Herb of the Week for 17th April
School Holiday Fairy Fun by Lynn Kirkland
The weather during these school holidays lends itself well to outdoor holiday fun.
Children adore fairies and a wonderful holiday cooperative project could be to create a fairy garden or introduce some little fairy folk into your present garden.
It is often great to have a theme and spend some time in the planning which could involve some research at one of our wonderful public libraries near you.
Perhaps an autumn theme could work well and a fairy with autumnal colours
like the one in the photo could be the centrepiece.
The autumn fairy could ask the children to gather leaves of every autumn
hue they can find.
These could create a carpet under the place that the fairy chooses as her
home for the moment.
There are lovely autumn herbs to gather and use as part of this project.
The bright red flowers in the photo are from the delightfully scented pineapple
sage.
These can be added to a favourite muffin mix or even scattered on a salad.
Rosehips are ripening and can be a great source of enjoyment for birds
but can also be used for making rosehip honey.
The hips need to be from rugosa roses or the old fashioned dog rose, the
ones we used to pick for rosehip syrup!
Pick them and wash them and then cut them up and place in a saucepan.
Cover with liquid honey and simmer gently until the red colour comes out
into the honey.
The Vitamin C will also have gravitated into the honey.
Strain the hips out and bottle your delicious autumn fairy honey.
Fairies can be placed in old tree stumps or placed on branches or get the children to create a fairy castle out of bits and pieces.
Fresh air, fairy fun and happy children, enjoying their holiday by creating something themselves in the garden.