Making herb beers

Cheers!

Recently while perusing the fascinating A Modern Herbal by M. Grieve, from 1931, I came across the following paragraph under 'Nettles':
'The Nettle Beer made by cottagers is often given to their old folk as a remedy for gouty and rheumatic pains, but apart from this purpose it forms a pleasant drink. It may be made as follows: Take 2 gallons of cold water and a good pailful of washed young Nettle tops, add 3 or 4 large handfuls of Dandelion, the same of Clivers (Goosegrass) and 2oz. of bruised whole ginger. Boil gently for 40 minutes, then strain and stir in 2 teacupsful of brown sugar. When lukewarm place on the top a slice of toasted bread, spread with 1oz. of compressed yeast, stirred until liquid with a teaspoon of sugar. Keep it fairly warm for 6 or 7 hours, then remove the scum and stir in a tablespoonful of cream of tartar.  Bottle and tie the corks securely. The result is a specially wholesome sort of ginger beer. The juice of 2 lemons may be substituted for the Dandelion and Clivers. Other herbs are often added to Nettles in the making of Herb Beer, such as Burdock, Meadowsweet, Avens Horehound, the combination making a refreshing summer drink.'

Lemon balm

I immediately set to experimenting with that and the result is indeed a very refreshing lightly alcoholic drink. Initially I steamed the herbs, then tried boiling them for 20 minutes but now I infuse them for 24 hours, the same as for elderflower cordial. The results are all very similar. Since the infusion method is easiest and uses least energy, I will stick to using that.

Since we aim to use only local ingredients, I replaced the ginger with lemon balm, which we have aplenty and which gives a nice citrus tang.

Here are a couple of nice & easy recipes to try. No doubt, more variations will follow as more herbs and fruit become available throughout the year.

Spring weed beer

Bottling time

Makes 5 litres

Ingredients
A pillowcase full of nettle tops, dandelion flowers, cleavers (sticky willy) and lemon balm
A handful of wild hops (optional)
500g sugar
1 tsp brewing yeast
1/4 cup sugar for bottling

1. Pick your ingredients and put them in a large pot.
2. Cover with boiling water (2-3 litres) and leave to infuse for 24 hours. 
3. Strain and boil for 5 minutes.
4. Pour the liquid into a large fermenting bucket with lid, stir in 500g of sugar and top up to the 5-litre mark with cold water (and ice cubes to make it cool faster).
5. Leave to cool to 25C and add the yeast.
6. Ferment for a week.
7. Dissolve 1/4 sugar in 1 cup of warm water and pour into a sterilised demi-john or similar large container. 
8. Syphon the brew from the fermenting bucket into the demi-john, to get rid of the sediment and mix in the bottling sugar.
9. Bottle the beer immediately in sterilised bottles and leave to bottle condition for at least five days. 
10. Serve chilled. 

Elderflower beer

Elderflowers in our hedge

Makes 5 litres

Ingredients
30 elderflower heads
A few sprigs of lemon verbena
500g sugar
1 tsp brewing yeast
1/4 cup sugar for bottling

1. Pick your ingredients and put them in a large pot.
2. Cover with boiling water (2-3 litres) and leave to infuse for 24 hours. 
3. Strain and boil for 5 minutes.
4. Pour the liquid into a large fermenting bucket with lid, stir in 500g of sugar and top up to the 5-litre mark with cold water (and ice cubes to make it cool faster).
5. Leave to cool to 25C and add the yeast.
6. Ferment for a week.
7. Dissolve 1/4 sugar in 1 cup of warm water and pour into a sterilised demi-john. 
8. Syphon the brew from the fermenting bucket into the demi-john, to get rid of the sediment and mix in the bottling sugar.
9. Bottle the beer immediately in sterilised bottles and leave to bottle condition for at least five days. 
10. Serve chilled, on its own or with a measure of gin and some ice.

Setting up for self-sufficiency from scratch

Broadforking a large new vegetable bed

Chatting with a friend who's just about to start working a croft has focused my mind on how I would set up our veg garden from scratch if I had to start over again and what I'd consider essential in a veg garden. We've worked these things out over several years and have implemented the suggestions below, but we could set up even quicker, with what we know now.

