Lemon balm tea and wild greens

We have started foraging again for wild foods, and are building up our supplies of wild greens that we are drying out ready to get us through the winter. Previously I spent a fortune on green powders that I have to say gave me great health, but the kick we get out of our own wild foraged ones is far higher it really is. It is probably down to the fact that we have collected them, but energetically they just feel better for us. Yesterday we collected dandelion leaves, blackberry leaves, and goose grass, all to dry off, although I tend to eat a few in a salad as its too good an opportunity to miss.

The green powder we make has a real mix of all the wild greens we collect in various amounts, depending on what we want it to do to our body, so some figure much more in the mix than others. I like to have dandelions as they support my kidneys, but I have also taken to lemon balm just lately as well.

We do dry lemon balm out but we also have it fresh in tea, put some in a cafetiere, with hot water and let it steep for a while, I have this daily now. It is absolutely lovely, has been a doddle to grow, in fact it is so prolific that we continually are having to cut it back. We have taken cuttings from it so we can take it to grow on the allotment as well, which are also doing really well.

It has a lovely light lemony taste to it, and feels quite calming, has lovely medicinal properties including being antibacterial, so I have been having a little bit each day. In a salad of sprouted beans and seeds it adds a really nice summery taste, with flax dressing, doesn’t get any better than that really! All home grown, well except the flax oil!

Dandelion seeds, Swiss chard, and bed number 7!

We have been collecting those beautiful dandelion heads, and not as you might imagine making a wish whilst we blow them away, but instead carefully placing them into a bag to grow on our allotment. I know, probably everyone else is pulling them up considering them to be weeds, but the nutrient value of dandelions is fantastic, and we love using them in salads, and drying them for tea. So we have decided to grow them, and this is our first foray into collecting seeds to dry out for the coming year. We are complete seed collecting novices, but this is our years goal to collect the seeds from our plants that we are growing so that we keep the control we want over our foods. It’s what head gardeners have done for years, and so it can’t be that hard, can it? So we are also letting some of our Swiss Chard go to seed at the moment, to collect and also dry out.

Our allotment has 6 beds now on it, and we have sweetcorn ready to go into bed number 7, which we have planned for tomorrow. We have our eye on a poly tunnel, which is quite exciting, well as exciting as extending the growing year gets!!

Having greens just outside the back door available is absolutely fantastic, everyday we have green salad which we have picked fresh, and it doesn’t get much better than that. We are keeping our eyes out for a small plot of land to grow more food on and set up our small holding, the recession has led to a realisation that moving up the ladder isn’t likely to happen. But we could stretch to a small land only plot not too far from where we are living, and that would enable us to achieve more of our goal of becoming sustainable in regards to our own food.

Kale, a new neighbour, and raised beds!

Yes we’ve been busy catching up on our allotment since I have been ill, and breaking my foot. We have been building raised beds, and we now have 4 in, with Kale, Mizuno, potatoes, and we are planning the peas next. The woodland has provided us with the canes for the peas from the local hazel trees. It is a lot of work having such a large allotment that it is taking nearly all of our evenings up and I am no longer sure I need my gym membership during the summer months! But it is exciting considering that we may be able to grow at least 40-50% of the vegetables that we eat. I never thought that growing food would be so exciting but to be honest it really is, and we have a new allotment neighbour, who is giving us a run for our money.

Allotments are really growing (excuse the pun!) in popularity, and even tonight we saw in a newspaper them being reported as a viable option for affording organic food during the recession. But we have seen the allotment filling up, where there were empty plots they are now growing food, and every time we go there we run into people.