sustainable living - The Bridge Cottage

Drying Herbs – The Bridge Cottage Way

July 3, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen, The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

Homegrown herbs

Drying herbs can save you money and provide a good amount of flavoursome ingredients for the kitchen and medicine cabinet. Herbs that you have grown or foraged can and should be used when they are at their seasonal best. However, herbs can be preserved for use throughout the year by drying, and can then be used in your cooking, made into herbal and floral vinegar, herbal salt, and teas.

By growing, foraging and preserving your own herbs you will be living a more sustainable lifestyle by reducing transport costs and the need for single-use plastic and throw away packaging. You will be able to grow them as organically as you can, and will be assisting the biodiversity in your garden.

Head over to the Bridge Cottage Garden page to find out more about growing herbs.

Rule number one is to pick your herbs on a dry day. The less moisture there is to dry in the leaf and stem, the quicker your herb will dry and retain its properties. A damp or soggy herb will only slow the process down.

Drying herbs in an airy place

There are two ways of drying herbs:

Air Dry

Tie your herbs in small bunches, with a loop knot that tightens as they dry. Be careful not to try in too large a bunch, or the air will not be able to circulate. Hang out of the way in a light, warm and airy room or out-side undercover, but not in direct sunlight.

Avoid hanging in a kitchen and not in a bathroom as steam is not going to be helpful.

drying herbs on a surface

Dry Flat

This method is good for petals and herbs that have been removed from the stem. Removing from a stem helps your herbs to dry quicker, and this method can be good for herbs such as mint, lemon balm, comfrey.

A wicker basket is a useful tool here, as the gaps in the wicker help the air to circulate around your herbs.

A sheet of paper in a warm and airy room will work, and herbs can be raised on a cooling rack.

I’ve doctored an IKEA hanging rack, by cutting away the back, and hand this in the wardrobe in our spare room, with a window open a touch.

Your herbs will take anything from two days to two weeks to dry, depending on the moisture content and drying conditions.

Herbal tea mix of dried mint, lemon balm, rose, elderflower and lavender

Once herbs are dry, and brittle and can be scrunched, place in clean jars and label for use.

Electric dehydrators can also be used, but we try to save on using energy where we can.

We also freeze some herbs for use in cooking – parsley and basil in particular.

Elderflower and mint tea

You’ll not be sorry you went to all this effort when you can reach for tasty herbs to use to make a cuppa or to flavour your dinners in the depths of winter.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the substack newsletter. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Sign up for Substack Newsletter

Tying up Unruly Peas, Mangetout & Broad Beans

June 29, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized, The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

Mangetout in the Bridge Cottage Garden

It’s June, and the crops are growing well in the Bridge Cottage garden, but I have unruly beds of broad beans and mangetout that have grown to be taller than me in places and are starting to waft and wave. If we get a windy day, they will snap, so I thought I’d better get them fettled.

First, the tops were nipped out. This will stop them getting any taller, help them to bush out, and the tips, lightly steamed are delicious to eat.

Pinch out the tips of broad beans and mangetout

If growing broad beans, pinching out the tips will also help to deter blackfly. These are very tasty, lightly steamed.

Broad Bean tips

Sharpening the ends of hazel poles to make stakes

Sharpening hazel poles for stakes

We coppiced a hazel tree in the winter, and so have these beautiful hazel poles to use. You could also use garden canes, but I like the rustic feel of the hazel, and am not a fan of going to garden centres unless I have to! Tim used an axe the sharpen the ends to make them easier to drive into the ground.

Beds of mangetout, peas and broad beans in the Bridge Cottage Garden

Placing the supports around the crops, I used natural twine, and wound it around the poles, skirting the broad beans and mangetout at three different height levels.

A job well done! Now my broad beans and peas can continue to grow without the risk of falling over or getting too tall.

Mmm, mangetout are delicious

We had a little visitor to Nanny and Grandad’s garden today, and she thought that her first taste of mangetout, freshly picked was ‘delicious’ 🙂

Are you growing peas, beans or mangetout?

