Summer 2024 Green Shoots Project The Daisy Garland Green Shoots project has been specially designed to inspire children and young adults with complex epilepsy to get outside and practice a bit of ‘green therapy’ by sowing seeds and growing nutritious low-carb vegetables and edible flowers. Over 75 of the families we support have signed up to be part of this exciting sensory project, with many more joining us along the way; and we look forward to charting their progress here on our website and The Daisy Garland Facebook page over the coming months. This project has been made possible through funds raised and donated by our Daisy Garland fundraisers and supporters. We are enormously grateful to each and every one of them. JUNE Crunchy radishes, crispy salad leaves, succulent strawberries and tiny sweet tomatoes can only mean one thing... Summer has arrived! It's an exciting time in the garden with flowers starting to appear and lots of lush growth in the veg patch. Bees and butterflies will be enjoying your garden too and they love a little pebble-filled saucer of water from which to sip and bathe. Let's see what our Daisy Garland Green Shoots gardeners are growing this summer... Emily's mum tells us: "Our green shoots radishes have gone bonkers! Found a few ready so Emily had some with her roast dinner! and our daisies and tomatoes are growing well too " Daisy Garland reply: Great work Emily! When you pick your next crop of radish you might want to give this keto-friendly recipe a try: Garlic Roasted Radishes "Lots of strawberries from the allotment today. Perfect for keto milkshakes and porridge " Hannah Green Shoots has been great for the family, Bean's enjoyed playing with compost and organising us! Even I've had a go, I've grown cauli from seed and I've been really impatient waiting to see them grow. "Green Shoots update 🌱 Not been out in the garden much this week as Bear's not been well and the weather has been miserable... But thankfully both are improving " Francesca. Daisy Garland reply: Francesca, we love your idea of re-using old plastic bottles for growing plants. Genius! To learn about other cost-saving tips, please click on this Thompson & Morgan Link "Chloe really enjoyed being back in the garden the last few weekends, her Green Shoots are coming on lovely since potting them up xx" Bridget "Our wild flowers and garden updates..." Nature is abundant with wellbeing remedies and you don't have to be a master herbalist to benefit from them. The act of caring for plants is, in itself, a peaceful, mindful experience - helping us to soothe stress, boost our mental health and refocus our minds. I spent some of last weekend re-potting a small handful of houseplants, including my avocado seedling which for several months has been happily growing away in a jar of water... Just look at those roots! Little Miss Avocado, settling well into her new home 🥑 Mabel Grey, my much-loved lemon-scented geranium, was first in line to get a trim. After taking several cuttings from some of the younger shoots (placed in a jar of water to root before potting up in a month or so), I added the old leggy stalks and withered leaves to the compost bin. A fragrant treat for the little insects busily beavering away inside breaking down leaves and peelings in return for the following year's rich compost. Next in line my trusty Spider plant (below left) who after 3 years in the same pot had become more than a tad pot-bound. Peace Lilies (below) are such graceful, easy-to-please plants. After 5 years in the same pot I swear I heard her heave a sigh of relief as I moved her to a pot the next size up! Job done and time for tea ☕️ SARA xx Founder and CEO The Daisy Garland 25 of the best house plants to grow according to Gardeners' World Magazine: CLICK HERE How can plants help your mental health? Click HERE to find out Rosalind tells us: "A surprise visit from my great niece involved ransacking the garden to create ’nature pictures’. So lovely to do this as my son would have eaten everything before we ever managed to make a picture #greenshoots" Angela: "First tomato and red strawberry " French marigolds are a brilliant companion for tomatoes, chillies, aubergines and peppers as their pungent smell helps ward off whitefly, greenfly and blackfly. We're growing marigolds alongside our tomato plants this year and for an extra burst of colour, in we've added a purple petunia. Basil also works as a good companion to tomatoes especially those grown in a greenhouse, as it attracts whitefly away from your plants and the pungent fragrance of the basil repels other pests too. To learn more about companion planting please click HERE Amy's mum, Julie, got in touch to say: "It's very chilly here but someone is still very chuffed with the slow progress her plants are making. Very glad we bought our mini greenhouse last year! " A lovely message from Erika, who never fails to inspire us with her amazing growing skills. Just look at those healthy crops, bursting with vitality and nutrition! "A little update on our Green Shoots.We began to pick up our crispy lettuces, seeds of which I collected last autumn and they germinated beautifully.Same with peas. These