Now's the time to take a look at the herb garden

It's hard to imagine, looking at the bare patches of soil, that pretty soon I'll have an abundance of fresh herbs in the herb garden.
If you haven't already seen all the stuff I've written about my herb garden you can pop over to this page to get started.

I think that two of my favourite herbs are sorrel and lovage. Both are easy to grow, and both are easy to use to give interesting flavours to you cooking and salads.

Here's lovage growing in the White Moss herb garden.

Time to plan your herb garden for 2012 now!

Snowdrops all out early.

As it's been so mild, all our snowdrops are out. Sometimes they struggle to get properly out by March , so this really is unusual so far north.

Snowdrops at White Moss House, 5 March 2010

I haven't taken any photos of them yet, but here's one I made earlier. By 5 March 2012 I think the snowdrops will be well over.

Spring bulbs showing far to early

Thanks to and exceptionally mild winter so far, the snowdrops, crocus ans daffodil bulbs are all well up. The magnolia is also looking like it wants to break out. I see trouble on the way when we get some hard frosts.(Gardeners always expect problems) I must say that my herb garden is looking very neat this winter, chpped back, weeded and tidied. I'll take a pic and post it in the next few days.

Dark at 5 pm- so little time to garden

Here we are on the first day after the clocks have gone back, and I'm realising that the joy of evening gardening is a pleasure that will now have to wait until March.

The garden has been tidied up pretty well, apart from my own private terrace, which needs a lots of TLC.The cold night a few days ago killed off the begonias, and the phlox are drooping. A serious afternoon with the secateurs and trowel is needed to clear out the debris.

The White Moss herb garden is actually looking pretty good. We've cleared all the tired herbs and weeded around, but we now have a few fresh sprouts of fennel, and some lovely fresh baby sorrel, great for making sorrel soup or using in a salad. The sage is still looking great, but probably needs to be picked and dried if it's going to be ready for Christmas stuffings.

Here's a baby sorrel leaf, still growing in our Grasmere herb garden at the end of October.

The bay tree is blooming after it's drastic pruning on the order of Monty Don this spring. Will it survive another cold winter? We'll have to wait and see.

I'm glad I sowed my nasturtiums late this year.

I left sowing nasturtiums late this year, but that means they are at their best now, when everything else is getting a bit tired.
Here's a very pretty one.

Nasturtium at White Mos House, Grasmere, Lake District

These came from a packet of Thompson and Morgan mixed climbers. They've done really well. Obviously, I've got lots of caterpillars, but that's fine by me. They'll turn into something beautiful at a later date, they only eat the leaves which are far too big anyway, and I do rather like the furry little critters.

I pull the leaves with the caterpillars on them off, and make a little pile of leaves - a sort of caterpillar feeding trough. Keeps everyone happy.

Here's one I picked off earlier

Caterpillar White Moss nasturtiums, Grasmere

BTW, just to remind you, we are offering special rates this week. For details, see the Grasmere special offers page on White Moss House website

The summer is over- did it ever begin?

Time to clear out the tubs. The fuschia are still looking OK, but everything else seems to have been battered by the wind and rain.

Lots of apples have come down in last week's winds. We've made a batch of apple butter with the really rough apples. You don't need to peel the apples for this.Apple butter is actually a sort of paste or spread, made with apples, cider , sugar and spices. Yummy!
 I'm going to make a batch of apple and date chutney tomorrow.
I'm also planning to make our very own blackberry and apple crumble, also known as "Apple Grasmere" by us at White Moss House.
If you want to find the recipe for apple butter, plus lots of great link to other apple recipes, you can find them via my apple recipe page.