Rosemary (Rosmarinus oficinalis)

The Rosemary in my garden is looking great at the moment, fresh, fragrant and beautifully green 🙂

Later this month I intend to take some cuttings, so that I can have more of this yummy herb next year in the garden.

Native habitat

• Mediterranean and other parts of Europe
• Introduced mainly in Southern England

Growing conditions

• Light, dry, sandy soil
• Sunny position

Maintenance

• Protect young plants from frost
• Gather flowering tips in spring and summer and hang in bunches to dry
• Trim bush in the autumn

Parts used

• Flowering tops
• Leaves

Properties

• Pungent scent
• Moth repellent
• Attracts bees

Uses

• Culinary, cosmetic and medicinal
• Flavours food, especially soups, stews, vegetables and grilled lamb
• Used in jellies, jams, biscuits and cakes
• A protection against clothes moths
• Tonic for invalids; for depression, anxiety and nervous migraine
• Antiseptic, used externally to heal wounds and mouth infections
• To preserve teeth
• As a cough cure
• To soothe bruises, falls and sprains
• To keep you young

Some Facts 🙂

• Name comes from the Latin ros-marinus (dew of the sea), which refers to its favourite habit by salty sea spray
• A symbol of friendship and love
• A wreath of rosemary was worn by brides as a sign of love and loyalty
• Once used in religious ceremonies to ward of evil spirits
• Pungent scent was believed to protect from disease and infection
• Used as an alternative to incense
• Ancient Greeks believed it improved memory
• Greek students used to wear a wreath while sitting examinations
• Introduced into Britain by Romans

Information courtest of The Herb Society

The Peas are Planted…

A few weeks back my daughter planted some peas in the greenhouse, she only planted around a dozen.

They are now ready to go into the garden, and yesterday we planted them out into the 3rd raised bed.

We used some chicken mesh, Bamboo canes and Stripped conifer branches to stake them out, we left a bit of the foliage at the top of each stake to protect them from birds etc.

My daughter is really excited now and cant wait until she can harvest her very own home grown Peas 🙂

Cutting back the Conifers

Last night after we had eaten our Tea, we ventured out into the garden once more.    I wanted to get all the dead weeds lifted up from the driveway.    I had sprayed them about 10 days ago with weed killer, so the kids and I all got a pair of rubber gloves on and tackled the weeds.   

Because my driveway runs along the bottom of a neighbours garden, we tend to get all their plants growing through the fence and it looks rather unsightly, so I pushed as many as i could back through the fence, then I got the loppers out of the shed and cut the remainder of them all away..  it looks so much better.

Next on the cards was the front and side lawn, so out came the lawnmower and I got the grass cut, then proceeded to take the mower round to the back garden, my daughter volunteered to cut the back lawn, so that was a big help…. ableit she moaned the whole time she was doing it!

Because we had the loppers out, I thought it might be a good idea to cut the conifers at the side of the chicken coop/run,  back a little bit to let some light through, my son gave me a hand with this, he really enjoyed himself!

We will put the cut down branches to good use, they will be used as pea stakes, so my son stripped the branches of foliage and we will be keeping the long thinner ones.. there were quite a few chunky branches, i’ll keep these for late summer when we have a BBQ and have the chimnea fired up,  and i’ll use those to burn.    I know that pine wood crackles quite a bit, but we dont mind, as it will be used outdoors.   The rest of the foliage, will be bagged up and taken to our local refuse disposal point.

Another good lot of jobs done!

Green Pineapple

Green Pineapple

Originally uploaded by Towniesmallholder

This is todays picture taken for the 7 days of shooting with the theme GREEN… this is for Shiney Sunday.