Candied/Sugared Violets

Who can resist a sweet treat? this little Victorian number conjures up afternoons of cucumber sandwiches and scones with cream.  Sugared Violets are a labour intensive flower decoration.

If you are lucky enough, like me, to have swathes of violets rampaging through your garden, then this is a winter activity for anyone with Martha Stewart or OCD tendencies.

- Pick your violets, leaving them on a long stem.
- Wash if necessary (I skipped this step) and leave to dry thoroughly
- Whip the white of one egg to stiff peaks
- Using a child's paintbrush (never used in paint) brush the egg white onto all parts of the flower, front and back
- Dust with castor sugar, leave no area undusted.  Paint extra egg white if necessary.
- leave to dry for 24 hrs
- pack into an airtight container, should last for a month

Imagine cupcakes with these little beauties on top.  Or a vanilla cake with cream cheese icing, mmmm

There is a trick to painting the flowers, check that out here: https://www.facebook.com/amazing.rosebud

Preparing for cold weather

I have had a few afternoons getting the garden organised for cold weather.  Unfortunately I left it too late for the poor cauliflowers.  I had to throw half of them over the fence to the pet sheep because they are damaged by the frost.  This makes them go icky and brown on top.

The other half will be OK because I have tied the larger outer leaves over them, protecting them from further frosting, or indeed SNOW (predicted for the next few days).

The Raspberries got a decent thin-out and prune.  The trick with them is to take out all the dead wood, (those canes that fruited last year) and to trim down the new canes which grew over the season and will produce fruit last year.  Our freezer still has kilos of fruit to be used up.  We get more raspberries than we know what to do with.  Raspberry is a common flavour here for cheesecakes, milkshakes, and berry smoothies.  The pruning took about 4hrs.  You can see in this photo how many canes I have removed, and that is just one third of the work done.  In the picture the canes on the right of the wee boardwalk have been thinned and trimmed, the ones on the left in the picture are still everywhere.

I set to the Blackcurrants also, thinning out, and making a nice fan shape so that the sunshine can get in for ripening, and hands can get in for picking.

Sooner or later I will have to tackle the Strawberries, which need all their dead growth picked or cut off.  Oh, well, another time soon...when the snow has gone away!