First of all, I'd identify the sunniest, best drained land by walking the land at diffent times in different conditions, like after heavy rain (be aware that light levels might quite different in winter, but spring to autumn levels are really the most important since that's mainly when you're growing). If it's sheltered as well - super. Otherwise hedge planting has to be top priority - put in a temporary windbreak fabric fence until the hedge is established (about three years). If it's reasonably level ground - even better, but you can work with terracing. It should also have easy access to water for watering (not so crucial in Scotland, but elsewhere it could be). If it's downhill from the house you can easily collect rainwater from your roof to water your veg.

Vegetables and herbs

Last year's squash bed

Raised beds

Part of the large herb garden

This area will eventually be totally
given over to perennial veg

Then I'd make a plan for four large vegetable beds (about 4m x 20m, scaled appropriately if you have less space) for the large crops: potatoes; onions, garlic, leeks and carrots; brassica; and a three sisters bed - courgettes and winter squashes with beans and sweetcorn (if you're lucky enough to live somewhere warm enough where these will grow outdoors - for us it's just squash). This makes it very easy to keep track of crop rotation, which can be a challenge otherwise. To minimise work I'd put down black plastic for a minimum of six months where these beds are going to go. This kills all the grass and weeds underneath and makes preparing the ground a lot easier.

If you think your ground is suitable consider no dig, in which case you can use cardboard as your base layer and top it with compost and organic matter. This uses a lot of compost, however, so think about cost implications. I'd advise trying to dig in several spots first, to see just how stony the ground is and what drainage is like. Much of our ground was very stony and drainage needed to be improved so no dig will have to wait. On the other hand, if your ground is too stony to do anything with, possibly the best way is up: making huegelkultur beds on top. That is, if it's not too windy to go upwards! We ended up making an underground huegel in a particularly wet part of ground.

In addition to the four large beds, I'd have a dozen raised beds for lettuces, salad leaves, beetroot, chard and crops that do better in raised beds such as celeriac. These beds don't have to have permanent structures; they can just be created by mounding up the soil. In this area there also needs to be space for an easy to move pea fence or trellis.

Somewhere near the house, I'd set up a herb garden with lots of perennial herbs and some annuals. This would also incorporate edible flowers, wild flowers and medicinal herbs (often the same plants!).

Next on the agenda would be an area dedicated to perennial vegetables, with some luxury crops such as globe artichokes and asparagus, some great staples such as Daubenton's kale, Good King Henry and a few varieties of perennial onions and some of those tubers that keep on coming like Jerusalem artichokes and oca.

The last of the winter crops and
the first of the spring crops

Then on to a polytunnel for extending the season. In this case, it is critical what the winter light levels are like since you'll be overwintering a lot of crops in it. Choose a very sunny levelish site with easy access to water. Our polytunnel is 20ft by 8ft, which is a great size for the home grower who doesn't want to grow vast quantities for sale but rather wants to keep growing salads and greens throughout the winter and have a wider option of veg to grow in the summer. Of course, it would be no problem to fill a larger tunnel, but it would also mean a lot more watering! A lot of things are better grown outside, such as onions, for example. And you don't have to worry about pests such as aphids as much. A 'cloudy' polytunnel cover is better than a fully transparent one since it lets plenty of light through but doesn't scorch plants in the heat. A south-facing conservatory or potting shed is very useful for pre-growing seedlings in the spring.

Fruit and nuts

When it comes to soft fruit, I'd get all my cuttings from other gardeners if possible, since they are so easy to grow from cuttings, especially currants and gooseberries. The same goes for vigorous rhubarb - a split of a plant that does well in your area is the way to go - and strawberry runners (which will need to replaced every three years to maintain vigour, easily done by taking runners from your plants in the summer after the harvest is done).

The orchard four years on

We have a dedicated soft fruit area, which could be netted over in a fruit cage arrangement (this makes harvesting easier since you can walk in and stand up). However, this hasn't been necessary so far, but it is a consideration in areas with flocks of pigeons especially. I've also made little hedges of berry bushes for most of the large veg beds and along the side of the main vegetable garden. I'd go for a huge variety of fruit, with some more unusual berries such as Siberian honeyberry (blue honeysuckle), Saskatoon berry and Chilean guava thrown into the mix to extend the fruit season. I'd rather err on the side of too many plants; that way, the birds can have some and there should still be enough left for you.

When it comes to fruit trees, I'd again err on the side of too many. We've ended up with eleven apple trees, two pears, two plums, two mirabelles, two mulberries, three cherries and one quince. It's crucial to get the pollination groups right, especially if you're in a remote area with no other fruit trees around! The one thing I would change next time is to make sure to have a couple of apple trees with apples that store really well; usually these are the late-fruiting varieties. We only went by flavour in our selection so none of our apples store particularly well without processing them.

