Jul
27
Summer arrived!
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Finally a hot weekend with lots of icecream, a barbeque and lots of sitting outside in the shade talking about everything and anything 
One challenge now is to keep track of the weeds in the garden that have been growing the last few rainy weeks.
The best way is to go and sit on your knees and get rid of anything you don’t like by hand. But being a bit older, my knees don’t consider this the best way at all!
Therefore I use a hoe. Not a normal hoe, because that strains my back too muck. It’s a very old fashion hoe that you push in front walking backwards.
What I like about it is that you can put your body weight on it when pushing the blade under the weeds. Not at all tiring and my morning occupation of today. Since now it’s midday already: time to relax in the shade
Jul
18
Brandied cherries recipe
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Use this fast and easy brandied cherries recipe if you have a huge load of cherries and want to conserve them as fast as possible. No need to take out the kernels when you preserve your cherries on alcohol.
Luckily my sister brought us the harvest of their cherry trees, so I had no reason to feel bored on this yet again another rainy summer day. And last year’s brandied cherries gave us the warm feeling the sun refuses to give us this summer.
Brandied sour cherries recipe
Ingredients
- 1 kg (2 pounds) sour cherries
- 300 gr (10 oz) fine sugar
- 1 l (2 pints) gin or "Holland Gin" (Dutch Gin - Jenever)
How to conserve your brandied sour cherries
Remove the stems and was the sour cherries. Put in an airtight goblet (we use the ones for sterilizing fruit): one layer of cherries, one layer of sugar, another layer of cherries…
Fill up your pot with alcohol until your pot is completely filled. Your cherry brandy will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks but we prefer to wait until a cold winter day to pop the cherries for the first time
If you want, you can add some cinnamon sticks, but we prefer our Brandied cherries recipe without.
Jul
14
Brugmansia plant
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Look how nice my Brugmansia plant is flowering already in its tiny pot! Maybe we don’t feel the summer too much, but the flowers can’t be fooled
Brugmansia is a plant I came to love only after re-seeding it time after time.
My first brugmansia’s hardly managed to survive, since brugmansia plant care is a busy job. My plants got eaten by snails attacked by white fly, spider mites and some invisible killers. Yet before the worst happened, I managed to get a few flowers and a few fruits. The latter means: lots of free brugmansia seeds!
The sprouts are plentiful and they surely look as if they are family of tomatoes.
But again: getting a seedling into a mature brugmansia plant is a daunting task until one day…
It seems I have now brugmansias that are fully adapted to my garden. I hardly look at them only to admire them when they are flowering
With all this in mind I must say that brugmansia propagation is quite easy when you have the patience to grow a few generations. It worked out fine with my brugmansia triple orange
If you don’t know which brugmansia to buy in order to have the least plant care to give: always ask your florist for brugmansia advice. He will be able to explain you everything you need to know about how to grow brugmansia.
Just keep in mind when they need to order brugmansias, it could take some time, as these plants seem to have some import restrictions due to being quite poisonous.
Just keep in mind these plants are from a warmer region, so make sure to put your brugmansia plant in pots and take them indoors in winter.
