Tuesday 11 June 2013

Grow Write Guild Prompt #7: Write about one plant that is currently in bloom

I'm often telling people who ask that I don't know anything about flowers. I'm a vegetable grower. I barely know a tulip from a daffodil, I'm not even going to attempt tulip vs narcissus.

In bloom, battered and beautiful

There are flowers I do know. Flowers I've picked to sell to local restaurants: borage, fennel, rocket, nasturtium, viola, elder, wild garlic, chive, dianthus, pea, broad bean, brassica flowers, calendula. Flowers I've dyed with: Californian poppies, calendula again, dandelion. Flowers that grew on the playground: daisy, dandelion, buttercup. And yes, even flowers I just like the look of: aquilegia, sweet peas, valerian, lilies.

It is a quirk of my brain that when asked to think of one - just one - I go ahead and think of those 22. Even narrowing it down to just those in bloom now it's still a big list. Instead I pick one that isn't on it at all.

Five white petals, yellow in the centre, barely noticeable and one of my favourite things

The strawberries are in bloom.

The flower of a fruit is the greatest flower of them all. It warms my veg growers soul. It turns into food. The petals drop, the centre pushes outwards, the colour changes from green to red. A strawberry flower is the most delicious promise hidden in the delicate, angelic white.

Promises, promises
[This post was written as a response to the 6th prompt of Gayla Trail's Grow Write Guild. Check it out.]

4 comments:

  1. Haha - sounds like you know a lot of flowers after all! Glad I discovered your blog through the GrowWriteGuild (and your lunch boxes are very cool too).

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  2. I don't know the first thing about flowers. Honest! I'm totally a vegetable grower and flowers for flowers sake are totally frivolous... ohhhhh look at the pretty roses...

    Thanks for the kind words. I've stopped updating the lunch box blog because no job = no box but I had a lot of fun with it.

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  3. I love home grown strawberries. I have two pots with 6 plants. Sadly, the wildlife in my yard love them too and they don't insist on waiting until the berry is fully ripe to eat it. :)

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  4. Yes the wildlife can be a problem, the humans too at the garden I used to work out.

    The most insulting occasion was finding a strawberry with a rodent bite in it next to a pile of strawberry sick. What rat, wasn't it good enough for you!

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