Edible hedging around the veg garden

Other than planting an orchard, I'd also recommend incorporating edible plants into your hedging schemes. For example: crab apples, wild pear, wild plum, rosa rugosa (for rose hips), elder (for berries and blossom), hazel nuts, hawthorn (for berries), blackthorn (for sloes), sea buckthorn (for berries - this is quite a vigorous plant though, which can be invasive in some areas), guelder rose (for bark, anti-cramp medicine), willow (for wands and bark - natural aspirin - and as one of the best wildlife plants in the UK), tilia/linden (for leaves and flowers) and beech (for young leaves).

If I lived in a climate where they'd crop, I'd also plant lots of nut trees such as walnut, cobnuts and sweet chestnut. Now this is a really long-term proposition! Sadly, although they grow well enough here they only rarely produce a usable crop, with the one exception of hazelnuts - but we've yet to harvest a single nut from our 10+-year-old trees. In the meantime, we're going have a go at growing tiger nuts instead.

Following a programme like this will give a high degree of food self-sufficiency in just a few years, without needing to sacrifice interest and variety in the diet.

Favourite self-seeders

Camomile, a prolific self-seeder

The next best thing after perennial plants, in our opinion, is self-seeding annuals. For busy gardeners it's effective, convenient, effortless and very economical to let herbs and flowers seed themselves - you can always move them later or remove them if they threaten to take over. And if you want to be 100% sure of preserving the plants, collect some of the seeds (many of them are good for culinary use anyway) and sow them in late May in the rare event that no new seedlings have popped up. Here are some of our favourite plants that can be left to do their own thing:

Camomile

We seem to get plants a lot earlier than if we sowed them ourselves. The self-sown camomile really gets going rather early in spring and it doesn't mind being transplanted.

Borage flower

Borage

A very vigorous self-seeder, borage is an all-round winner in the garden. Beloved by pollinators, with pretty, edible flowers, this nitrogen-fixer can be made into a fertiliser tea just like comfrey and, according to Bob Flowerdew, also makes an excellent green manure.

Dill

We let this go to seed anyway, to harvest dill seeds for use in pickles and bread, and it usually comes up the next year.

Parsley

Much easier to let it self-seed in its second year than to start the seeds indoors in early spring.

Wild rocket, a welcome 'weed'

Salad leaves

Wild rocket is our favourite weed in the veg patch! We always let rocket flower in early spring when there's not much else around for the pollinators and as a bonus comes the vigorous self-seeding that follows. Land cress is a tasty salad crop that self-seeds everywhere but its tendencies do have to be curbed a little.

Coriander

Coriander is probably the most annoying annual herb to grow. At least under our conditions, it goes to seed so quickly. No sooner are the first leaves out that you need to harvest and freeze away the excess before the plants go all feathery, then flower and go to seed. You might as well exploit that and let the plants seed more rather than having to sow a new batch every few weeks. We also collect some seeds for culinary use and these could be used to sow the following spring.

You only need to sow them once

Nasturtiums

Our favourite companion plant, nasturtiums are everywhere in the garden. We eat the young leaves and the flowers in salads and pickle the seeds for use on pizzas (and anywhere that capers would be used). Nasturtiums are also brilliant weed suppressing ground cover - we have them around the Jerusalem artichokes, under the bean poles, underneath hedges etc. and actively encourage them to spread into weedy areas across the fence.

Self-seeded calendula in the wildflower border

Calendula

Another great all-round companion plant, calendula pops up early in the year when left to its own devices. We mainly use it to make herbal oil, which is then a key ingredient in lip balm, ointments and lotions. And hopefully soon in our own soap! It's also nice as part of a herbal tea mixture.

Pretty purple poppy

Wildflowers

We have several kinds of poppies in the garden, including ones with edible seeds for baking. We always collect some seeds to spread them around further, but they do an admirable job of sowing themselves in their wildflower border where they are joined by campion, another lovely self-seeding wildflower.

Parsnips

Parsnip seed doesn't store long and is fickle to germinate. We leave a couple of plants in the soil over winter and let them go to seed in spring. We have been collecting the seed for planting the following spring, but the self-seeded plants have been so much earlier and more vigorous than our own efforts that we will simply let the parsnips seed themselves next year.