Have you had your first harvest yet?

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on any of our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Make your own Organic Comfrey Feed

June 29, 2020/2 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden/by Sue Reed

comfrey

We cut down comfrey to make our own organic comfrey feed here at Bridge Cottage at the end of May or beginning of June to make a feed for our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, dahlias and clematis, hanging baskets and indoor pot plants. this process then continues throughout the summer, as comfrey if fast-growing.

Comfrey is an excellent source of potassium, an essential plant nutrient for flower, seed and fruit production. Its leaves contain 2-3 times more potassium than farmyard manure. The comfrey root grows very deep, tapping sources of potassium in the subsoil that would not normally be available to plants and thus makes comfrey a superb plant for the organic gardener who is looking to use homemade, organic means of fertilising crops. We also add nettles to the mix, as they contain nitrogen, which is important for leafy growth

Other plants to add to the comfrey feed bucket are nettles, rich in nitrogen and borage.

Cutting comfrey with shears

We like to leave the cutting of comfrey until the bees have had their fill of the nectar from the flowers, which here in Northumberland is around the beginning of June. It might be earlier if you are in more southern climes.

We grow Russian comfrey, but be warned – this is very invasive, so unless you have a big plot, you might like to look for the Bocking 14 variety which is easier to tame. Bocking 14 is also higher in nutrient content than the wild comfrey. See if you have a local plant swop group or find someone with a big clump who is happy to divide it for you. Once established, this is a prolific plant, so finding some shouldn’t be a problem.

Cut the leaves using shears and wearing gloves, about 5cm from the ground. You can be brutal, and this plant will soon grow back, allowing you to do another cutting from it later in the year.

Comfrey feed drips into container under bin

Comfrey feed drips into the container under the bin

There are two schools of thought when it comes to making the feed. If you are a fan of Gardener’s World, you may have seen Monty Don adding comfrey leaves to a bucket of water and letting that steep. It produces a less concentrated feed, is easy to do, but boy, does it stink! Use approximately 1kg leaves to 15 litres of water. After about 4-6 weeks this can be strained, and the leaves put on the compost heap. It can then be watered directly onto your plants.

Another method is to make a concentrate. Use a container with a hole in the bottom, or a bokashi bin. Place the leaves in the bin, chop with shears, and then press own with a weight. (we use a couple of bricks in a bucket) and allow the leaves to rot of their own accord, catching drips of this precious black liquid, which should be used sparingly. Use in a ratio of one-part feed to ten parts water.

Organic Comfrey Feed

Feed your crops:

tomatoes/peppers in pots – feed 3 times a week
tomatoes/cucumbers in greenhouse beds – feed twice a week
indoor and outdoor pot plants/hanging baskets – feed once a week

Feed tomato plants with comfrey feed as the first fruits set

Other uses for Comfrey:

Composting

Place cut or bruised comfrey leaves in alternate layers throughout your compost heap. Their decomposition will encourage bacterial action causing the heap to heat up and speed up the composting process.

Mulch

Use as a mulch. Chop up comfrey leaves with grass cuttings and place a 5cm layer on the surface of the soil around all plants. This will slowly rot down to provide nutrients and act as a mulch to keep in moisture and help control weeds.

Leaf Mould Seed Compost

Add fresh cut leaves to your leaf mould heap. Their nutrient-rich liquid will be absorbed, making it a perfect medium for growing seeds and potting compost.

Planting Potatoes & Beans

Fertilise the bottom of your potato and runner bean trenches with a layer of comfrey leaves. As they break down, the plant roots will access the potassium-rich fertiliser.

If you master the making of an organic feed, your plants will love you and so will the planet.

Happy gardening 🙂

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on any of our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen & Seasonal Eating.

