Have you ever made your own raspberry vinegar? What a wonderful year for raspberries 2022 is! We’re picking around a kilo every day here in the Bridge Cottage Garden. Do you grow raspberries? They are very easy to grow and here in the northeast of England they are very well suited to our climate. Growing […]
Next year, when I’m sowing courgette seeds, will someone please remind me that eight courgette plants are far too many? Someone over on The Bridge Cottage Way Facebook page suggested this week that courgette seeds be sold strictly in packets of three to avoid overplanting. I think they have a point. We’ve had a few […]
Minestrone making is one of the joys of late summer’s harvest time. A seasonal recipe that freezes well, is a meal in a bowl and brings a welcome reminder of summer in the depths of winter. I first wrote this piece on the first of August and Lammas, the pagan celebration of the harvest. This […]
We’ve been making our own yoghurt and soft cheese for years here at Bridge Cottage. The Guardian even got in touch a couple of years ago and interviewed us about switching from commercially bought yoghurt to making our own: Culture shock for ‘big yoghurt’ as foodies switch to DIY So why bother? for one, we […]
Have you, like us, been enjoying the tender young leaves of the wild garlic, Allium Ursinum? We shared information on recognising and how to forage responsibly for this pungent plant, plus some of our favourite recipes for using these delicious leaves in a previous post back in March: Wild Garlic, foraging and cooking. Now April is […]
If I had a £1 for every pound of playdough I’ve made over the years, I’d be a rich woman. Homemade playdough is cheap and sustainable, can be used again and again when stored in the fridge. It reduces the need for plastic packaging and transportation and is great fun to play with. As I […]
The smell of wild garlic takes me back to the day we moved to Bridge Cottage. As we drove along with a car full of boxes, marvelling at the beauty of the Northumberland countryside, a pungent pong wafted through the car window. Wild garlic. It was growing in abundance along the roadside. Imagine our delight […]
Wild Garlic, Allium ursinum, also known as: ramsons, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek or bear’s garlic, is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae. It is native to Europe and Asia, where it grows in moist woodland. It can be grown in your garden, or foraged for, for free! The […]
Making a hotbox may well be the answer if are you chomping at the bit to get the growing season started, It’s still February and last week we had snow. However, the sun started shining this week after a long Winter. We are still in Lockdown due to the pandemic and goodness knows we are […]
Feeding the birds in Winter. It’s February, and there’s been thick snow on the ground up here in Northumberland for weeks now. The river is starting to freeze over, and while there are some interesting patterns on the windows of the greenhouse, some amazing ice formations in the river, and beautiful icicles hanging from the […]