It's always a nice surprise to see the distinctive seedlings pop up in the spring. You can't mistake a little borage or nasturtium for anything else. Happy lazy gardening, everyone!

Perennial veg

Scottish globe artichokes

We like our garden to be easy maintenance where possible. One way of saving a bit of work is by growing perennial vegetables. Once established, they'll just keep coming back without you having to sow and nurture them. You might have to mulch/feed them, move them occasionally (alliums) or plant out rooted suckers from time to time (globe artichokes), but otherwise perennial vegetables can be pretty much left to their own devices.

Possibly our most successful perennial vegetable are globe artichokes. I grew them from seed originally and now I take rooted suckers from the established original eight plants. It is one of our earliest vegetables, cropping from late May onwards, and has two cropping periods, early summer and early autumn, when we have pretty much all-you-can-eat globe artichokes. I was a bit doubtful at first whether they'd work in Scotland. However, since they're a member of the thistle family they've been growing very well. In fact, they don't even go dormant during the winter, but keep growing lush foliage all year round. This year is their fourth season, after which you are meant to replace the original plants - hence the new plants made from rooted suckers.

Asparagus from seed: year three

Daubenton's kale

Good King Henry

Most perennial veg need to be left alone for a year or two before harvesting. Our most long-term project in this line is an asparagus bed. Since I couldn't find any Scottish asparagus crowns to buy (and the soft English veg and fruit normally can't hack it up here), there was nothing for it but to grow the asparagus from seed. It was quite challenging to germinate, despite pre-soaking, but I managed to get six 'Martha Washington' plants, which are now coming into their third season and looking like something we might be able to eat. It's a five-year project to full production when growing asparagus from seeds, but you can already start limited harvesting (cutting for two weeks) from year three - this year! Since those six plants have proved the concept, I'm going to sow the rest of the bed with 'Argenteuil' in May. What's another five years!?

The only varieties of perennial veg that we could start harvesting in year one have been Daubenton’s kale (a sweet-tasting kale, a bit reminiscent of spring cabbage but growing in individual leaves and thus easy to harvest in small quantities) and wild rocket. I always look forward to the wild rocket appearing in March for early spring salads.

Good King Henry is usually classed as a herb, but to me it's a spinach substitute. The leaves are about the same size and it has a lovely aromatic taste. Perfect as a pizza topping! It also self-seeds quite merrily so you'll have a reasonable size of patch from just one or two plants in a short time.

Egyptian onions, with 'babies' forming on top

Perennial onions are a good way of eking out the regular onions, particularly in spring. We have three types: Egyptian onions, Very useful onions (a variant of Welsh onions) and regular Welsh onions. The Egyptian onions have a mild, almost leek-like flavour and you can eat both bulbs and 'babies'. The Welsh/Very Useful onions are stronger and I use them instead of spring onions/scallions. To avoid onion rust, I lift an entire clump of Welsh onions at a time and replant a few of them in another area for the next year. The Egyptian onions are also called 'Walking onions' and they walk to another spot by themselves. I simply harvest the mother plant and let the babies root.

Skirrets in bloom

Another perennial allium in our garden is Babington's leek. It looks good, just like a leek, but we'll only get to sample it for the first time this year. Same with our skirrets, a perennial parsnip. We also started a horse radish plant last year.

Two vegetables that aren't perennial but that will just keep coming back because you'll never dig all of them up are oca (also known as New Zealand yam, a pretty lemony potato-like tuber) and Jerusalem artichokes. We keep them in the same spot every year and try to replant the best-looking tubers in the spring. Though, of course, there will be some rogues!

I'm always on the lookout for more perennial vegetables to try. For example, I'd like to add wild garlic types and nine-star broccoli. Has anyone got any experience with these or any other recommendations?

Very useful onions

Wild rocket

Essential culinary herbs

Golden majoram

Before I had my own herb garden, I cooked very little with fresh herbs. I only had rosemary and chives in a windowbox then and buying fresh herbs from the supermarket was pricey. It took me some time to get used to having this resource of fresh herbs close at hand. Now I don't use stock cubes or powdered stock any more, just salt, a selection of herbs and our homegrown veggies. Fresh herbs can really make a dish, and most of them are easy to grow and maintain and look pretty. A nice thing about growing your own herbs is that you can choose unusual varieties such as orange thyme or golden majoram.