June 28, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen and our introduction to Seasonal Eating. 🙂

Welcome Bridge Cottage kitchen

In this section of the website, we will look at seasonal eating to help you understand when different fruit and vegetables are ripe and ready. It is offered as a complement to the page, The Bridge Cottage garden, where we hold your hand as you plant and grow your crops. We will offer tried and tested recipes to enjoy home-cooked food when it is at its best, fresh and locally produced. We will also look at pickling and preserving to help your precious produce last into the winter months.

There is much food to be gathered from the hedgerows, foraged for free. We will discuss the ethics behind foraging, and how to gather food from the wild without impacting on wildlife.

Tomatoes ripening on the vine

Supermarkets with their year-round array of fruit and vegetables have taken seasonal eating out of many folks’ consciousness, and with it, the taste. I don’t want to eat tomatoes in January that have been ground under plastic in Almeria in Spain, neither do I want to eat asparagus that has come from Peru. I want to eat English asparagus in the small window that it is available in June, and will wait for my tomatoes to be ripe and ready before I eat them. I guarantee they will taste like a different vegetable to the one that has sat on the supermarket shelf, wrapped in plastic, after having been shipping halfway around the world.

homemade jam

Do you have memories of your grandparents pickling and preserving fruit and vegetables? Both my grandmothers made jam, one with a shelf in the fridge door of strawberry jam, and the other who filled tiny paste posts with homemade raspberry jam. Mine were from the wartime generation who had to learn to make the most of what they had, and I believe we need to take a leaf out of their books and go back to those days. I wrote over in the Sustainable Living section of this website about how the bubble had burst. I strongly believe we need to reduce our spending, reduce plastic waste, and for the sake of the planet, reduce our carbon footprints. If I can keep out of the supermarkets I will. Never has it been more important to try and grow and cook as much of our own food as we can, and eat seasonally.

Gooseberry and elderflower ice cream

Over the year we will be making jam, jellies and chutneys together, drying herbs and making herbal teas, freezing summer fruit, churning ice-cream and making out own cheese and yoghurt. When Christmas comes, we’ll look at ways to keep it simple and homemade. So get saving your jam jars, don’t throw any containers or bags away. You’ll be needing them for in the coming months.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Why Bother? Gardening & Growing Food.

June 22, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden, Outdoors, Sustainable Living/by Sue Reed

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

Why do we go to all the bother of gardening and growing food? Indeed, a friend walked around our garden not so long ago and remarked, ‘this is my worst nightmare’. We have a large plot here, but whether you have a large or small garden, allotment or a few pots and a window box, growing food is, in our opinion not only rewarding and enjoyable but vital for the survival of the planet.

The taste of vegetables plucked fresh from the garden is incredible, not to mention the extra vitamins and minerals you’ll take on board compared to food that has sat on a supermarket shelf after making a journey halfway around the world. You will also be safe in the knowledge that your crops are free from pesticides, have not travelled for miles by boat or plane, and are not wrapped in plastic. you will also get outside, for fresh air and exercise. Studies have shown that gardening and getting our hands in soil is very good for both our mental and physical health. These should be reasons enough for all your hard work.

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

You will learn to eat seasonally, in tune with the growing calendar, enjoying the excitement of crops as they become ready, and then just as you sicken of them, another crop will pop up its head up and off you go in the enjoyment of that. Through the Bridge Cottage Way, we will hold your hand as you plant your first crops, telling you when it is time to plant, and guiding you through the whole growing process.

In the section, The Bridge Cottage Kitchen, we will take our fruit and vegetables indoors and explore recipes for tasty meals as well as ways to pickle and preserve to help us through the winter months. As well as food from the garden, we will also be writing about foraging and collecting food for free.

We live and garden in Northumberland, which is at the centre of Britain. Haltwhistle, just a few miles down the road from us claims to be the actual centre of Britain. There is one heck of a lot of Scotland above us. We will be writing about what we are growing and when we are growing it. However, if you are down south or in warmer climes, then you may well want to do everything just a little bit earlier. You will be able to sow and grow without the risk of snow in June! The same applies if you are reading this further north – you may need to wait a while.

