Late summer

There's a freshness to the air when I walk Tammy in the morning now. Where previously it felt as if I was a late joiner to a day that had begun hours earlier, now the world just seems to be waking up at 6am. Berries are green but ripening on the elderflower trees and we have collected our first harvest of blackberries. The apple tree is also laden with its first crop of James Grieve. It must be approaching harvest time!

I'm watching the elderberries progress with great interest as every year I make a cordial from the berries, which is both delicious and has a reputation for fighting off winter colds. I have to be quick to beat the birds to the berries, plus there are many other human foragers in Sheffield. It is a heavily wooded city - the greenest city in the UK if not Europe - so there are always plenty of berries left for the wildlife on the more inaccessible trees. I am also doing some reading into blackberry leaves which seem to be a neglected native remedy compared to other, better known and researched herbs from Asia and America. I have been eyeing up the dramatic purple banks of willow herb - a plant that used to be timid and rarely seen until the last century when it decided to come out and rampage - with similar interest in its medicinal properties. There are so many herbs growing around us that we could make much more use of!

The rowan trees are heavily laden with jewel like red berries, so pretty against their green leaves. I have been tempted to make a rowan berry jelly but on further reading it seems to be a fiddly process! Instead I think I will harvest some of the wild apples growing in the woods and make a crab apple jelly.

It's summer!

The garden is flourishing after surviving being buried under three feet of snow for months during the winter; I'm sure the sub zero temperatures we had month after month killed off many harmful viruses and bugs, as well as causing a super crystalisation of the snow that was extremely beautiful. I am waiting for the lavenders to flower as I ran out a few months ago and it is a vital ingredient of many of the teas I make, being a mental and physical relaxant that promotes digestive health. I also like to use it with marigold flowers in a strong infusion to treat yeast infections. I will also be harvesting the borage plants that have sprung up all over the garden - often in the most inconvenient or unexpected places, but I find them easy to accomodate as they bring in so many bees, have beautiful blue star-like flowers and when harvested can be used as a wonderful adrenal tonic. I have yet to experiment with adding the flowers to salads; maybe this year will be the first....

I managed by the skin of my teeth to collect elderflowers; we returned from holiday to find them in peak condition, but then daily rain frustrated my attempts to collect any. Finally, just as I thought they were all past their best and I would have to settle for the extra berries in a few months time, I found a dry bush on a sunny day in the Peak district where the cooler weather meant the flowers were only just emerging. I am stocked up with the dried and tinctured herb but I was very keen to make my first batch of elderflower cordial; it tastes delicious, but my recipe needs further tweaking next year.

The scent of elderflower has now left us for the year, and been replaced by the delectable perfume of linden blossom and wild honeysuckle. Linden blossom is one of my favourite herbs; it makes a delicious tea which is deeply relaxing, and also thought to benefit those with high blood pressure. I think it is a fine addition to teas taken when suffering from a cold, as it has a softening, lubricating quality to it and will help to soothe a cough or cold, especially if combined with marshmallow or mullein, elderfower, yarrow and plantain.

In January we adopted a lovely alsation-labrador cross, 4 year old dog. She has been a wonderful addition to our lives, not least because she gets me out into the woods every day, at least twice. As a result I have witnessed the gradual changes as winter gave way to early spring, succeeded in turn by late spring and early summer. Wood spurge, lesser celandine, bluebells and wild garlic - green, yellow, blue and white - are replaced by a frothy sea of fool's parsley with wood forget-me-not below. Brambles and willow herb emerge, and the unfurling of the tree canopy turns a world of open sky and monochrome tree skeletons into an intimate, green tent. Next year I intend to follow in the footsteps of so many others and keep a record of the first time I see each emerging plant.

Winter garden

Time has flown by; the hop plant flourished, flowered and died back. Unfortunately, it was infested by greenfly and creepy crawlies when I tried to dry the hops, and I ended up adding them to the compost. I more successfully harvested tomatoes, and learnt how to make chutneys, salsa and stews with the unripe, green ones (all were delicious!) The chilli plants produced tiny chillis, the beans in their pots survived the slugs and produced gorgeous veg. I had a bumper crop of gooseberries and rhubarb, but alas the blueberry is still adjusting to being moved from the last garden and didn't fruit.

Next, foraging! I discovered a bumper crop of elderberries by a little visited crag, and made several bottles of elderberry cordial. Elderberries are packed full of nutritional goodness and are also reputed to have an anti-viral action. I make my syrup with ginger, cloves and cinnamon, and have it diluted with hot water as a delicious winter drink, perfect to take with me in a flask for a day on the hill. I didn't make it to the rose hips before the snow came in, but I do know where there is a superb crop to pick from next year. As I ever, I pick a few and leave plenty whenever wild harvesting.

Garden herbs...

