Own Grown Gardening

I thought as a follow on from yesterday's post about propagating rosemary, I would share a little gem of a recipe that uses this lovely herb. I find these biscuits somehow simultaneously sweet and savoury, an unusual combination.    SERVINGS 8 biscuits COOK TIME Prep time - 20 min Bake time - 17 to 22 min    BISCUIT INGREDIENTS 1 lemon 1 sprig of rosemary (about 10cm) 120g flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 100g butter (salted) 100g sugar 100g ricotta cheese (full fat) 1 egg 1/4 tsp vanilla extract   ICING INGREDIENTS 80g cream cheese (full fat) 80g powdered icing sugar 1 tbsp lemon juice Dash of vanilla extract   BUSCUIT INSTRUCTIONS Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a baking tray with baking paper Zest the lemon Remove the rosemary leaves from the stem and chop the leaves very finely Mix the lemon zest, finely chopped rosemary, flour, and baking powder in a mixing bowl and set aside In a second bowl, cream together the butter and sugar Add the ricotta chee...

I'm so pleased with this little success. I've never had any luck rooting rosemary or lavender before. I pop the cuttings into potting soil, augment with perlite for  drainage, water them fastidiously, and then watch them slowly wilt, drop their leaves, and die... So, I felt a new sense of hope a couple months ago when I read about rooting in water instead. I thought, gosh, what an interesting idea. If I put the cuttings in a glass jar, I could actually watch for root growth. What had I got to loose? Well, guess what? It worked! For the rosemary at least. Look! Let me show you how I did it.  Step one: I cut sprigs off this year's growth (white and soft rather than brown and woody) from the healthiest sections of my mother plants. Step two: using my sharpest pruning knife, a penknife would work just as well, I trimmed off the leaves running up the stem just leaving a little sprig at the very top. Step three: I trimmed the stem just below the bottom leaf node. The leaf nodes h...