The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh

Banana flower

 This is pretty late, but for my birthday in February we visited The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.  Though it was generally soggy and not greatly flourishing outdoors, they have 10 glasshouses with individually controlled temperature environments, so they can grow a broad variety of plants at any time of the year.  These are a select few of the 1000s of photos I took on the trip!

The gorgeous glasshouse in the winter sun (and captured hubby standing admiring it too!)

Inside the glasshouse there were all sorts of different areas.  I have to say I loved the tropical ones the most for their range of colours!

Those green bits = bananas!

Cocoa pods

A maturing pineapple

Sorry - camera a little steamed up!

There were so many gorgeous flowers!

No idea what this is, but it looks very alien!!

There was even a range of fascinating and unusual leaves

Odd leaves didn't look like a real plant at first, but they are!

In the cactus and succulents glasshouse

There was even a Robin in there!

 Outside crocuses were one of the few plants growing happily outdoors on February 26th, literally coating the ground!

Crocuses

So much detail in tiny crocuses

 The rhododendrons were also out in a range of buds and full flowers.  

Rhododendron 

You're allowed to take photos as long as you don't sell them (I think you can sell them but you need permission).  I'll certainly be getting some of these beautiful plants made up as prints for my own wall though!!

If you're ever in Edinburgh, drop by the Gardens - outside is free entry, and the Glasshouse is a bargain £5 per person to the whole thing.  As you can see, even during Winter there's plenty to see, so its worth going at any time of the year.  There's also student gardens and vegetable patches to visit, though these were pretty quiet in February.

Lettuce and Smoothies

This box contains Lamb's Lettuce "Jade", Amish Deer Tongue, Lobjoits Green lettuce and Red Pak Choi

I've only sewn my lettuces indoors this year so that I can actually get some (the greedy slugs never share).  I have two window boxes along the studio windowsill, so if I want a little break from work I can go and check on these without getting too distracted.

This box contains a Spicy Greens Mix, a Salad Leaf Mix, Sarah Raven's Best Winter Lettuces Mix (Can Can, Green Salad Bowl and Merveille de Quatre Saisons) and Paris Market Atlas Carrots 

Both boxes have a nice quantity of leaves on them now.  I intended for them to be cut and come again boxes rather than grow larger "adult" lettuces.  As you can see in the one above, I also sowed a generous amount of mini globe carrots, which add an adorable look to the box.  I may need to thin them out soon, and I might just eat the thinnings as part of a salad.

I may take a few lettuces and plant them out to mature later also, at least one or two of each type hopefully.

My first harvest of just one type of lettuce (Though I did munch some leaves of the other types while I was at it....)

I was a good amount but not enough for a full salad, so I decided to add it one of my smoothies.

First I made a smoothie with 250ml of fresh orange juice, about 30ml of tea (1 teabag green tea with mango & lychee plus a ginger tea bag soaked for a good 30+ minutes and allowed to cool), loads of spinach, a banana, a generous helping of frozen peas and frozen blueberries.

Sometimes I add ice, but I've found lately the frozen peas add the same effect and equally make the smoothie more silky textured.  I always top my smoothies with a tablespoon of linseeds, ground ginger and ground cinnamon.

Blended in my smoothie maker and poured into a tall glass.  This thick "shake" was delicious and filled with veggies and fruit.

I made another smoothie batch to bottle and keep in the fridge, using the remaining ginger/green tea mix (about 300ml), all my fresh lettuce, spinach, peas, blueberries, cranberries and blackberries.

Most of the fruits I bought fresh and froze immediately once home, because I can use a better amount that way, and I find blueberries especially begin to grow mould really quickly if you buy them from the supermarket.  I also added some Chia seeds to my normal topping mix, and they are better for smoothies which you leave in the fridge rather than drink right away, because they swell and become more substantial.

So it was a good use of my lettuce, as this lot stretched two bottles alone!  The other one I got a bottle out of as well as my freshly poured glass.  Now all I need is for it to stay sunny and next time I might get to drink it outside!  

An escape

For me, gardening is an escape, much like cooking is too.  I've fought so hard in my life to achieve perfection in all that I do, constantly being graded and judged, always having the expectation from myself and others to do well and come out "better" than everyone else.  I'm so sick and tired of this mentality.  Yes, I'm sure it can bring benefits later in life, I'll always have my 1st class honours, I'll always have my straight A grades, I'll always have good recommendations from work collegues and managers to pass onto the next.  But right now I'm not feeling the benefits of any of these "achievements".

Gardening is an escape for me.  Though some traditionalists will have you believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to grow certain fruit or veg, the truth is there isn't.  There are so many possibilities to what you can do and how you can grow things.  Plants really are one of natures most adaptable organisms and in many cases will survive to fruit and re-seed with no human intervention at all.  There are a great many things we can do to encourage certain habits, like growing taller and stronger before fruiting, or becoming more bush like, increasing yield or increasing visual appeal.  Yet there is no "right" way to do it.  A lot of the time in plants you can fail, and its okay, because you often planted a bunch more and it isn't a great loss, or you can try again next year.  The pressure to perform perfectly is gone, unless you're in the prettiest carrot competition, and it leaves space only for enjoyment and personal learning and (excuse the pun) growth.  

When I first started growing things it was in August, when most will have you believe the growing season is over.   I started some pots off on the windowsill at my parents house, before moving into a flat and having nothing but windowsills.  I went onto to find out more about growing the plants I had already started and found my way onto the most AWFUL forum I have ever encountered.  It had about 10 regular members who were obviously not open to newcomers in their little community and criticized everything I did.  I had a purely container garden due to the nature of living in 2nd floor flat with only windowsills and no outside space to use.  Everyone told me it "couldn't be done", that I would "never" manage to grow anything in a container, especially on a windowsill and certainly nothing would produce so I might as well give up now.

Despite their blind criticism, I managed to cultivate tomato plants which almost reached the roof, though yes the crop was small, but they grew from August through winter and produced in the spring.  Not only this but I overwintered chillis and peppers and had them produce pretty well also.  I managed one courgette, but I still got something!  I had a gooseberry bush that almost took over the bedroom and I eventually had to get rid of it when I moved out two years later.  Plenty of lettuce and spinach was available on a regular basis and I even managed a few tiny carrots, onions, leeks and garlic.  Bearing in mind this all took place in SCOTLAND.  Of course if conditions such as a greenhouse or a garden had been available my crop sizes would have been bigger, but then so would my pest problems, of which I encountered none by growing indoors.  But the point is it wasn't impossible at all, despite what an entire forum of "experts", who'd clearly never seen a plant pot in their life, had said.

I love the thrill of planting a new seed and seeing it become something, especially if you've never grown it before, and it can be fascinating to watch grow up.  I love that plants always surprise you, and against all odds in many cases.  I love that there is not right and wrong, only methods, some which work better than others depending on your own conditions.  For example the typical growing season is plant around March/April and harvest around July/August.  For me, because of the snow reaching up until MAY this year, followed by a suddenly scorching hot summer, everything has been thrown off a little.  Things I planted in March took so long to get going because of the cold temperatures that they're only producing now in OCTOBER.  Though it has certainly become colder now, we still have a lot of sun, and when the sun is out its almost like summer.  It's very windy and rainy, but but there is a distinct lack of crunchy leaves to be seen anywhere in the local area.  I'm pretty confident that despite today's 5 minute hail storm, the warm sun that followed will keep my produce going until next month at least.  I expect next year to be much the same as this year, so again might leave the seeds starting until a little later, unless they're all done inside.

I hope other people get the same feeling of freedom from gardening, because there really is nothing else quite like it.