Rural and Rustic

Name: Rural and Rustic
Address: Montgomery, GB
Telephone: +441686630197
Price range: $$
Rating: 4.3

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Rural and Rustic

Creating a low-impact lifestyle on a smallholding in beautiful mid Wales with nature, the seasons and wellbeing at the heart of it. And writing about it.

Creating a low-impact lifestyle on a smallholding in beautiful mid Wales with nature, creativity and wellbeing at the heart of it.

25/08/2025

Just about the only thing in the flower borders not dying of thirst!!

22/08/2025

Not a great year for my sunflowers who, through the prolonged lack of water, have grown spindly with smaller heads. Still, they didn’t give up, making the best of the situation instead. The sparrows and blue t**s have discovered their seeds so they have served their purpose as food for wildlife.

Not everything is as resilient as my sunflowers and the garden is parched. Time for a collective rain dance?

19/08/2025

Meet Victor, an heirloom pumpkin from the US thought lost forever but whose seeds have recently been resurrected. New to me this year (seeds from ), I am watching in anticipation as he grows huge and round. Yellow now, he is supposed to turn orange then ripen to red.

Seemingly the only one on the vine but until the leaves die back, I can’t make head nor tail of the squash jungle.

18/08/2025

The elder has a strong, unmistakable presence throughout the year, particularly on the cusp of a new season. In the early Spring, it has large, purple buds that sit opposite each other. In early Summer, its white, fragrant flowers grace hedges and roadside lanes. Early Autumn brings the juicy berries and a tinge of pink on the leaves, one of the earliest to change colour. In Winter, it’s the fissured bark on the trunk that stand out. Such a generous tree.

One tree overhangs onto our vine house and is hard to access so I don’t usually bother picking the flowers there. This year, it produced huge plates of white blossom that I watched open then go over unharvested as summer unfolded. Now, these umbels are heavy with purple, almost black berries ready to be picked. Yesterday, armed with a long handled pruner, I helped myself to just enough fruit to make a bottle of elderberry syrup. A good medicinal potion for Winter.

The berries on our other trees aren’t ripe yet but when they are, I shall collect some to freeze to add to apple crumbles and pies.

17/08/2025

Love our little patch of wildflowers by the post box. I simply mixed seeds leftover from packets of poppies, cornflowers and phacelia into some dry compost for evenness and then I scattered on a bare patch of ground. I did it very late in the season so this flush of colour is a bonus.

14/08/2025

The Grain Moon is now on her waning phase. I watched her rise from behind our huge sycamore tree as I laid on the grass scanning the late evening sky for shooting stars. A magical end to the warmest August day.

12/08/2025

We tried something new for dinner last night: Korean cabbage pancakes with a soy, rice vinegar and chilli dipping sauce.

I liked them, not the sauce though, but Peter didn’t so it was most probably a one-off dish that won’t be seen on our table again.

This was in an attempt to make a dent in the mountain (ok, ok, maybe more hill than mountain!!) of pointy cabbages I have recently harvested. They cropped all at once and are being attacked by the hoards of white butterfly caterpillars currently feasting on them. The outer leaves are ruined but the hearts are salvageable.

Back to the thinking board… there is only so much coleslaw we can eat!

10/08/2025

August’s full moon is the Grain Moon. She rose above the hill after my bedtime last night and I could only capture a glimpse of her at 4am when I caught her playing hide-and-seek with the silvery clouds.

08/08/2025

The haws are turning red already. The land mellows as light fades, growth slows and fruits ripen. I heard a robin sing his autumn song this morning. Change is in the air.

07/08/2025

Our tomato harvest is a riotous concoction of all the colours and all the shapes. I grow many varieties for flavour and texture and after ten years, a few favourites have emerged and they’re all here: Costoluto Fiorentino, San Marzano, Purple Ukraine, Sungold, Chocolate Cherry and Orange Banana. Look at that whopper Pink Dreams… as big as my hand!

04/08/2025

We have an abundance of beetroots right now and I am trying out new things to help me process the harvest in creative ways. Today, I made beetroot soda bread rolls and, with the addition of rosemary and pumpkin, fennel and cumin seeds, they’re very tasty. And very pink!!

01/08/2025

Another turn of the Wheel lands us at the festival of Lammas today. Summer has now reached her peak and if you sit amongst the grasses and wildflowers in a meadow at the start of August, you’ll hear the mellow whisperings of Autumn.

Happy Lammas!

Address

Montgomery

Telephone

+441686630197

Website

https://www.rural-and-rustic.wales/

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