Applemint Syrup

Balance, sustainability and my desperate need to cover my failings have recently lead me to reconsider my attitude to some areas of the grounds of Castle Boomboom. There’s something soul eating about spending all of your time trying to banish the unwanted, to the point of having no time/energy/garden centre vouchers left to focus on […]

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Grow Your Own! We’re Back.

My own sense of self importance will never allow me to assume that you aren’t all just desperate to know why I’ve barely touched this blog for the last two years. Suffice to say life, as with many other things, happened. I don’t leave my cooking comfort zone as much as I did due to […]

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Grow Your Own- Zombie Celery and The Wilding

Due to the lack of garden centre availability during lock down and, ok fine, the fact that I am a terrible hoarder I have been forced this spring to go through my current seed stash rather than hit the shops for new growing ideas. The usual suspects started in a line up of herbs, squashes […]

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Grow Your Own- Tips for The Unsuccessful

Ah Spring is springing, the birds are singing and the daffs are up despite the fact that it is still blowing an icy gale every other day. Responsible and organised grow-your-own types are already well along with their heated propagators and other such clever cold weather jobs. Me, well, not so much. I spent […]

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Grow Your Own! Get A Plan.

Ah, Happy Spring Time foodie friends! The daffs are out. There isn’t a predicted frost for the next two weeks and it’s almost pancake day. It’s time to get planting. I donned my wellies this morning for maybe the third time in 2019, but those other times were purely weeding and compost hefting so in […]

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Grow Your Own- A Meagre Harvest

It has been a funny old year for this home grower, and not one riddled with successes. Blame the Beast From The East. Blame the ridiculously hot summer dry spell. Blame it on the Boogie whilst yumming up the last of the rhubarb and gooseberry jam. That was bloody good jam, and before I get […]

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Rhubarb Vodka

This rhubarb vodka is without doubt one of my most satisfying grow-my-own concoctions to date. I’ve had a great crop of rhubarb this year and I love the stuff, I love the taste and the scent of it which I would quite happily perfume my house with if I could. Although it can be pretty […]

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Grow Your Own- The Boring British Heatwave

Drip down, oh heavens, from above, and let the clouds pour down righteousness!* If you hadn’t heard, it’s been hot lately. Hot and dry, and in my neck of the woods it hadn’t rained in something like nine million weeks until a feeble downpour on Friday night, followed by a flash torrential downpour for about […]

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Rhubarb & Gooseberry Jam

It’s been something of a pleasure this summer to start hauling in bumper bundles from the garden, especially when it seemed with the late frosts and recently ridiculous dry spell in the UK that a lot of my fruit and veg is either very behind or given up the ghost entirely. Not so with the […]

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Killer Gooseberry Chutney

A year or so ago I tried my luck with a couple of Hinnonmaki Red Gooseberry plants to fill in a space recently vacated by a big ugly Red Robin 70s kitsch shrubbery horror. I got about three cups of small berries from them last year, which went into a Christmas gin infusion that was […]