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Garden Larder – Late Summer Harvest

By Garden

It is such a privilege to walk into the Walled Garden at this time of year to gather produce you have so carefully cultivated over the previous months. Those dark cold winter days of sowing seeds and thinning stems are rewarded by the late summer with an abundance of fruits and vegetables.

I’ve already started my first batch of Plum Wine – Recipe to follow – and soon we’ll be lifting wind-fallen apples to juice for Cider.

Teasses, Walled Garden, Teasses Estate

Dahlias in the Walled Garden

By Garden
Teasses, Walled Garden, Teasses Estate

Dahlia ‘Belle of Barmera’

Teasses, Walled Garden, Teasses Estate

Dahlia ‘Zorro’

Teasses, Walled Garden, Dahlia, Teasses Estate

The Walled Garden provides the ideal climate for these stunning Dahlias. We like to try different varieties each year, and once again we’ve been bowled over by the intensity of colour in each of the varieties we’ve selected. Here Belle of Barmera is stunning, but the star of the show has to be Dahlia ‘Zorro’ with large vibrant blooms.

Teasses, Walled Garden, Dahlia, Teasses Estate

Fresh, Warm, Juicy Peaches

By Garden

There is nothing nicer than plucking a fresh ripe peach from the tree. Even better if you’ve had the opportunity to help towards the growth and development of those same peaches and have observed them gradually fatten over the early summer months. Now in late July the fruits are plump and ripe. To plunge your teeth through the flesh and be splattered with warm sweet juice is an absolute delight few get to enjoy. As the juice   trickles down your chin you recall all those sunny childhood summer holidays. The taste of sweet fruit and sunshine on your skin.

Peaches, Teasses, Greenhouse, July, Fruit

Recipe: Elderflower Infused Gin

By Teasses Recipes

We all like to use the natural ingredients our local wild larder provides us. This month has seen an abundance of elderflower blossom at Teasses and in my opinion you can’t go wrong with a quick Elderflower Infused Gin recipe, something to enjoy on these long hot summer days.

This recipe makes one litre of flavoured gin.

You’ll need;

  • a Large heavy bottom pot
  • 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
  • 2 strips of Lemon Peel
  • a dozen elderflower heads (de-bugged – to do this simply suspend the bunches of flower heads over white paper, the bugs will fall from the flowers while being attracted to the white paper)
  • 1 Litre of Gin (quantity over quality is fine here)
  • Bottles of your choice – sterilised.
  • fine Sieve or Muslin

Step One: Pour the gin and sugar into a gently heating pot. Allow the sugar to slowly dissolve into the mixture. Don’t boil.

Step Two: Add the lemon strips and the elderflowers to the mixture. Be careful to ensure that all of the flowerhead are submerged.

Step Three: Allow the mixture to infuse in a dark spot for up to 24 hours. This will allow the flavours of the flowers to develop. If you aren’t looking for a very strong elderflower taste adjust your timings to suit. Less infusion time will create a less pungent infusion. I tend to soak little more than overnight.

Step Four: Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or cotton muslin and pour into your desired bottles. Put an additional strip of lemon into the bottle. This prevents the liquid from darkening too much.

 

Once sealed you can store your Elderflower Infused Gin for as long as you like, but be warned the longer you leave it the stronger the taste. Be warned; natural yeasts on the Elderflowers can interact with any remaining sugars leading to further fermentation and more potent a concoction. Store in a dark place.

Prior to serving allow your Elderflower Infused Gin an overnight experience in the refrigerator, as with most gin drinks, this is served best with heaps of ice and tonic water.

 

 

 

Garden Club of America

By Visits

We had the absolute pleasure of hosting the Garden Club of America at Teasses today, 25th July 2018. The group led by Julia Fortescue and Anne Chambers were led through the garden by Head Gardener Craig Cameron and Assistant Head Gardener Lewis Rodgers.

High points for the group were seeing the fading flowers of Cardiocrinum, Giant Himalayan Lily, in Sir Fraser’s Garden. The vibrant scarlet flowers of Tropaeolum speciosum growing effortlessly through the dense yew hedges surrounding the Sundial Garden.The individual gardens dedicated to members of the family, each full of character, were a particular joy for the visitors to see and gave real insight into the nature of the family gardens here at Teasses.

We look forward to hosting the Garden Club of America again in the future.

What makes gardening so interesting?

By Garden

Gardening is something that you are either born to do or grow into over time, for me gardening has always been an interest so I must fall within the former category. But what makes gardening so interesting? This is a question I have often asked myself and have been asked by countless others. In this post I hope to explain my reasoning for this from the privileged position of Head Gardener on one of Scotland’s finest estates, Teasses in Fife.

So, what does make gardening so interesting? To answer that I need to clarify what I mean by ‘gardening’. To me gardening is my chosen professional interest, my profession is Head Gardener, for which I have trained for years to undertake – and as any one of my peers would tell you – the training doesn’t stop as soon as you leave the institution; whether that might be university,college or an apprenticeship. In fact it might be argued that the real training begins on that first day when you unlock the potting shed door.

The traditional idea of a Head Gardener is one befitting Mr. McGregor in The Tales of Peter Rabbit and on bad days I probably succumbed to the imagery. A head gardener will usually become grumpy for one of two things – either the machines are misbehaving or something has stumbled onto the beds and left hefty foot marks everywhere.

