Bemersyde has a glorious harvest
One of the joys of staying at Bemersyde is that guests are welcome to pick the fruit and vegetables in the kitchen garden.
The Bemersyde harvest is well underway and it is a bumper one! Margaret and the team have been gathering orange and white pumpkins; carrots, garlic and onions, potatoes, eight different varieties of tomato; peaches and nectarines and windfalls of apples and pears by the barrowload. There is a huge crate of courgettes and the grapes are in abundance.
The magnolia tree is undergoing an extraordinary phenomenon: having bloomed spectacularly in the spring, it is now flowering for a second time.
Margaret the housekeeper is a prodigious pickler and preserver and has been trying out some new recipes, including dandelion marmalade and cucumber jelly, which is a beautiful pale green and tastes delicious with cream cheese and smoked salmon.