Tuesday 30 July 2013

Mint glorious Mints

Corsican Mint Norfolk Herbs
Next year in my garden and in my allotment I intend to grow more mint plants , I hope to grow Corsican mint and Penny Royal as part of a"no grass lawn" outside my shed.  I am going to divide the area into boxes about the size of a seed tray and  growa mixture of mints, thyme, bellis,  German chamomile, clover, and other low growing tough plants the area will only be three foot wide and six foot long.and should be able to  be walked on and for Pops dog to lie on but digging is banned!
 


Nepeta Six Hills -Hooksgreen  Garden 


 I am growing some of the  plants in seed trays including penny royal..but other mints I  will buy as plugs as  most of the them are difficult to grow from seeds.  I do grow cat mint and have visions of a beautiful border along my herb bed of  this blue flowered mint. This has been a dream ever since I saw  a clip of Pam Aryes sitting in her garden on a beautiful summers day along side a border of Nepeta in full flower.





I find Cat mint grow well from seed and I have enough to grow a border around my herbs beds in the garden. and bowls for the cats,   It grows well through April, May into June it reaches perfection tall, flower buds forming and that is when Ray cat nibbles and bends it and rubs his head along it  and rolls in it.  Then Pop dog who has ignored it previously discovers it and eats it and snuggles down on top of it and I am left with stalks.  Oh sigh,  I grow it for them but I can dream! I have not grown it at the allotment as I do like the idea of the numerous cats or foxes rolling in ecstasy on my herb bed.




Black Peppermint Norfolk Herbs
I am also going to grow more varieties of mint, I use so much mint in cooking, salads and teas and want to increase the amount and types I grow.  My black peppermint  no longer looks lush and flourishing but a tiny plant with small leaves, as I have picked it so often for tea. The spearmint is also a frail shadow of it self and certainly has not become invasive. These two are my favourite mint plants and are used almost daily for tea, in cooking or salads, and with fruit. I have never found mint invasive as I pick it regularly and only reluctantly stop picking the leaves when the plants needs time to renew itself



A new mint I am going  grow next year is Moroccan Mint. It is one of the best spearmints  and mixed with green rooibos tea is a lovely hot infusion or iced drink.  A small amount of  fresh peppermint adds a lovely zing to the tea. It also goes well with Chinese green teas such as the famous Gunpowder Green Tea which All about Tea mix into their blend of Tuareg Mint Tea this is really delicious.

Mints is used as herbal  remedy for::stomach aches, headaches, stress and anxiety.  It can also be used to soothe insect bites .It is a fragrant and beautiful garden plant



Buddleia Mint Norfolk Herbs
Chocolate mint Norfolk Herbs



Anyway time for tea, I think fresh mint and green Rooibos tea.



With Reiki blessings and light

Merryb











Monday 29 July 2013

Donner and Blitzen and Pops

Pops is a gorgeous dog but she has cycles of harem sacrum moments, quite a few in the past two weeks according to my diary. these moments are often only funny in retrospect,  The garden has borne the brunt of her activity  but the house has not passed unscathed..

We have been woken to the sound of Pops.
"murdering sleep, innocent sleep, sleep, sleep that soothes away all our worries.." (.Macbeth)
Pops is having a panic attack and ripping the doors to pieces in the dining room  trying to get out. I rushed down stairs to find Pops with her head stuck in that door.   She had tried to escape through the smallish hole she has made in the door over the past four years.

The cats stared with horror at the door and Pops head and retreated to their safe haven.  flying past me as I stumbled down the stairs to see what was a wrong. Not only was her head through the hole but she was panting and drooling with fright,  I did laugh but thought it would be wrong to get the camera out before I got her out of the hole she had got herself in.

Why had she panicked?  there was no wind, no noise, I extracted her head carefully and slipped on her lead and walked her into the front room soothing her and trying to think what was wrong what had changed, to make her so sacred.  Then I walked back into the room where Pops sleeps to see what could have caused her distressed and then realized it was probably the new night light I had bought for her when her old one broke. Pops is also frightened of the dark and gets very distressed if she is left without a light.  (She has so many fears caused by her first year of life before she came to me. But she is never aggressive.) I realized the new light light had an led bulb.  I then remembered Pops  had been spooked  by my Led torch  when we have been out walking.  I  unplugged it, turned on the main light and Pops settled down quietly to sleep. Wearily I trudge back up stairs, said goodnight to cats who were sitting on the landing watching Pops. 

We had a calm few days Pops loved the hot weather and was outside from the moment she woke up until bedtime.  She alternated between shady places and her sunny chair.  Suddenly she decided to dig a new shady dell in the middle of  my herb bed,  All I can say is that the English lavender bush nurtured from a cutting to a two foot high bush was shredded to pieces and my sweet cicely plant was left dangling over a precipice only supported by Pops bottom as she lay comfortably in her new hollow.  

Pops chases flies and bees, usually unsuccessfully but last week she caught one - a bumble bee she shut her mouth and angry buzzing was heard from inside her head, she opened her mouth and out flew the bumble bee angry but unharmed.  Bumble bees rarely sting as if they do the die almost immediately. I was so cross with her, but the look of bemused bewilderment and the shaking of her head and drooling tongue betrayed how frightened she was by the experience.  Oh sigh Pops my little dog with little brain!

Then there was the  night of the thunderstorm at the first rumble Pops was ripping open the door and running round looking for a way out of the house. Chunks of doors littered the floor before I could get down stairs.  I caught her and held her face and made her look at me and pay attention.  Her fear and distress was obvious,  I put her on her lead and took her upstairs, the cats fled into the linen cupboard, not because of the storm but the sight of the drooling trembling wreck that was Poppy dog.  Pops struggled onto our bed and wandered in circles then jumped off and sat at the top of the stairs for a few hours before creeping downstairs to her bed.  She did not get up until late the next morning. 

I wouldn't be without Pops but I do wish the wizard who fixed the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz could give her some courage and help her to stop being terrified by so many things.

Well here is the tale of two weeks of the mishaps in the life of Pops my beautiful, cowardly dog. Does Anyone know where the Wizard lives?


 With Reiki blessing to you and all those afraid

MerryB

 P.S Pops dog has just eaten  my herb plants  bergamot and sweet cicely leaving only a stump
Oh sigh!

 PP.S Pops grab the post just as the Postwoman was putting it in to the letter box  I had to apologies for her.  Pops just wagged her tail and twirled and twirled trying to catch her tail..