles that turned into tiny froglets. Now we have goldfish and they eat most of the tadpoles so there are very few tiny frogs tp terrify with the lawnmower – we used to have to mow the lawn so slowly to give them chance to get out of the way!
Today’s Treasures – Snowdrops – Tiny Pearls of Springtime
The days are getting longer and the first flowers of the year are peeping through Autumn’s fallen leaves – snowdrops – tiny pearls of springtime, creeping towards the light; frosts may wither them but their fragile stems soon revive in the sunshine, they shake their petals free of winter and their tiny white bells tremble in the spring breeze.
Snowdrop Walks mark the start of the season for many of our historic houses and there are lots of early spring walks through snowdrop-dappled woodland. Rode Hall, just over the North Shropshire border, has a wonderful display of snowdrops set in enchanting woodland.
The snowdrop trail begins alongside neatly manicured lawns overlooked by a picturesque combination of unusual mature trees, through formal rose gardens, heavenly scented in summer but now lying dormant waiting for the first rays of the summer sun.
Through the gap in the hedge, a whole new vista opens out and you enter a wild woodland star spangled with snowdrops roaming unchecked, under the trees, along the brook, scrambling around the shrubs and bushes that decorate the landscape, and you can find a bench, or perch on a stone bridge, and merge with the magic of the trees, serenaded by robins and blackbirds and soothed by the sound of the stream bubbling over stones, watched by myriads of tiny snowdrop faces, studying their reflections in the water.
Rode Hall is open from Saturday, 4th February to Sunday 5th March (except Mondays) for snowdrop escapades for all the family (including dogs – on leads). The tearoom is open serving light lunches and you can warm up by the logburner with a welcome pot of tea and homemade cakes. The art exhibition in the barn is well worth a visit, showcasing creations by local artists – and not all of the paintings feature snowdrops! www.rodehall.co.uk
In the Druid calendar Snowdrops heralded Spring and first appear at Imbolc – celebrated on 31st January and 2nd February (Candlemas Day).
There are snowdrops walks all over Shropshire, including Combermere Abbey, Attingham Park, and Dudmaston Hall.
The Snowdrop Fairy
Deep sleeps the Winter
Cold, wet, and grey;
Surely all the world is dead;
Spring is far away.
Wait! the world shall waken;
It is not dead, for lo,
The Fair Maids of February
Stand in the snow!
Rats, they fought the dogs and killed the cats and bit the babies in the cradles, and ate the cheeses out of the vats and licked the soup from the cooks’ own ladles…
Shropshire might not be as bad as Hamelin, but we don’t have a Pied Piper to lure the rats away and, in the past, I have had problems with rats eating tiny baby rabbits. Finding half eaten babies in the morning is not one of my fonder memories! After persevering with rat traps for ages, we finally had to resort to rat poison – you can buy packets of liquorice smelling poison that you don’t have to open but just place in the boxes. The council used to come out but they don’t any more – although you can still get advice from your local council. They provided us with safe rat poison boxes which are placed along the rat runs. I keep an eye open for any rat droppings which act as a reminder to put poison down again. It doesn’t matter how careful you are with never leaving food lying around, rats always find a way – and they cause so much damage eating holes in everything too.
Looking up the spelling of Hamelin, I found the poem – I didn’t know that Robert Browning wrote it and it has a different ending to the fairy tale I knew. It’s one of the poems on this website if you want to read it for yourself.
January is such a dismal month – although the days are getting longer it doesn’t feel like it and, after the expense and excitement of Christmas, with summer a distant memory, we need to cheer ourselves up, so it’s really important to focus on the good things in life and make the most of them. My mum was always one for counting her blessings and it certainly helps on dark January days to remember that the evenings are getting lighter and spring is just around the corner. There are some beautiful sunsets on dark winter days and when the sun does come out there’s some lovely places in Shropshire to go and feed the ducks.
Whittington Castle is just one of them. There is free public access to the castle all year round and the ducks always give you a warm welcome, especially if you have some bread or corn with you!
The Tea Room and the book shop are open November to February -Thursday to Sunday 10.00 am – 4.00 pm.
We spent a lovely time wandering around the castle and reading about its history. The site was chosen in the time of King Offa because of the protection provided by the treacherous marshlands surrounding Whittington. The original wooden castle was replaced by a Norman motte and bailey and the castle is steeped in folklore, inhabited by the ghostly spirits of ancient warriors and victims of treachery suffered within its walls.
The castle is now owned and run by the local community who organise many events during the year, the largest being a Medieval 3 day event on the May Bank Holiday weekend www.whittingtoncastle.co.uk
After exploring the castle and successfully avoiding being harassed by ghosts, we escaped to the bookshop and spent a very entertaining hour discovering several interesting fiction and non-fiction books which we perused in the tea shop over a very welcome cup of tea (and cakes!) A very pleasant afternoon out.