are from the seeds of the last season and already produced some pods. They needed to be saved from the pigeons though..Cucumbers clearly want to break free from the cold frame but the nights are still chilly. Our Lemon Verbena has really grown. Can't recommend enough this wonderful herb. Cosy growing in the greenhouse tomatoes are getting flowers and chillies perked up a bit too. Happy Summer everybody! " Erika "Green shoots update from the Green family Everything is growing well despite the rubbish weather." If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. BUDDHA Our first Daisy Garland Sweet Pea! We are so excited! Hopefully the first of many 🤞 The scent is out of this world... "Poppy has been putting her flower press to excellent use, having lots of fun in the process..." Kat JULY Esme and her mum Mary have been very busy in their garden and their hard word is certainly paying off as you can see from the glorious pics below... Esme admiring her pink Cosmos "The peach Cosmos below is my absolute favourite" Mary "We’ve got 10 button quail and 6 normal hen chicks too. The last photo they are all In my blouse!" Mary Daisy Garland: Reply Mary, those little chicks are completely adorable! We all want some! 🐥🐥🐥🐥 "We've just come.back from a week away and the garden has gone mad! Our first courgette, first sweet pea flowers and lots of strawberries! Tomatoes, mini cucumbers and runner beans all making good progress too! " Julie and Amy Daisy Garland reply: Well done Amy! Every mum deserves a bunch of hand-picked flowers. And homegrown sweet peas are the best! There's no smell to match the fragrance of sweet peas. The flowers are so delicate and so beautiful. Like little butterflies on the end of stalks... Arlo's been busy digging up his first earlies (new potatoes), and what a bumper crop! Well done Arlo! Working with the soil and the seasons, growing crops that are nurtured from tilling the soil to harvest and then shared with friendly people is one of the sanest, healthiest and most healing activities that man can undertake. Monty Don "Courgette flower we've had such horrible weather, it's been lovely to get back out on the garden..." Francesca Francesca: "Still trying to work out where to plant everything." Daisy Garland reply: Loving the fig tree 💚 and all the little pots under... "Green shoots update. Courgette, beetroot, cucumber and sugar snap peas! " Daisy Garland Reply: What a bounty! Well done Lily! ⭐️ "Green Shoots update Cucamelons have gone crazy, tomatoes are still not happy but my pink sunflower came out." ""Me and Tia decided the other week to plant a pot of random flower seeds into a large pot at our front door. I thought this would be a fun surprise as things start to appear Yesterday I took the first 2 photos of our first buds which look ready to bloom And today’s they have opened up Looking forward to seeing what other surprises we get in this pot " Lorraine: "Flower press is working hard creating end of term gifts. " Daisy Garland Reply: We're sure your teacher will be bowled over with this fabulous home-made gift. It's BEAUTIFUL 💚 "Gethin’s green shoots are coming on, we have some flowers, courgettes are flowering, some very small cucumbers are starting too sprout. No flowers on the tomato plants yet but are looking healthy and sunflowers are growing well. Gethin is loving watering them and often takes his carers to see what he is growing, he’s proud of himself xxx" Daisy Garland reply: Gethin, we are in awe of your growing skills and are incredibly proud of you too. A HUGE well done from your friends at The Daisy Garland. x "A little update from us….mini !! So tasty and Tilly was very pleased as you can see. She prepares them for us all with a Korean style dressing that’s a really quick pickle. Delicious! Thanks for the seeds. Mary" Daisy Garland reply: We'd love your Korean style dressing recipe, if you're happy to share? "Green shoots... First peas." Daisy Garland reply: Well done Francesca! 💚 "A few pics for Green Shoots 🌱 We finally have a flower on the tomato plant and a beautiful day lily. Daniel ‘helped’ harvest the radishes and the salad leaves. Coriander, dill and carrots are finally taking off." Rosalind Daisy Garland reply: just look at those crispy, crunchy radishes. They're making our mouths water! The leaves feel slightly prickly/tickly/velvety to touch, making for a super-sensory experience. Loving all the other veggies too and would love to hear how you get on with growing carrots. We've never had a carrot 🥕success story thanks to carrot fly, but hopefully your little crop will come up trumps. Please keep us posted! "We had another go with the pressed flowers over the weekend. Some looked very mouldy. What we managed to save went in George's Art Book" Marguerite Daisy Garland reply: Wondering if perhaps the flowers you pressed were 'too juicy' and contained too many petals and therefore a fair amount of moisture (dahlia's, whole roses, etc). If so, this might be the reason some of your flower pressings attracted mould. Another reason might be little aphids and pests lurking amongst the stems and petals at the time of pressing. This too could attract mould/discolouration. But