The sun has been shining and the lavender in the garden is looking beautiful - as well as using it is flower posies and drying some for future use I love to use lavender in cooking.  The easiest way is to make a jar of lavender sugar which can then be used instead of ordinary sugar when you are making meringues, shortbread or even ice-cream.  Now that we are well into the school summer holidays I am wondering whether I should make a batch of lavender biscuits to calm my daughters down a bit.

	Pick lavender flowers - this variety is called Hidcote - each has a distinctive taste, some soft and floral, others more herby.
	Strip the flowers off the stems - you can save the stems for the next time you are cooking lamb on the barbeque - if you put them under the meat they give it a lovely flavour.
	Put lavender flowers and granulated sugar into a blender and pulse whizz it until it goes grainy with just a few flowers left whole. The sugar will soak up the oil from the lavender so it becomes soft - rather like demerara sugar in texture - put it into a jar and store in the dark for a week to let the flavours develop. The sugar can be used as normal in a variety of recipes.

New doorstop

Hang it on the door-handle when its not in use.

Sowing biennials

Biennials are the flowers that get forgotten - the ones that we always mean to plant but somehow never get round to.

They are also some of the best flowers to have in a garden - they fill that difficult gap between tulips and dahlias.  they are also some of the best scented and longest lasting flowers in a garden.

Now is the time to sow them, they will flower next May-July.  My favourite biennials are Honesty; Sweet williams; wallflowers and iceland poppies.  These will all happily over-winter in Scotland

	I sow all my seeds under cover as otherwise I find that slugs much them before they even make it above ground.  For most biennials I use straightforward potting compost - for wallflowers, which like it limey, I add in a large pinch of lime. I use a mix of old wooden seed trays and the blue plastic trays that organic mushrooms are packed in.
	Fill the trays with compost and very lightly pat the soil down to eliminate large air holes. Put trays to soak in water and then allow to drain. Sow the seed and thinly and as regularly as you can. Sift a light covering of compost on the top till you can't see the seeds any more.
	Cover the trays with newspaper, an old compost bag, anything that will keep the light out.  Check for germination every day and as soon as you can see any green at all whip the whole tray out and into the light.
	Once you can see the first pair of true leaves - the ones that look like the leaves of the adult plant - prick out the seedlings into pots or into a deeper tray with wide spacing.  Every time you can see roots at the bottom of your container, repot. Water.
	After 6 weeks the plants will be large enough to plant outside -  let them spend a few days outside in the week before you plant them outside - getting used to the wind as well as the colder temperatures. As you plant them out, pinch out the top 1/3 of the plant to encourage the lower  part to bush out.  This will give you a good strong multi-stemmed plant with lots of flowers instead of a tall spindly one with just one. If you have any queries drop me an e-mail snapdragonjane@googlemail.com.