Rose Cottage

 Several years ago, my friend Nikki invited me over for a  tea party , both teaching me how to process the leaves, and sharing cups of her beautiful tea and simple snacks.  After tea, went out to pick another flush from her 9 shrubs, and she sent me home with a basket of fresh leaves, which I augmented with leaves from my own tea camellia, making a batch at home the following day.  Camellia sinensis Sochi Nikki and I both grow the variety from Sochi Russia, which is on the Black Sea, and the "most Northern tea," which is very aromatic and frost Hardy. Sochi is especially suited to  our PNW zone 8b gardens.   While the flowers are small (about the size of a strawberry flower!) Sochi's leaves are about the size of those on our common ornamental Camellias.  The flowers can also be used for a light and fragrant tea, which i first tasted at the Dao of Tea in Portland.  Tea camellia in center of the Tea Garden High in antioxidants, especially catec...

 Our Edible landscape festival mid May was a lovely, well attended event, and we gave away most of the 3000+ starts we brought! It was Hot - I was so glad we had an event tent Edible Landscaping booth   A few weeks before, we weeded our beds along Alpine, and covered each with compost from EL founder, Ramsey McPhillips. He also had a booth at the festival, and was giving out coffee sacks with some of his black gold - I was tickled to take one home for my own poteger.  Garden gold - compost We volunteers took home our own curated caches of starts, and I planted some of mine in a galvanized trough I'd picked up from the feed store. I also got a Rosemary and several raspberry starts, which were donated by a local nursery.  We intend to set up a new raspberry patch in the back garden, so this gives us a start.  Salad garden and herbs in pots This week I headed back to the Tea Garden I'm tending on Alpine with a couple of watering cans - and it's growing beautifully...

 And - the new induction cooktop is set into the countertop and hooked up, cabinet and drawerpulls are on! Thank you, builder Jorge and our electrician, Duane - it's looking much more complete!   Kitchen corner I love the clean lines and ease of function.  Drawers are on order for the space to the left of the sink, and I can restock the art cart! Using the induction hob is a learning curve - one of my first efforts was Rhubarb sauce with one stem of rhubarb, a handful of dried apples, some frozen blueberries,  a teaspoon of honey, some cinnamon, mint and a dash of sea salt!  Rhubarb sauce Enjoyed it with coconut milk yogurt on the back porch! This quick and easy recipe came from a gal cooking in the shed on her allotment. With the induction cooker, it's good to prep ingredients before turning the element on! (I did step outside for the mint sprig)  Both the wok and my cast iron frying pans have very soothe surfaces, and I just got some burner mats (saf...