we hope this doesn't deter you from future flower pressing. If at first you don't succeed, try try again! George - we know you will 💪 Because you're a Daisy Garland SuperStar ⭐️ Hot off the press - although not quite the flower press! It seems Rosalind's carrots weren't blighted by carrot fly... "Give me the carrots mum………" Rosalind "Green shoots update….. Thank you Daisy Garland for the seeds and inspiration. Love seeing Esme and Tilly so pleased with their successes. Happy people here!" Mary Daisy Garland reply: Esme and Tilly, your garden is an absolute delight. Thank you for sharing the results of all your hard work with us 💚 Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. HENRY DAVID THOREAU, essayist Wow! A handful of joy. "Testing how far on the peas are too….very tasty, but won’t be long until they are ready." "Arlo loved his time digging up potatoes at the allotment this weekend " Poppy Daisy Garland reply: Arlo, we can taste those tatties! Smoothered in butter, eaten straight from the pan.... mmmmmmmmm Well done for growing such a bumper crop! ⭐️ With the warmer weather upon us don't forget to keep those little Green Shoots well watered 💦 "Delicious salad leaves from the garden tonight and gorgeous sweet peas. Interesting moth on the water tap too." Rosalind Daisy Garland reply: A very interesting moth, I wonder if anyone knows what it is? If so, please let us know. "First cucumber " Francesca "What a dreadful year for our young growers this has been. So I just went out in today's sunshine for some pics. Tomatoes just started flowering. Cucamelon, well not sure if it will ever grow. Gourds didn't survive at all. Beans coming along nicely. Blackberries, maybe? Sunflowers have buds, fingers crossed. Waiting for bug hotel visitors to appear. Jacob not with me today, so I included a shot of him and his dog because I like this photo." Lynn "Green shoots update This is the pot which me and Tia put a random mix of flowers in we have some bright pink flowers & pale pink flowers now " "Lots of blue flowers, first courgette with lots more on their way. Tomato flowers are emerging and sunflowers seem to be thriving, getting taller by the day xxx" Helen "This morning we picked tomatoes and cucumbers for dinner to have with some halloumi and red onion. You can just see garlic drying in the greenhouse too." Thank you Simmone, for sending a montage of your gorgeous garden. "I had a little visitor amongst my green shoots Bear was very interested. Not seen many wasps this year but lots of butterflies, spiders and caterpillars." Daisy Garland reply: The perfect garden visitor to tackle those pesky slugs and snails! Karen, our Daisy Garland Office Manager has been busy working on her allotment, with lots of Green Shoots popping up left right and centre. Karen's plot is completely organic and she's using crushed eggshells as a slug/snail deterrent. Does it work? She'll be sure to let us know! These striking artichoke flowers are a magnet for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Did you Know? Garden snails have between 1,000 and 12,000 teeth and slugs have approximately 27,000 tiny tooth-like protrusions called denticles. "Green shoots update Corey has been out checking out the progress of his courgettes and we found the first one!" Gail "Greenshoots Here is to the rewarding July! Picking up and eating every day lots of lettuce, courgettes, some beets and onions too. We harvested and frozen all our peas to enjoy them later in the year. Broad beans are next and rhubarb is giving its second crop. My personal highlight is picking up own grown herbs. I find it very meditative to pick them, drink their tea, dry them. Thinking of making some calendula infused oil for Isabelle as its so good for the skin. We have so much dill this year which is my favourite culinary herb to eat fresh but I am freezing some of it too. And of course we can not wait for our tomatoes to ripen! Hope your July is as giving as ours or even much better!" Erika "The garden is coming along nicely, I guess all the rain hasn’t been too bad for that. I have onions nearly ready, beetroots, tomatoes are still green but lots of them, carrots seem to be doing OK. Just harvested my new potatoes, they are absolutely amazing! And the pea pods seem to be going down well. And I wasn’t sure if the sweetcorn would do anything as it hasn’t been that sunny but there are definitely cobs forming so good news, I can’t wait to try those. And the pumpkin seeds you send up are getting quite big! I’ve just planted some strawberries, a blackberry and a blueberry so hopefully next year I’ll get some fruit from those as well.” Thomas Top Tip from Thomas: We asked Thomas what he’s been using to feed his veggies because he’s had a lot of success. He told us: "I’ve been alternating between liquid seaweed and tomato feed at every other feed, but they must be liking it!” "... Oh, forgot to say I harvested my first carrots! How good are they?! Very impressed, I like the 2 that grew intertwined 😃 Having them tonight on a roast dinner, looking forward to trying them!" Thomas "Green shoots, here is a little promotion for growing Borage . Because: Bees love