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

We will write about all aspects of the garden, but with a particular focus on growing food. During lockdown there has been a surge in people beginning to grow fruit and vegetables for the first time. You might be visiting this site as a newbie, or like us, as old-timers who have grown food for decades. You are all very welcome.

You can visit the month by month section to find out what jobs need doing when, or use the search box on the home page if you are looking for a particular subject.

It’s time to pop out into the garden and pick some courgettes for dinner tonight, so we’ll say cheerio for now.

Happy gardening

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Sustainable Living. The Time for Transition is Now

June 22, 2020/0 Comments/in Sustainable Living/by Sue Reed

In this introduction to sustainable living, I would like to talk about consumerism. The bubble has burst and the time for transition is now. Our system is broken, with global warming and the climate crisis being an immediate emergency. Our planet is in crisis. We have been told by our governments that economic growth must happen in order to make progress, but I, along with many others, dispute this. Instead of buying and acquiring more, I strongly believe we have to consume less.

I would like to draw your attention to the anti-consumer manifesto of Sarah Lazarovic. She is an artist and illustrator from Toronto who wrote the book, A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy. Sarah challenged herself to pause, and paint the things she yearned for, to see if that fulfilled her impulse buying needs. It gave her time to consider if she really wanted these things.

The Buyerachy of Needs by Sarah Lazarovic

Buying should only be considered when all other options have been considered. How many times, have you looked down the Google tube for something, only to have it pop up on a sponsored advertisement? It shouts at you, ‘come on, you really want to get that (insert item of your choice.’ Or worse still, you’ve had a conversation with someone about something and the very idea, a holiday in Tuscany, a new fan oven, pops up in your feed? Big Brother is indeed listening to us. Although my husband has a theory that they never show you combine harvesters, and so periodically shouts ‘combine harvester’ at his phone.

Berber women, Morocco

As I write this, my mind goes back to our honeymoon, when back in 1987 we travelled in Morocco. To cut a long story short (and I’ll write that story one day – see Sue Reed Writes) we ended up at a Berber wedding deep in the countryside. We stayed with the family, and on the day of the wedding, four of the women lined up in their best wedding outfits and I was asked to choose who had the best dress. A very hard call. I chose the girl in the yellow dress. No sooner had I pointed to her than she ducked inside and returned wearing her work clothes. I got to wear her dress for the wedding. That’s me, dancing at the wedding in the yellow dress and red Berber scarf. The women each owned two sets of clothes – one for work and one for best.

Dancing at a Berber wedding, Morocco 1987

That’s me, dancing with the women, having spent several days sleeping and living with them. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Their kindness, hospitality and generosity was wonderful.

Whilst I’m not saying we should only own two sets of clothes, (heaven knows, I need several different sizes for weight fluctuation alone), but if I look at my wardrobe, I have enough clothes to last my lifetime, possibly two. Do I really need to buy anything new?

As lockdown restrictions lifted, I was so sad to see queues for Primark and IKEA snaking for miles. I totally get that people were fed up of being trapped at home, but did they really need to go shopping? Did they really need to buy new things for the home? Maybe some did, and maybe for some, cheap clothing is essential. I’m not judging people, but want to challenge when shopping has become an activity rather than a necessity. The planet has been able to breathe a little during lockdown. There have been dolphins in the Grand Canal in Venice, mountains seen because of the lack of air pollution. As we re-emerge from lockdown, I would like to throw down the gauntlet.

Buying should only be considered when all other options have been exhausted. Let’s over the next months, look at ways we can, to refer back to Sarah Lazarovic’s model:

Use what we have
Borrow
Swap
Thrift (Buy second hand)
Make
Lastly, buy when all of the above options have been considered.

In this section of The Bridge Cottage Way, entitled, Sustainable Living, I would like to share some of the ways we have found to reduce our buying. If we all make small steps, we will collectively make a huge difference. Is there something you could do today?

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook and Instagram.

you might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here.

Tag Archive for: sustainable living