Dandelion Doodles

Notes, photos and thoughts of Marie Millward of Dandelion Environment and Community.

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Add some merry gold to your salad with a marigold

Today’s suggestion for a nibble from the @bramleybaths garden is another floral treat, the petals of the pot marigold or Calendula. 

This flower comes in shades from pale yellow through egg yolk shades to bright and burnt orange and the flat faced flowers are shaped like a daisy. In Bramley Baths garden they grow in the flowers beds and you are most likely to find them in the sunny beds next to the building.

One flowerhead is enough to add a zing to your salad - pull off the petals and scatter them over.

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Chive flowers - a great way to add a onion pop to your lunchtime sandwich.

Today’s Bramley Baths garden contribution to my lunch is chive flowers. They are easy to pick and pop into your pocket to liven up your next meal and come in the form of a purple pom-pom!

Chives grow in the sunny herb bed next to the path in the centre of the garden at Bramley Baths. They have been blooming away for weeks and the flowers are starting to fade slightly, so get your chive flowers pronto!

To harvest the chives pick the flower either on the stem or gently pop off the flower in the top. Simply crumble the flower pop-pom over the top of your food and the flowers will fall like delicious confetti onto your salad, sandwich, baked potato, soup - anything that would welcome the addition of a mild oniony flavour. 

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More fennel - this time growing in the wild at Aldeburgh in Suffolk, August 2014.

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Tea made with fennel from Bramley Baths Garden

Today on my way home from a Sunday swim at Bramley Baths, I bumped into my friend Fran, who was watering the garden next to the baths building. The garden is planted and maintained by local volunteers with fruit, vegetables and flowers grown for anyone passing to pick and take home. It is a public garden available for anyone to use during the opening hours of the Baths - to sit, to play, to picnic or to nibble. I worked with the group to design the garden and as I live up the road, I also occasionally help out, donate plants and regularly pick things from the garden for may family to enjoy.

The garden is thriving thanks to the volunteers but as Fran and I chatted, it became apparent that not everyone felt comfortable as comfortable as me helping themselves to the produce grown there - perhaps they were unsure about what to pick, when to pick and what to do with it.

As a regular “picker” I thought a useful way for me to payback something to the garden would be to share some photos, ideas and and information about what and how to pick the produce, where you can find it in the garden.

This first idea is super simple - just add water!

Fennel Tea

Fennel tea can be made by pouring boiling water onto fresh fennel leaves in a teapot or jug. Leave if for five minutes and then pour and enjoy. You can add some sugar or honey if you like sweet tea, but I like it without.

The amount shown in the photo was enough for the small teapot, which was two cupfuls.

Fennel tea is meant to be good for settling your tummy or to help digestion, but it is pleasant to drink for no other reason than it tastes refreshingly of aniseed.

Where to find Fennel...

In Bramley Baths garden the area next to the central door to the building is a herb patch and fennel grows next to the wall there. It is the tallest plant in this area with fine, feathery, pale green leaves. Nip off the leaves - they snap off easily with your fingers.

If you don’t use it straight away, you can pop them in the fridge between some damp kitchen paper.

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Today I had a fantastic, inspiring day with a group of really brilliant people who are all working in cities across the North of England.  

Isabelle Tracy from Hull, who is a whirlwind on the cultural scene on Humberside developing and delivering a large, long term Arts Council funded project to find ways of involving as many people as possible in the arts. 

Jessie Jacobs an award winning social entrepreneur and political & community activist from Stockton-on-Tees. 

Ronnie Hughes - blogger, housing expert, mentor and coach from Liverpool. 

Leeds folk were myself and Emma Bearman (Playful Anywhere, Cultivate, Culture Vulture) and Phil Kirby (Culture Vulture, founder of the Kirby scale of bench comfort and Temple Works guide par excellence).

We had a great chat over a delicious lunch at Bundobust covering themes such as the merits or not of always gaining permission before acting vs getting things done, local politics, the details that we notice and their importance to place-memory-story, how to get things moving, how to collect good and useful information and how to keep your head in tough situations. Following lunch, we walked to Holbeck and Phil gave us a tour of Temple Works (more later on this).

Ronnie had kindly showed Emma, Phil and I around part of Liverpool last month and the visit made a big impact on my understanding of how powerful local people can be against strong odds and the importance of the long game in community work. Ronnie blogged about our visit here https://asenseofplaceblog.wordpress.com/2015/02/10/walking-with-jayne/

Thanks everyone for making today special with your generosity of spirit, wisdom and great company.

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To protect the edge of the site next to the canal and form a screen, a willow “fedge” has been planted. This will grow very quickly and form some great waterside habitat.

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The hazel in this block has been coppiced and the timber sorted into different sizes. The larger wood will be used to make furniture by Rupert, the hedgelayer. I grabbed some poles and sticks to support plants in my garden. The rest of the wood will be used for a range of activities in Little Deer Wood.

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Hywell and Nora from Blackbark http://www.blackbark.co.uk/ coppicing a block of mainly ash trees in Little Deer Wood. All of the trees in the wood are the same age, having been planted around 15-20 years ago. Note the lack of ground flora and an under-storey.