Category: herbs
Home-grown Herbal Tea
April 20, 2016
A mug of builder’s tea may be a traditional kick start to the day but more of us than ever are now drinking herbal tea. And what can better than growing and then making your own?
Elephant Herbs
October 13, 2015
Dobies continue to supply seeds and plants to Michelin star chef Simon Hulstone to grow on his farm and to then serve in his Torquay restaurant, The Elephant. In addition to vegetables, fruit and edible flowers Simon grows plenty of herbs and tells us “We’ve invested in a kitchen herb grower which is in pride of place in our brasserie.”
Cotswold Acre Memories
October 4, 2014
It’s surprising what will trigger a garden memory, or where an early love of gardening acquired in childhood may lead. For me, it was helping my grandmother deadhead annuals during the war (WWII); and ditto for my great aunt in the 1950s. I learned so much about plants when on my knees – and I wasn’t praying! The gardening bug did not really hit me until years later, and now I have so many memories that they jostle each other for space in my elderly brain. Not a day goes by but something, somewhere, will trigger a gardening memory from the past.
September Gardening Gleanings
September 10, 2014
As my four-year stint writing this blog for Dobies of Devon comes towards its end, I approach the future with a sense of adventure. Harvest in (well most of it) – the perfect time for reflection. Maybe my musings and these September Gardening Gleanings will inspire you to assess your own plot and re-establish its identity. Unlike Spring when all is bustle and busyness, or Summer when the days are insufficiently long to accomplish all the necessary gardening tasks, the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” (Keats) allows you to step back and THINK.
As Andi Clevely says in ‘Your Kitchen Garden Month-by-Month’, you “might want to change the arrangement of beds, plan different crops, or even try challenging new methods such as extending the season by growing under glass or mulching as a labour-saving alternative to heavy digging.” Why not?
Gardening Opportunities
August 30, 2014
If you live, as we do, where Winter extends into Summer and we have little or no Spring, and then suddenly Autumn creeps upon us unawares, it seems highly sensible to take advantage of all possible gardening opportunities. By which I do not mean out in the garden on days when you can, and potter in the greenhouse, shed or conservatory when you can’t. I mean open your mind to help from elsewhere. It seems highly sensible to take advantage of online-catalogue offers – seedlings, young plants and potted specialities to fill gaps, or to populate a complete bed.