Day 86
I am keeping the project up but with a lot of time spent with older daughter and family and younger daughter and hers I need to catch up with documenting it!
It is an amazing day here in North Wales. This was the view when I opened the kitchen door this morning and it has stayed pretty much like this all day. The forecast for the rest of this week is similar so this is a time to appreciate how beautiful it is and to sit on the sense that everywhere needs watering! Of course it does, we can't have everything!
Today's task was just a little one: to cut down the sweet cicely before it seeds all over the place. Sweet cicely is a very beautiful thing and while it is flower I love it for the foam of white and the scent.
The plant has a sweet, faintly aniseedy flavour to my palate, and can be used in cooking instead of sugar for things like pies and tarts. But when it finishes flowering and goes to seed it will seed itself absolutely everywhere, both where you want it and where you don't. So I have cut it back and not even put it on the compost heap but taken it straight to the burn pile.
But mostly I have wandered about looking at things, watching the swallows fly and blowing my nose. I have what is either a summer cold or an attack of hayfever, which is a new thing for me. Some friends keep bees and have very kindly given us a pot of Stan's honey because very local honey is supposed to be good for hayfever. I hope it works and even if it doesn't it is totally delicious with greek yoghurt and a sit in the sunshine!
It is an amazing day here in North Wales. This was the view when I opened the kitchen door this morning and it has stayed pretty much like this all day. The forecast for the rest of this week is similar so this is a time to appreciate how beautiful it is and to sit on the sense that everywhere needs watering! Of course it does, we can't have everything!
Today's task was just a little one: to cut down the sweet cicely before it seeds all over the place. Sweet cicely is a very beautiful thing and while it is flower I love it for the foam of white and the scent.
The plant has a sweet, faintly aniseedy flavour to my palate, and can be used in cooking instead of sugar for things like pies and tarts. But when it finishes flowering and goes to seed it will seed itself absolutely everywhere, both where you want it and where you don't. So I have cut it back and not even put it on the compost heap but taken it straight to the burn pile.
But mostly I have wandered about looking at things, watching the swallows fly and blowing my nose. I have what is either a summer cold or an attack of hayfever, which is a new thing for me. Some friends keep bees and have very kindly given us a pot of Stan's honey because very local honey is supposed to be good for hayfever. I hope it works and even if it doesn't it is totally delicious with greek yoghurt and a sit in the sunshine!
Another 'seeds everywhere' that it seems my mulching prevents! I had it once.......
ReplyDeleteIt is in our kitchen garden where the only places that gets mulched are the raised beds which have veg in. I don't mulch the herb beds and for a while I'd didn't bother with cutting back the sweet cicely because I quite like it. But now it's probably had too many years of going it's own way, and the plants are big!
DeleteSounds great. Xxx
ReplyDeleteSo many Of my perennials reseed themselves and I spend half my gardening time pulling out those babies. It is harder to pull them out later.
ReplyDeleteIt is a tricky one for me as many of things that self seed are things I love and they often put themselves in interesting places! So mostly I leave them be but every now and then they get carried away and I realise I am drowning in opium poppies or sweet cicely! Actually that sounds rather nice!
DeleteAh yes! I left a Sweet Cicely plant behind in my island garden -- my Mom gave it to me from her garden many years ago, and I managed to prevent its propagation for all that time by doing what you've just done -- I very much doubt, though, that the new owners would have figured that out in time, and I'm curious about just how many new plants have established themselves in the two flowering seasons since we've moved -- this will be the third batch of seeds now, and perhaps someone's figured out the situation . . .
ReplyDelete