There are plenty of other challenges every day which the modern Head Gardener has to face, so for me what makes gardening interesting is the variety of tasks undertaken. I suspect each estate gardener has their own peculiar lists of jobs, for example; cleaning the pond circulation pump of dead bugs and half rotten plant material, turning the compost bays to let air into them, gathering leaves from the woodlands, stacking logs for the fire, taking the bins to the end of the road, pruning roses and climbers that don’t get the message the first time. Of course, these are the more challenging jobs; what estate gardeners generally undertake are the jobs most ‘amateur’ gardeners would dream of doing weekly and on a typically larger scale. One of the gardening jobs I really enjoy is planting out thousands of bulbs in the autumn in anticipation of the spring. Once the bulbs are buried safely under ground only you and the team know where they are going to re-appear in the crips bright mornings of spring. It is a grand reveal over a number of weeks for the estate owners. Another job is planting out beds of summer flowering tender bulbs and annuals. Just as in autumn with the spring bulbs, planting out summer bulbs and annuals is also a great illusion for the estate owners. In late May the large decorative pots are emptied seemingly over night, and little vibrant green plants replace the tired stems and flower heads of tulips and narcissi. Give it a few weeks, a decent amount of feed and plenty of water and before you know it you have a cacophony of hybridised antipodean plants in bloom and buzzing with butterflies and bees.

Of course the two jobs I ‘ve just mentioned are planting jobs, but what gets us there in the first place?

Cold winter mornings, frost nipping at your fingertips, a drippy nose and the seed box. Sowing seeds in a warm potting shed is in my opinion a job only a born gardener can do. You need patience, imagination and bucket loads of optimism.

Firstly, sieve the seed compost to break any larger lumps down into a fine light growing medium. This is vital. Not only does sieving break up hard blocks of soil which little roots might struggle to penetrate but it also opens up the soil texture allowing the ready movement of water and importantly air into the compost. Choose a suitable – clean! – pot or tray, this entirely depends on the size of your seed, gently fill the desired receptacle all the way to the top, firm down the soil by tapping the pot or tray on the potting bench. This step helps to settle the soil, despite just taking care to add air to the compost you don’t want big spaces of air in the compost, just lots of little ones. Use a similarly sized pot to tamp down the top of the soil so that you have a nice even sowing surface. Here is the controversy. I was taught, when studying at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, to water the seed pots/trays before applying the seed. This way the seed sticks to the damp soil and doesn’t get washed away. However, I have seen others do the exact opposite and water after the seed has been sown.

Now, wipe the dirt from your finger tips and palm, carefully pour out the tiny hard grains which you know contain the beginnings of an entire plant. It is just as well you know this because you might doubt that such a tough little thing would do anything other than sit there in the soil and do almost nothing.

Time for sowing. You either know the seed well or you’ll read the packet – some seeds like a little soil sifted over the top of them, while others benefit from being left uncovered for the light.  Sow the seeds so that they are evenly spread across the surface of the compost or place your larger seed firmly on or in it. Again, the shape of the seed will determine how to place it in the pot. Large flat seeds like pumpkin or squash require to be sown on their side, so that water doesn’t gather on the flat surface of the seed and rot it. Some seeds also require a little beating, smoking, actual fire or chilling. Again, you’ll need to read the packet. If you are at all bothered with slugs, snails, fungus gnats or moss then its a good idea to cover the surface of your soil with grit (but only if the seed does not require light to germinate).

Label must include plant name and variety and vitally the date you have sown it. If after a couple of weeks there is no sign of life  in the lettuce tray for example, they are most likely not going to germinate.

Seed sowing and planting are jobs which any gardener will enjoy but others prefer the meticulous implementation of stripes on lawns, weeding, laying new pathways and tying in fruit. The list of interesting things to do in the garden renews every week. The Head Gardener of an estate also gets to enjoy these jobs but the role involves something a little deeper. The Head Gardener is firstly a gardener – that seems obvious, but you’d be surprised – and secondly is the manager of the garden, all the garden related activities, garden staff, garden machinery, garden tours and events. The role obviously is specific to the requirements of the particular garden he or she is managing. At Teasses for example my role involves designing new gardens and features, and I particularly enjoy that aspect of my job here. It gives me great pleasure discussing ideas and sharing concepts with the estate owners, drawing up plans and putting together plant lists, sourcing plants and scheduling the work. At Teasses I’m involved from pencil t0 spade, and that’s one aspect of any Head Gardener’s role. The list of tasks a Head Gardener undertakes is endless I’ve summarised it as; gardener, contract manager, project manager, budget controller, HR, public face, propagationist, public speaker, floral arranger, quality controller, garden designer and events coordinator. I’m sure there are countless other jobs too minute to add.

In light of this apparent ramble both you and I are at least partially able to explain what makes gardening so interesting, it will certainly be much simpler to point your inquisitor in the direction of this post than to try to convince them otherwise, especially if you happen to be up to your waist in nettles or double digging the vegetable bed at the time. Whether your garden is sixty extensive acres or a few pots on a balcony there is always something to be done. As this is the first of many posts I’m sure I’ll cover most aspects of the garden and no doubt some will be relevant to you; whether it is what’s looking good now, how to best plant up a decorative pot or even how to preserve what you’ve grown. I hope you’ll find the time to take a couple of minutes with a cup of coffee and enjoy from afar the work we are carry-out at Teasses.

Just remember though, when asked by a less than green-fingered friend ‘what makes gardening so interesting?’ You might say…variety.