How wonderful it was to have spent a couple of hours in the garden this afternoon after completing some of the chores that have waited for me all week. After doing some washing up, a few loads of laundry, cleaning the kitchen and dining room and hoovering a couple of rooms it was time for lunch and a coffee in the garden.
The few little sage plants I put in last summer have grown massively this spring. Their aroma is pungent and exhilarating (yes I love sage!) and they have grown so much that it was already time to harvest some of the stalks that were tumbling over the pathway.
I will use some fresh sage this weekend in a recipe or two but then will dry the rest and add to jars, I don’t think I will need to buy more sage for years especially as I bought 4 more tiny sage plants this spring, two of which are purple sage and variegated. I just can’t get enough!
Another delightful thing I noticed this afternoon was that the bees are visiting the cotoneaster in abundance. Red-tailed bumble bees, white-tailed bumble bees, and common carder bees are just some of the bees I have been able to identify.
I’ll leave you with a quick little video of a beautiful bumble bee on the cotoneaster.
Have a wonderful day,
C xxxxxxx
Let the sage flower and you’ll have even more happy bees! Wonderful stuff, so long as you cut it back after flowering to stop it getting woody…
from dim and distant memory there are cheeses made by layering sage and curds – I wonder how a sandwich would be with a good layer of fresh sage leaves between layers of grated cheddar? I do that with handfuls of fresh mint and it’s delicious but haven’t ever tried it with sage…
Oh how wonderful! I shall look forward to even more bees! I think also that sage is going to be in everything I bake over the next few months! C xxx
A friend of mine pushed a blackened twig from a supermarket pre pack into the ground several years ago, it’s now huge! The biggest sage bush I have ever seen, healthy and thriving. I am not a sage lover, actually not a herb lover in general, though I grow a few.
Oh wow, I didn’t know you could do that, maybe I will never need to buy a sage plant again!!! xxx
Oh, you absolutely never need to buy another sage plant – you can take cuttings of your existing one when you cut it back after flowering. You’ll easily find advice on cuttings if you google but the simplest way is ‘layering’ which would have been done in the 1940s (and long, long before!) – some plants inc sage, will root where they find soil, so you bend a living branch down, use a bit of wire or even a flat stick with a small stone to keep each end down, anything to keep the sage stem in contact with the ground. Pile some loose earth over the contact-point and keep it watered in dry weather. By the autumn, the stem will have roots and either in autumn or next spring you simply cut its connection to the parent plant and either leave it where it is to grow as a patch of sage, or dig it up to move it.
Obviously, it’s a clone, so if you have gardening friends, it’s useful to swap with each other so you keep a bit of genetic diversity in your garden… that way, if a blight comes along that your sage is vulnerable to, some of the plants may do better and survive, always handy 🙂
You can layer mint and lavender as well, and clematis and honeysuckle, quite a few plants can be propagated by layering! 🙂 I like it as it’s the lazy way of doing it…
Wow this is such useful information and advice, thank you so much!!!! Would you mind if I include what you have shared in the Pandemic Pantry cookbook? I’m thinking to start including some hints and tips like this that are good knowledge and skills that can save people money? Thanks so much xxx
Gosh, if you want to! Probably best to put in a really good reputable info-source like the RHS page, though https://www.rhs.org.uk/propagation/propagating-herbs
Thank you, I will do 🙂
That little bee hit the jackpot! Do the birds eat the berries later and get a little drunk? Love the video Ann lee s
The birds do eat the berries but I’m not sure about getting drunk, I’ll HAVE to keep an eye out!!! 🙂 Hahaha
Hī Carolyn, This post and the two videos just make my day!! You are sure helping the environment by attracting bumblebees!! I love sage, too, it smells SO good!! And it is fabulous for cooking. Thank you for the Pandemic Pantry Cookbook. I love seeing recipes from different places, and I especially appreciate that weʻre all trying to feed our families as healthily and inexpensively as possible. Youʻve done a lovely public service. Love and a hug to you, Maggie Orr
Awww thank you and I am loving all the hundreds of bees I am getting in my garden at the moment, beautiful creatures xxxx C