A dinner of herbs....

Apparently artichokes don't grow in jars...

Some time ago I discovered that having to go out and buy fresh herbs every time I needed them for a recipe was doing one of two things; either (1) dissuading me from trying any recipe that required fresh herbs, or (2) costing me a fortune... So for Mother's Day last year, I requested some plants of my own. Having heard somewhere along the way that the Supermarket 'growing' herbs are not the hardiest I went to our local Farmers Market and purchased a thyme, parsley, chives, rosemary, mint & something else which, since Saturday, I'm now pretty sure is Oregano...

The most surprising part of this story is that these plants are still pretty much alive, well apart from the parsley which I've discovered does not fare well if brought into contact with straying donkeys (don't ask). Anyhow, buoyed up by this success I've decided that in the Spring I'm going to attempt to 'branch' out and start a small Kitchen Garden. I love having my little stash of herbs, they are ridiculously handy and its a rare day that I'm not popping out to the big stone pots at the kitchen patio doors for a snipping of chives or a sprig of mint (minted peas are my new addiction - divine...)

Anyhow, only last week I spotted that the lovely Caitriona of Wholesomeireland.com was organising a tour of  The Herb Garden and Argilllan House's Kitchen Gardens on Saturday and in a moment of spontaneity (what is happening to me since the birth of this blog!!) I put my name down. It was to involve a food blogger's picnic too so I decided to make a quiche and fish one of my banana breads out of the freezer...
So armed with my picnic I set off to the Naul on Saturday morning. It transpired that probably due to Friday's inclement weather a few bloggers decided against making the trip so the tour was re-designed slightly on Saturday morning.

Did I mind? Not a bit, a morning out with like minded folk and no children... what's not to like...

Any day out that starts with
coffee and cake al fresco is
fine by me!

The Herb Garden is a little oasis set deep in the North County Dublin countryside... Denise first of all offered us coffee, which we enjoyed sitting al fresco in her beautiful garden (the banana bread made an appearance and to date I've not heard of any resulting cases of food poisoning) whilst listening to her fascinating stories of where her love for all things homegrown came from. In fact the whole tour was peppered with interesting anecdotes and I would definitely recommend that anyone interested in the subject make her acquaintance.
Then our tour commenced. Denise prides herself on her garden being 100% organic so the garden pretty much does what it wants, unfettered by chemical weedkillers... I did think guiltily of how much Round Up it takes to keep our gravel yard weed free and will take this into account when figuring out our plan for next year but its hard to see a way around it...

Such a beautiful setting...

I won't go into detail of the many, many plants that Denise spoke to us about, suffice to say I now know a lot of more than I did before the tour, and also that there's even more information available on Denise's website. I strongly recommend you pay it a visit if you are thinking of, or already in the process of, growing your own...

We didn't make it to Ardgillan House, the glorious weather we'd enjoyed in the morning literally disappeared in a flurry of raindrops just as the tour finished. However, Denise did furnish us with a delicious slice of Spanish tortilla kindly cooked by the lovely Sofia which I devoured on my journey home, my head spinning with all my new plans.

All in all, a truly delightful morning. I even got a present of a Basil plant which, with all my new found knowledge, I am determined to keep alive until Christmas... Though my husband did find it odd that I was putting him outside in the sun for a few hours on Sunday morning, I think he thinks having to bring in and out the rabbit bad enough... Oh well, the fact that he's getting a rotovator for Christmas will soon distract him...