it! Even different types of. It's edible. Young leaves can be added to salads, soups, sauces. Looking like little stars flowers are used for decorating desserts, in salads, cold drinks, jelly, tea, etc. It's a very good companion plant for almost all edibles but especially tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers. Adds nutrients to the soil it grows in as well as good for composting. You need to sow it only once. Once you have it it will be self-seeding every year but not invasively and its very easy to pull it out. It is said to dispel grief and sadness and promotes courage" Erika Daisy Garland Reply: Erika: gardener, baker., artist. and photographer. All-rolled-into-one. Thank you for being you 💚 and for sharing your insights and inspiration. AUGUST August is a month of abundance, where the fruits of our labour are finally ripe for the picking. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Rich pickings from our allotment this weekend: a ginormous bunch of fragrant sweet peas, lettuce, rainbow chard, French and broad beans, blackberries and beetroot. Four Gladioli flowers had got a little too tall for their boots and toppled over snapping their stems in the process. Beyond the help of a woody prop, so we picked and brought them home. They've brightened the lounge no end. The beetroot, from-allotment-to-pan-to-plate within 45 minutes of picking. Bliss! You can't beat a beetroot (no pun intended) and cheese sandwich. Boots kicked off, Supper sorted! SARA xx Founder and CEO The Daisy Garland "Strawberries still coming thick and fast! Runner beans taller than Amy and a few tiny beans appearing. Excited to discover 2 mini cucumbers! And my house is filed with the scent from our beautiful sweet peas! Loving our green shoots!" Daisy Garland reply: Amy, we have cucumber envy! You are one heck of a gardener! Well done! 👏 Lots of our families are growing sweet peas again this year, which is wonderful to see. Don't they smell amazing! The beauty of growing sweet peas is the more flowers you pick, the more flowers you get. If you don't pick them the flowers die off and are replaced with a seed pod (see pic 2) which will take lots of energy from the plant, reducing the flowering time until they all disappear. So, the moral of the story is: keep picking those flowers! However... at the end of the flowering period (usually around late August) you can, if you like, let the final few flowers run to seed so you can pick and dry the pods and plant the little seeds inside the pods, next spring. Isn't nature clever and wonderful Please Note: Sweet pea seed pods look similar to edible pea pods but they are poisonous and must not be eaten. "Our garden's come alive this week, I'm chuffed as we have small cauliflower, still waiting for butternut squashes to appear. Love Green Shoots 🌱 it's brought us together as a family and it's been fab watching little lady getting her hands dirty in compost." Angie Daisy Garland Reply: Loving that cauli 🤩 These are so tricky to grow. Well done!!! A great idea to fleece the lettuce bed. 🤔 Noted and will follow suit. Loving the French marigolds and sunflowers. Are you going to use the marigolds for anything in particular I wonder... Perhaps you sprinkle the petals on salads, or infuse in almond oil to use as a moisturiser... Tomatoes, and spinach looking fab too. Is that a cucumber in pic 4? I think it might be. xx We left last year's leeks to bolt for the pure pleasure of seeing the gorgeous flower spikes. Their flowers reminding us of peony fireworks - the ones we all love that light up the sky on the 5th of November and beyond. Once leeks have bolted they develop an incredibly tough stalk and are no longer edible. But regardless of this the bees still love them 🐝 🐝🐝 SARA xx Founder and CEO The Daisy Garland Did you Know? The male bees (in any species) cannot sting as they don't have the stinging anatomy, which makes them super safe. To make a bee 🐝 friendly garden please click HERE "Red sunflower and cucamelons in the background. Cucamelons have gone a bit nuts!" Francesca "Enjoying the big green bang of cucumbers and courgettes from our allotment." Erika Earlier this year Green Shoots mum, Erika, kindly sent us some Wisteria pods collected from her garden to share with our Daisy families. It's been an absolute joy watching the first little green shoots turn into a robust plant with strong, healthy leaves. And to think this all started with one dry seed pod,,, Hidden treasure revealed! I soaked the seeds in warm water for a couple of days... before sowing in a pot of compost The plastic bag over the top of the pot acting as a mini propagator Two weeks later, hey presto! Green Shoots 🌱 4 months later,,, Wondering how long it will take to grow as big as the beautiful wisteria I walk past on my way to work everyday... SARA xx Founder and CEO The Daisy Garland Just wondering if anyone's seen Six Inches of Soil: a British independent feature documentary shining a spotlight on soil health and regenerative farming? If you haven't you're missing something really special. Click HERE to watch a trailer. SARA xx Watch this space for more updates coming soon! Manage Cookie Preferences