York and Herbs

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We’ve been quite busy of late; the weekend before last we were up in north Yorkshire for my cousin’s wedding. Despite the floods (see below), we struck lucky with the weather and spent some time looking around York.

Cars in River Ouse

They like their gardens in that part of the world. As we were bussed from the church to the reception at Hazlewood Castle we had a good nose from the top deck and there were several candidates for a double page spread in Country Life. As for York itself, there were some beautiful city gardens near York Minster, formal parterres and knotted gardens.  Given my latest obsession with herbs I was particularly taken with the mini physic garden planted around the base of a tree in the cathedral’s grounds.

 

 

I have been researching the different uses of herbs after a comment by Jon’s mum. We asked if she’d like a bottle of fennel oil and she said she wouldn’t really know what to do with it. Given that we’ve decided to plant more herbs and fewer vegetables next year I thought it was worth chasing up. Of course, the easy thing to do would have been to buy a book but I thought that, since there is so much information out there available in books we already own and the Internet, I may as well write my own. At least that way I will have read it all – how many people actually sit down and read a gardening book from cover to cover? – and it will contain the stuff I’m actually interested in. It’s been quite an education so far. Did you know that the Chinese thought that coriander conferred immortality? That the astringent property of sage is good for colds? That E. coli and botulism can breed in infused oils?

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