Oh how time has flown… it has been quite a while since I last posted a blog on this site. Its not that I have lost interest in gardening, foraging and cooking, I still vey much have a passion for blooms and food.
Over the last months I have been taking my foraging activities to a new degree and have started a new food business called NjAM Foods. utilizing nature’s bounty I have been busy developing a range of wild flower cordials, ketchups and jams.
This is an exciting venture. I travel around the quiet roads in our locality and harvest flowers from flowering currant, gorse, dandelion and lately elder. I love the idea of using the wild plants to produce a food product which is uniue and delicious and really captures a true taste of the Irish countryside. Apart from the harvesting, there is the cooking, bottling, labelling, marketing and deliveries, it takes quite a bit of work to convert a flower in the hedgerow to a product on the shelf of a shop, but it is a fun new challenge.
So far a number of outlets are stocking NjAM Foods products:
Cafe Rua, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
Dew C Fruit & Veg, Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon
Kate’s Place, Oranmore Town Centre, Orenmore, Co. Galway
Brid Tiernan at the Carrick on Shannon, Longford and Boyle Farmers Markets
and
Brogans’s Health Food Store in Bioyle.
The products we have made include Beetroot ketchup, Carrot Ketchup and Beer Ketchup. The wild flower cordials include Elderflower, Gorse, Flowering Currant, Danelion and soon it will be time to pick meadowsweet blossoms.
I have also been making jams; gorse flower, elderflower and meadowsweet from the wild flowers. Pina Colada, Rose and Apple are a bit more unusal but we are also making rhubarb and Vvanilla and delicious strawberry jam.
For some of our clients we supply the products labelled specifically for our suppliers as we do for Kate’s Place and our gorse flower jam for Cafe Rua.
We have a website, a Facebook Page and Twitter account too…
I have also been busy with our Scoodoos www.scoodoos.com, ancient tree spirits helping to save the planet, and my one tree photogrpahy project www.onetree365.com
I have also had time to forage for dinner and have been using foraged wild plants to give a wild twist to a couple of indian recipes… next blog will feature Saag Nettle Panir… and it wont be 4 months, promise…
Ciaran The Gardener 
Well done. Will look for you at Kate’s place in Oranmore!
Congratulations! Best of luck with the new venture!
Wow! More power to you! I hope its really successful!
I LOVE your blog and I think your Njam products are just fabulous! Are they available in England?