I've been working in our new garden: we spent the winter clearing the overgrowth and now it's time for the fun part! It's the first time I've had a garden sized blank canvas to plant up, and I'm trying to take my time to plan it properly. Days have been passsed watching the sun track across the garden; I've thought about prevailing winds, soil moisture and proximity to shelter; I've rejoiced in having a greenhouse!

The garden is built on a slope and we have multiple terraces and rockeries, with a path and disused stream winding down to the greenhouse, drained pond and bottom patio. There are two level beds; borders along the path and disused stream; a gritted area and a 'woodland' area (where I have decided to manage undesirable weeds but otherwise leave to its own devices, at least until I get the rest of the garden under control!) We are hoping to reinstate the stream and pond at some stage: at present, we are using the pond as a much needed second compost heap.

First to go in were the hardy perennials: lavender, rosemary, thyme, chives and sage. I was horrified to find slugs chomping on my common and golden thyme: what kind of super slugs do we have here??! Marjorams have gone in near paths, for fragrance and easy picking. All the kitchen herbs are in places where we can pick them easily throughout the year.

Next: a treat! I've planted a hop plant to climb up a sunny wall. We will be able to see it when out in the garden during the summer, but it will be out of sight from the house when it dies back in the winter.

In a sunny, sheltered bed by the greenhouse I am planting fruit: so far, strawberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants. We were delighted to discover a thriving rhubarb plant in this patch!

I'm on a learning curve with preparing a vegetable bed: it is already overrun with established annual weeds and I will need to double dig it in the autumn.

Meanwhile, I am a slave to weeds. Hours fly by as I pull and dig them up. A warm, wet day and once again cleared areas are bursting with new growth, much of which will be unplanned and of that, the majority will be weeds!!

Autumn berries!

The leaves are turning red, gold, brown, yellow; there's a crunchy carpet of them to scuff your feet through as you walk through the woods - must be autumn!

I had my first go at mushrooming last weekend; unfortunately the only edible ones we found had already been chomped. It seems that edibles in the woods are like the first day of the Harrods sale!

More luck is to be had with the berries. I'm spotting alluringly ripe hawthorn and elderberries just about everywhere I go, whether it be woods or Abbeydale road. Elderberry syrup is a delicious way of fending off winter colds; the berries have an anti-viral action. I pick a whole load - using a metal fork to strip them off the umbels - and cook them up with ginger, cinnamon and sugar (honey if I'm feeling rich) to make the syrup. You can have some neat (delicous drizzled over icecream!) or dilute it with some hot water. I once tried making hawthorn berry brandy but it didn't go quite right. Maybe I'll have another go this year..... Hawthorns berries and flowering tops are proven to benefit the cardiovascular system.

Late summer...

The days are getting shorter; more of the plants in the garden and hedgerows have finished flowering and are producing fruit or seeds. Every time I pass an elder tree I glance up at the umbels of ripening fruit: this year I will make elderberry rob! It is a delicious syrup that has the added benefit of being anti-viral. Traditionally, small amounts were taken daily as a prophylactic against winter viruses. I can recommend it poured over vanilla ice cream, and it is also delicious when diluted with hot water. There are many different recipe variations; I like to add cinnamon and maybe ginger to mine.

I am also busy stripping the lavender flowers off the stems I left to dry. I'll use them up over the next year, mainly in teas. Unfortunately the slugs decimated my hyssop; the dried flowering tops are a favourite of mine for chesty coughs. Hyssop relaxes the chest, is anitmicrobial and also stimulates the mucociliary escalator. In my opinion it is a pleasant alternative to the more powerful thyme.

Cornwall in full bloom!

I enjoyed a wonderful long weekend in Cornwall, which I mainly spent with my nose close to the ground and my plant key in hand as I delighted in the mass of flora. Just on one headland, I found wild carrot, sea carrot, thrift, red valerian, purple loosestrife, tormentil, cinquefoil, wild thyme, stonecrop, sea and red campion, seaside centaury, rock samphire, sea aster, sea plantain and hawkweed. The habitats varied dramatically as I walked along the coast, from hedgerow conditions, to exposed cliffs and hillsides, to bogs. It was the first time for me that I noticed meadowsweet, hemp agrimony, horsetail and hedge woundwort on a cliff path! Foxgloves were everywhere, as were the ample clumps of flowering wild thyme. Along the path to St Ives was an abundance of betony and self heal, forming a yellow and purple patchwork with the kidney vetch and birds eye trefoil. I found a tiny hypericum and miniature galium: I am not sure which ones they were. The wood sage was on the verge of flowering. 

What an extravagant abundance and variety!

As I walked, I could hear the seals singing to each other. Once, I caught a close up of one as it drifted past, casting an inquisitive eye over me as I scrambled over the rocks where I had found the sea plantain. 

The Cornish coastline is a magical place, as indeed are so many parts of our coastline. Walking out to see the sunset; scrambling down to beautiful, deserted beaches; sitting against the warm granite on Zennor Head, gazing out to see and watching the butterflies chasing each other. Happy days!