Tea herbs aside, my list of essentials for a low-maintenance herb garden is as follows:

Perennial herbs

Aromatic bay leaves

• Bay leaves
• Lovage
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Oregano/marjoram
• Chives

Orange thyme

Bay leaves are a key ingredient in most soups and stews. They are particularly important in game dishes such as venison. My little tree gets harvested quite heavily. The freshly crushed fresh bay leaves are super aromatic - no comparison to the shop-bought dried stuff.

Lovage, the 'maggi plant', is very high on my list of essentials as it enriches all soups and stews, giving it the Maggi flavour without the MSG. It's potent so one or two leaves per dish will do. One plant should be ample to supply one kitchen for one year. Lovage dies back over the winter but grows vigorously the rest of the year. Apparently plants can reach two metres in height! It's wonderful in chicken soup or rabbit casserole.

Rosemary, thyme and oregano/majoram are all easy to grow, need little looking after (just basic weeding) and are a boon in any Mediterrean dishes or on roasted vegetables. Chives can also provide a bit of aphid control around roses so I've planted some in a bed with roses rather than with the rest of the herbs.

Annual herbs

Giant Italian parsley

• Parsley
• Basil
• Coriander
• Dill

Annual herbs are a bit more work than perennials - as they need to be sown every year. Dill is probably the easiest of my pick of annual herbs since it's sown directly into the ground and then only needs basic weeding.

Parsley can take a while to germinate, but once it gets going it's a no-bother crop. I usually let it flower in the second year and this year it obligingly grew from seeds dropped the previous year.

Basil is an indoor crop in Scotland and I like to grow some more unusual varieties that aren't available in the shops.

Coriander is probably the trickiest of the herbs I grow. For a continuous crop I'd need to sow four or five times. It can go to seed very quickly, especially in warmer weather, so now I harvest the large leaves as soon as they appear (before they go all feathery) and freeze what I can't use immediately. I find Vietnamese coriander much easier to grow and it has the advantage of being perennial (though tender). I keep it going from cuttings (they easily root in a glass of water) moved inside over winter. It's not exactly the same flavour, but it serves a similar purpose.

Optional extras

Winter savoury, good with beans

• Sage
• Common fennel
• Winter or summer savoury
• Lemongrass
• Vietnamese coriander

Sage and fennel are mainly used for tea, but occasionally sage is used for a sage butter sauce and the fennel seeds are great in spiced cakes. As they are both perennial, they make easy additions to the herb garden. Winter and summer savoury are nice with legumes. As winter savoury is a perennial it's slightly less work than the summer savoury, which needs to be sown annually. And, since Asian herbs such as lemongrass and Vietnamese coriander happily grow here (and aren't easy to come by in the supermarket), I usually add them to the herb bed.

Cucumber-flavoured borage

I do grow some other herbs, but I don't use them very much. Borage and hyssop, for example, are definitely grown to encourage pollinators rather than for culinary purposes. Consider which herbs you like in your cooking and then incorporate them into your garden, either in pots, a bed or as part of the border (since they do look pretty). Our bay tree has pride of place in the front garden as befits such an important herb.

One plant of each herb is probably enough, especially for the perennials (you might need a few plants of the annuals, if you're planning to make pesto for example). So the space requirement is minimal. A small patio area will do. Make sure the herb garden is near enough to the kitchen that you can easily grab the herbs while cooking.

And if you need any more herbs than you've got growing yourself you can always forage for some wild herbs and spices.

Make your own herbal teas

Dried camomile

With a nice selection of tea-drinking herbs in your garden, you can save quite a bit on beverage outlay - especially if you drink as much herbal tea as we do. From spring until early winter, I use the leaves fresh, which means using a larger amount than dried tea.

Not all tea herbs dry well (there's quite a variability in the different mint varieties, for example, and some of them are pretty insipid after drying) so I only dry camomile, lavender and nettle for use in the winter (and lime flowers and fennel flower heads if I've been on the ball and picked them in season). Sage is available over the winter and some mints, such as Swiss mint, get going very early so we're only talking two months without fresh mint here. 

The tea mint family (in our garden)

Apple mint

• Moroccan mint
• Swiss mint
• Apple mint
• Spearmint
• Peppermint/Black peppermint
• Eau de Cologne mint

Not all mints make good tea. It's best to sample a pot of tea before you take a cutting of someone else's mint variety for your garden. If the name sounds like it would make a weird tea (pineapple mint, strawberry mint, etc.) it probably won't be suitable for tea-making purposes. Pineapple mint 'tea' has a decidedly odd flavour. The one exception to this rule is Eau de Cologne mint, which makes an unusual mint tea, almost like a herbal Earl Grey. The nice thing about the mints listed above that they are good to drink on their own but also make lovely blends. Apple mint, spearmint and black peppermint are very mild-flavoured mints that are particularly good for blending.

Mints are very vigorous plants. I have a special mint bed where they spread merrily, but I find with frequent harvesting they don't get out of control. If you need to contain them grow them in large individual pots. 

Lemon balm

Citrus flavours

• Lemon balm
• Lemon verbena
• Lemon catmint
• Lemongrass

Lemon-flavoured teas are very refreshing and reviving. The lowest-maintenance lemon tea to grow is lemon balm. It is just as hardy and vigorous as mint and, like mint, it is perennial. Basically lemon balm needs no looking after and you can easily make more plants by splitting one.

Lemon verbena, to my mind, has a more delicate lemon flavour than lemon balm, but it is a tender perennial and needs to come inside in the winter (in Scotland, anyway). It dies back completely over winter and is slow to start again in spring. Choose a sheltered spot in the garden or inside a greenhouse/tunnel/conservatory. Grown inside, it is sadly prone to aphid attack.

Lemon catmint is another carefree tea herb. It's relaxing and best used in 'good night' teas, unless you want to have an afternoon nap. It's also popular with pollinators: ours is mobbed by bees all summer long.

Lemongrass is easy to grow from seed but is only annual in this country. Both lemongrass and lemon catmint are probably best mixed in with other herbs in a tea blend, whereas lemon balm and lemon verbena make excellent tea by themselves.

Snooze teas

Catmint, relaxing for both cats and humans

• Camomile
• Lime (linden) flowers
• Lavender
• Catmint
• Hops

Home-grown camomile tea is vastly superior to any shop-bought camomile tea bags. There is a lovely natural sweetness to it. Used fresh, I'd recommend using about a dozen flower heads for a litre pot of tea. Dried, you only need a pinch. Camomile is easy to grow from seed and it also self-seeds (but not always where you want it to). It dries very well. I dry it in a dehydrator, spread out on baking parchment.

Sleep-inducing lavender

My favourite snooze tea is a blend of camomile, lavender and catmint (lemon or common). A good night's sleep is virtually guaranteed! Both catmint and lavender aren't great by themselves but a little adds depth to other teas. The same goes for hops, which have quite a strong flavour.

Lime flowers are well known for their sleep-inducing qualities. This is a good tea herb to forage, though I have planted tilia as part of our hedge scheme so that I won't have to forage too far afield. Once harvested, dry it (in dehydrator or oven or al fresco for those in sunny, hot climates) for use throughout the year. It's good on its own or mixed with camomile.

Other classics

Golden sage

• Sage
• Fennel flowers

Sage is a nice health-giving tea, anti-inflammatory and full of vitamin C, and the plant is perennial. The sage flavour can be a bit strong on its own but is great blended with mild mints and/or nettle. You can choose from all kinds of varieties (golden, purple etc.), but the common type is very hardy and easy to grow from seed.

Common fennel is a useful perennial plant, giving salad greens in the spring, flower heads for tea in the summer and aniseed-flavoured seeds in the autumn. The flower heads make a herbal tea with a strong liquorice taste. They are well suited to drying. Fennel tea is best on its own as the flavour overpowers pretty much everything else.

Good mixers

Rose geranium ('Turkish delight' tea)

• Nettle
• Rose geranium
• Rose petals
• Bergamot flowers
• Rosehips
• Hawthorn berries

Camellia sinensis under fleece for the winter

There are quite a few herbs that don't make good teas on their own but really enhance black tea or herbal blends. Nettle is a superb base for herbal blends; it seems to add depth to all other herbs. Pick young leaves (wear gloves) and dry to remove the sting.

For a rose flavour, add one or two fresh leaves of rose geranium (very potent, think Turkish delight) or dried rose petals to black or green tea or a blend of nettle and mild mint. For a bit of Earl Grey flavour, blend in some Bergamot flowers. Rosehips and hawthorn berries don't add much flavour, but they offer quite a few health benefits so it's worth throwing some in.

We also have two actual tea bushes in the garden, of the Camellia sinensis sinensis variety, for making green and black teas. Next year, they'll be ready for the first harvest at last. Can't wait!