Flowers On The Homestead

Before we moved to our property it had been rented out for thirty years, so perennial plants were lacking. There's plenty of trees but not many flowers. Some daffodils, two clumps of day lilies and a couple of hydrangeas was the sum total. 

 I haven't added loads yet as I've been concentrating on edible plants, but I have added lots of snowdrops and other bulbs and each year I plant lots of annual flowers in the veg garden for the bees and salads.

One perennial plant I did add was a rose bush that was growing at our old place. it was a present from my mum and it used to grow so fast and flower right through to the first frost. but when I moved here I had nowhere to plant it, so I shoved it in the chicken pen and forgot about it. 

The neglect I've shown it doesn't seem to have affected it much as it's got loads of huge beautiful flowers blooming at the moment, I'm not sure the chickens appreciate it though!

I plan to add some clematises this year to go on rest of the old tin sheds we've got here. But I think more flowering plants will have to wait a little bit while other things get established, as there is only so many things I can keep on top of.

Any other flowers that readers have that are thriving on their neglect?

Homemade Turkish Delight

Putting a roof on a porch last week I was surrounded by roses and the smell kept making me think of Turkish delight! And so the craving began! But I couldn't just buy some, that would be too easy. Looking on the Internet I could see that the flavouring was from rose water, with none in the cupboard and as these roses smelt so good I decided to make some myself.

Rose petals

I gathered a large bag of roses, picked off all the petals and put them in a large pan with a little water. In the centre of this pan I placed an empty Pyrex jug, then placed the lid on the pan upside down. Make sure the jug is spaced off the bottom of the pan with some mesh otherwise it might crack! 

Making Rose water

The infused distilled water from the rose petals rises up, hits the lid, runs to the lowest point and drips into the jug. Not a very quick process but it workedand was easy, I didn't have much, in fact probably just enough to make about a pound of something very sweet!

My rose water - very unimpressive amount!

The Turkish delight was easy to make, although I used the cheats method and used gelatin. The ingredients are:
1lb sugar
Some gelatine
1/2 pint of water
2 table spoons of rose water
 Icing sugar
cornflower

I could have used food colouring as well to make it pink but we haven't got any and why bother when it wont alter the taste just add E numbers?

Quite a bit of sugar needed

Basically the water and gelatin go in first until it's dissolved, then the sugar is added. It's all boiled for about 15 mins, then taken off the heat, the rose water is then added and stirred in before being poured into a silicone mould (which has been lightly oiled to stop it sticking, it's very sticky).

Letting it set

 I let it set over night in the fridge before putting it on a chopping board coated with a light mixture of sugar and cornflower.

Dust with icing sugar mixed with a little corn flower

 I cut it up into small squares and rolled eat one round in the sugar mix so they wouldn't stick to each other. Words can't desribe how sticky this stuff is until you do that!

Finished! Tastes good!

It tastes just like proper Turkish delight and the roses come through just right.

I've never made anything with roses before, but as I haven't got much other produce to use at the moment I thought this was a fun way to spend a few rainy evenings! Anyone else made anything with roses?