Monthly Archives: June 2011

Not just for Fathers Day ……………. Drop Scone Recipe

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Mr G was sleeping off a night shift and my own dad is in the UK on this Father’s Day, so four very hungry under 13′s devoured these in seconds this morning .. (just made a second batch for the hungry dad). I’ll be heating up the pan again later this week when my folks vist……
These drop scones are so quick and easy, loved by all and make a delicious quick snack .. they’re not just for breakfast treats.

The recipe was taken from River Cottage Everyday cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, although he suggests wholemeal flour I’ve used plain as that’s all that was in the cupboard.

Ingredients (makes 20 + or the plate full above depending on your own sizes)

250g flour – Hugh suggests self-raising wholemeal but plain works just as well
Pinch of baking powder
Pinch of sea salt
25g caster sugar
2 medium free range eggs
275ml milk
50g melted butter
Oil for greasing the pan

Method

Put some oil in a frying pan and wipe around with kitchen towel so it’s well greased. Prepare a plate with some tin foil so that you can build up a pile of drop scones, but covering them as you go to keep them warm.

Cook until they start to bubble, then flip

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl, then crack the eggs into a hollow in the centre. Pour half the milk into the mix and whisk gently at first with a fork. As the ingredients start to bind into a paste pour more milk and the melted butter, whisking until the mixture resembles a consistency slightly thicker than double cream (you may not need to use all the milk).

Heat the pan then add a small dollop of mixture to it – aim for about the size of a digestive biscuit. I can fit four into my pan at a time this size. After a very short time (keep a close eye), bubbles will start to form on the top of the scones, as soon as they do flip them over with a spatula. Cook the other side for about a minute, then remove them from the pan and cover with the foil or a tea towel.

Keep cooking until all the mixture is used up. You may need to oil the pan again in between and open the windows to prevent the smoke alarms going off!

Everybody seems to like them here with different toppings ranging from butter, sugar, maple syrup, Highbank Apple Syrup, jam or freshly squeezed lemons.

All you have to do then is enjoy! Bon appétit :)

Bimbling and harvesting in the veg garden – early June

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Just in case anyone’s under the illusion that we have the perfect garden, this is a picture of the wild area in our veg patch.

One day it may turn into a pond but for now it’s the place where all the wildlife hides, the insects buzz and the children’s balls get lost.

I love it as much as the rest of the garden, particularly when all the creeping buttercups flower.

No washing drying today… up in the clouds

Today was a peaceful bimbling day – tidying up, not too much weeding, a bit of sowing, listening to mellow tunes in my own head space.

I transplanted some cauliflowers a week or so ago and already the slugs have found them. Looks like the night time patrol will be starting up again very soon.

The bed above is waiting for the winter cabbages to grow bigger before they’re planted out.

The bulbs on the onions that were planted to overwinter are swelling nicely too.



I love the leaf shape and colour of this Bordeaux Spinach, but we’ve yet to taste it… maybe this evening it will grace our plates.

All the action’s happening inside the polytunnel at the moment. Here we’re harvesting lots of peas, perpetual spinach, scallions, beetroot, french beans, courgettes and herbs.

I love working in here as the scent from the herbs is so delicious.

The rosemary brushes against the leg as it’s passed and the perfume from the dill, tarragon, chives and thyme fill the air when a soft breeze blows in.

The dwarf French beans have struggled but are producing pods now.

I took a gamble and sowed them early, and they’ve had a tough time of it… they took a real munching from the slugs and haven’t grown very big, but good to see some flowers now and I’ve sown extra to replace the eaten ones.



One bed in the tunnel is taken up with squashes.. a couple of courgette plants, a couple of cucumbers and this year an unknown variety of something.

We dried and saved the seeds from a chestnutty flavoured squash purchased from an organic farm shop last autumn. Am thinking it’s a Blue Ballet but will have to wait and see… it’s looking very healthy though so fingers crossed.

A row of phacelia has been sown in front to attract pollinating insects inside.

To finish off my pottering, as a reward (as if I needed one after my peaceful day) some ripe strawberries were picked and shared. The runners from the outside patch were dug up and planted in the tunnel during the early spring producing the most exquisite flavoured fruit.



Cambridge Variety Strawberries

Still a few jobs to do, but feeling good for a catch up.

Meeting people, edible forests and school gardening – Bloom 2011

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Bloom 2011 was a totally different experience for me this year to last - in 2010 I was there for the first time as a visitor, this year as a volunteer. Carraig Dulra mentioned in their newsletter that they were looking for help to mana stand for the Bloom Garden Festival weekend, and as Suzie Cahn had so graciouslygranted me a few hours of her time discussing community gardening recently, Iwas happy to offer.

(all pics taken on phone camera – it was a bright day!)

My allocated slot was for the morning of the bank holiday Monday and it waswith some relief that I set off with the sun shining in a clear blue sky. Theshow opened up at 10am and next year if I manage to get up to Phoenix Park forBloom, that’s the time and day I plan to arrive. The big crowdsdidn’t arrive until lunchtime so there was ample space for parking close to theentrance and to walk around.

My brief for the morning was to be able to talk to people about schoolgardens and edible forests. I hadn’t realised that the stand was to be a combined effort with The Organic Centre,   Sonairte, Carraig Dulra and theBlackrock Education Centre. They were launching a recent initiative entitled SEED, a national network of organic centers in Ireland whoseaim is to promote and help with gardening in primary schools. Hundreds ofleaflets were distributed over the five day festival hoping to attract the attention of teachers, parentsand children.

As part of the display a small edible forest garden had been created andthis proved to be a major attraction to the area. Comments from visitors rangedfrom how beautiful the garden smelt, how they hadn’t realised so many flowerswere edible, surprise at the variety of herbs and vegetables growing in such a small space andlove of the use of wood in the garden. The longer I stood by the garden talkingto people the more I noticed about it too.
I loved the way logs had been piled, looking like they’d fallen there, nasturtiums and herbs planted around them. The small pond containing watercress and tadpoles was encased with chopped logs and bark papered around them for insects to hide. It also contained delicious tasting water cress and I’m sure the tadpoles, swimming in the tank closeby, would have loved to have hopped in. The trees when mature would either bear fruit or nuts, fruit bushes, herbs (edible and medicinal) and vegetables were interplanted around their bases.
This recently created garden was low maintenance garden with the idea that everything growing in it mutually beneficial. Willow had been woven into curves, sheltering the back and edging the front of the beds and a Straw Strulch used as mulch over the top of the soil to protect it and prevent weeds.
Dave Jacke of Edible Forest Garden describes what this method of gardening involves very well on their website:
“Edible forest gardening is the art and science of putting plants together in woodlandlike patterns that forge mutually beneficial relationships, creating a garden ecosystem that is more than the sum of its parts. You can grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, other useful plants, and animals in a way that mimics natural ecosystems. You can create a beautiful, diverse, high-yield garden. If designed with care and deep understanding of ecosystem function, you can also design a garden that is largely self-maintaining. In many of the world’s temperate-climate regions, your garden would soon start reverting to forest if you were to stop managing it. We humans work hard to hold back succession—mowing, weeding, plowing, and spraying. If the successional process were the wind, we would be constantly motoring against it. Why not put up a sail and glide along with the land’s natural tendency to grow trees? By mimicking the structure and function of forest ecosystems we can gain a number of benefits.”

As for meeting people… I really enjoyed showing the children and adultswho visited the stand the various seeds and plants, loved putting faces to names of those I’d met through socialmedia, chatting to friendly but tired stand holders and garden designers and even waved at President Mary Mc Aleese … Bring on Bloom 2012 -looking forward to it already.