Here is my pumpkin fritter recipe. These fritters are easy to make and they really are delicious – especially when you have grown the pumpkins in your own garden!
The fritters always turn out puffy and golden brown.
My EasyPumpkin Fritters
2 cups boiled and mashed pumpkin (500gm)
½ cup flour (125gm)
2 level teaspoons baking powder,
Pinch of salt
1 beaten egg
A little milk if the consistency is too tight.
Mix well and drop with a tablespoon into hot oil. Lightly brown both sides.
Drain on absorbent paper and serve hot with cinnamon and sugar. Read more →
Pumpkins are surprisingly easy to grow. I proved it and I’ll tell you how it all happened.
I kept a few pumpkin seeds from a really good pumpkin we had bought at the supermarket. I knew that pumpkin vines needed a lot of space. So I planted just 6 seeds at the bottom of my garden.
Our garden slopes towards the bottom boundary so they were well out of sight and I forgot about them until a few weeks later when I saw some big healthy pumpkin leaves.
It didn’t take long before yellow pumpkin flowers started to develop and soon one plant in particular began to trail down the slope bearing lots of little white pumpkins. Read more →
I have just received a question asking me; “When is the best time to pick roses?” The answer is quite simple. The best time to pick roses is when the roses are at their best.
The worst time to pick roses
Roses, like people go through periods of relaxation and times of stress. Their worst stress is when the sun is beating down on them and they are thirsting for water.
And because they are feeling stressed and miserable they may even be drooping their heads. This is to avoid the direct rays of the sun. Read more →
Deadheading roses is one of the easiest forms of rose care but gardeners often neglect to do this. It’s easy to forget to deadhead your roses particularly when the season advances and the roses have been blooming for quite a long time.
As the weather becomes hotter, deadheading seems to be forgotten. This is a pity because there are several reasons why we should deadhead our roses regularly.
What is deadheading?
Deadheading is what it’s name implies. It simply means removing the dead rose head from the bush. Some people just pull the spent rose off the bush but this isn’t the best way as it leaves a naked stalk on the plant which tends to die back.
An easy way to deadhead roses
I have found an easy and effective way to deadhead my roses. But I only do this when the roses have been newly watered and the sap has risen well up into the stems.
To deadhead I hold the base of the stalk between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand and then with a quick one-two back and forth movement with my right hand I snap off the rose head neatly together with the short stalk that holds it up. In this way all the leaves are preserved and the rose will soon flower again.
Why should we deadhead roses?
Firstly, the rose bushes look much neater when we remove the spent roses from the bush. A rose bush looks tatty when there are fading roses among the buds and full blown flowers.
Secondly the rose needs every bit of energy, food and water for its growth and future flowering ability. A great deal of energy goes into the making of rose hips. If you allow the spent heads to remain on the bush all the energy is diverted from the growth of your rose bush towards the development of seeds.
If you remove spent roses from the bush, the rose is encouraged to flower more frequently by replacing the flowers that you have removed.
If you need some ideas to help you plan your rose garden here are some tips that should be quite helpful.
Before you go out to buy your new roses it’s important to decide where you want to put them first. If you only have a small space reserved for roses consider how many rose bushes you can plant within that space. This may seem elementary but believe me when you get to the nursery you’ll be tempted to buy more than you can use. It’s happened to me many a time.
It’s also important to think about the colours that you want to have in your garden. I’m always amazed by gardeners who will plant a row of white icebergs against a white wall. You’ll be surprised how often something like this happens.
It’s a good idea to plant a standard rose or any tall growing rose in the center of a bed and then to surround it with a mass of low growing floribundas in a different colour beneath it. For example I planted five Amarula Profusions under a white iceberg and I’m waiting to see what that will look like in a few weeks. It should be stunning.
Sometimes individual roses can get lost or overlooked. So try to plant a few roses of the same variety next to each other. This is always effective as it gives a good, solid splash of color to the garden.
A very important point to consider is the eventual height that the rose bush will reach. You don’t want to mix low growing roses with tall varieties indiscriminately. Small bushes can get lost and overshadowed by stronger growing varieties.
Remember to plant your tall growing roses at the back of the bed and place the shorter bushes towards the front of the bed.
Underplant your roses with a carpet of white alyssum or candytuft for a stunning effect. If you prefer a cloud of blue, you could use blue lobelia for a striking contrast. These annuals have shallow rooting systems and they won’t disturb your roses.
Also consider planting some specially fragrant roses near the pathway so that you can enjoy the perfume while you admire your roses
With these few tips in mind you will be ready to tackle that nursery. Good luck. If you have any other good tips to plan a rose garden feel free to share them in the comments below.
Choosing the best roses for your garden is easier said than done because there are so many beautiful roses to choose from at a nursery.
Whenever I visit a nursery, I tend to go home with roses that I didn’t have the faintest intention of buying. And it happens every time.
My problem has always been deciding which roses not to choose because I love them all. Roses of every size, shape and colour.
Trying to select roses from a rose catalogue doesn’t help much either because all the pictures are so tempting.
So I find it helpful to draw up a list of qualities that I want from my new roses before I hit the rose nurseries. But before doing this I run through a few questions like the following:
Am I going to go for perfume this time?
Do I want a particular colour?
Do I need a new climber for the pergola?
Do I want a few rambling roses for the bank?
Do I want a rose for a container?
Do I want a prolific and very free flowering low-growing floribunda?
Once I have decided what I need a particular rose for, I have a much clearer idea of what to buy.
For example if I want a bi-coloured rose with perfume I would choose Double Delight.
If I wanted a tall growing red rose to disguise a wall I would choose a row of Mr Lincoln.
I discovered my magnificent Kordes Brilliant climber by combining one or two requirements in this way. I have never seen a brilliant scarlet like this in any rose. I chose it both for its vibrant colour, its health and its ability to climb and cover an archway.
If you combine one or two requirements such as colour and purpose beforehand, it helps you to narrow down the choice. And that is a great help when choosing new roses.
There are so many little things in Nature that can inspire us and make us happy. One would think that all we need to do is to become aware of them.
But it isn’t so easy because we are mostly programmed into thinking that only the big prizes are worth writing home about. Like buying a new house, getting a new car, going on a long-awaited trip or buying a computer, an ipod or an iphone.
Sure these things can make us happy while they’re new and before they lose their novelty.
But what a lot we miss by failing to appreciate the little things in nature. Our gardens alone can provide us with more inspiration than we will ever need – if only we allow ourselves to be more observant and aware.
Just looking out of the window this morning I saw a pair of black collared barbets starting to build their nest in an overhanging branch nearby.
With their lovely red breasts catching the early morning sunlight they were a joy to behold. They were so lively, energetic and totally absorbed in what they were doing that they were quite inspiring.
What an example of complete concentration! When we become alert to those seemingly insignificant things in nature that are all around us – we start to notice them more and more.
Nature Competition
I think that this type of awareness is so important that I want to start a competition about “Getting Inspiration from the little things in Nature”.
So in the comment box below, write and tell me of any little inspirational event in your everyday life and the effect it has had on your outlook.
I’ll choose the best one – or the one that resonates with me most – and as a prize I’ll give you a digital copy of my book “Flower Pressing Secrets” which you can see and read about here:
