Potions go 'boom!'

At the end of a super-busy Summer at Positive Potions, here is Head Gardener Joe Anderson with one of his first-prize winning entries - ‘Boom!’ - in the local Aberffraw Show on Anglesey, where we were thrilled to meet twelve-times Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medallist Medwyn Williams MBE. We also had a blast at Sioe Mon earlier in the month, meeting some new and familiar faces who popped by to say ‘bore da!’ And next weekend we’re off to Beaumaris Food Festival, so say ‘hello’ if you’re going to be there, and try some Potions and sneak advance preview of a few new things we have in store… Meanwhile in the garden all is still blooming - tasting delicious and looking amazing. It’s been a summer of incredible progress here - we worked out that we have at least fifty different herb varieties now, many of them hard-to-grow species that are able to flourish through a happy combination of climate, organic TLC and Joe’s rocket-fuel compost. Boom indeed! Looking particularly lovely and exciting at the moment: liquorice, stevia, angelica, marshmallow - and some amazing monster burdock. Our whole house smells divine at the moment, too, as today I harvested some of the basil mint and lemon verbena. Yum. The other great preoccupation in recent months has been with the our search for the ancient springs, and mapping and excavating the Victorian drainage systems running through the gardens - the engineering is staggeringly brilliant - and Joe has been steadily getting to grips with it all, so we can edge ever-close to complete self-sufficiency and not rely on any mains water in the garden. More on this one later…