blooms | Christine Lucas

download Day 3: This Sunday David and I (with Riley), ventured to Liverpool’s Festival Gardens in search of elderflowers. We walked 2.6 miles looking for full blooms and thankfully came away with 25 flower heads.

Once back home I cut the heads from the storks, grated the zest from four lemons and boiled a kettle.

Since last years recipe had mixed results, I opted to try another recipe. The recipe I followed was from The Women’s Institute.

25- 30 full Elderflower Heads in full bloom
2 kg Sugar
2 lt Water
4 Lemons, juice and pared zest
1-2 tbsp White Wine Vinegar
Dried Yeast, pinch

Elderflower Champagne Ingredients

Elderflower Concoction

Method

Boil the water and pour onto the sugar in a large previously sterilised container.
Stir until the sugar dissolves, then add cold water up to 6 litres.
Add the lemon juice and zest, the vinegar and the flower heads and stir gently.
Cover and leave to ferment in a cool, airy place for a couple of days. At this point, check and if it has not started to ferment (a few bubbles) add a pinch of yeast.
Leave the mixture to ferment, covered for a further four days.
Strain the liquid through a muslin lined sieve into sterilised champagne glass bottles. Seal and leave to ferment in the bottles for a further eight days before serving, chilled.

I will keep you updated on the champagnes progress.

Have you tried making elderflower champagne/cordial?

Thanks for reading, and keep wild!

Christine x

Standing firm against the gales of storm Henry, Artie and I ventured out into the back garden while the winter sun shone with the promise of longer, warmer days to come. In fact today was quite mild, dare I jinx it and say the whole season has been wet, windy and mild?!

It may have been just a brief half an hour that we were outside, but it was time well spent. At present I am feeling rather cooped up! So today when I saw the sun shining I knew that I should spend my lazy morning tending to my spring shoots.

Hellebore

The first thing that catches the eye is the white and purple flashes of Hellebore flower heads. I love Hellebores, or Christmas Roses, they are such good growers and always a welcome colour in the more shaded areas of the garden.

With Goldfinches squeaking at me to leave the garden, so they could have their breakfast of sunflower hearts, I noticed many tips of green shoots breaking through the damp soil! There are a number of tall Tulip bulbs sprouting and I think I have some welcome Snowdrops (they never grew last year), but they seem to be getting eaten by something so I never get to see them bloom!

The Hyacinth has been going strong since Christmas and has a twin growing along side it now!

I managed to replant the sad looking Lavender. I took it from its patio pot and placed it where there is some space in the main garden area. In front of this I also replanted some seedlings of the Poppy seeds I had growing. I hope they take to their new home and flourish!

Lavender and Poppy relanting

Snowdrop?

Hyacinth

With all this replanting, I have made space now for five patio pots to be free for when I attempt to grow some vegetables later in the year.

Last year I bought seeds for Spring Onions, Green Beans and Peppers. I have not attempted to grow my own vegetables before so I wonder if any of them will survive?