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.]

Tulips

We spent last weekend baby sitting two cute and cuddleful guinea pigs. Looking after the two cuties is a reward in itself but and their Mummy and Daddy went to Amsterdam we got a bag of tulip bulbs. Exciting! They are out on the balcony now. We'll see if we get blooms this year but the bulbs are healthy so I'm going with cautious optimism. 

A post card for the fridge and a bulb for the balcony

Cornish Crewenna

Two questions for you. Where do people who live in the tourist town of Torquay go on their holidays, and what do they bring back as souvenirs? Last Summer we stayed at the beautiful Lamorna Cove in Cornwall. If you visit today you'll see that beauty but today I'm going to talk about it's past.

Lamorna Cove in Summer

Lamorna has a reputation for it's artists and writers. It has an industrial history of tin and stone. More importantly, to the gardener in me, it was famous for it's flowers. The climate of Cornwall made it possible to pick daffodils in January for Flower Markets in London and Birmingham. Glass houses mean that the natural climate isn't as important. Although the industry has left the daffodils remain. 

Our visit was in September, perfect bulb buying time. We bought the bulbs at The Old Mill Shop. The mill has been owned by the same family since the 14th Century. It's now a craft shop and sub-tropical gardens complete with peacocks. They had four varieties of bulbs. Early all of them. One promised to flower for November/December time. Conservatively we picked one that was a lovely buttery yellow for January flowers. Crewenna.

Daffodils Are Better Than Postcards

We knew that we probably wouldn't get a very early bloom. Even a balcony in Torquay isn't a Cornish Cove. As they were planted late and have only had a few months to establish I figured that would put them further behind. However, the first bloom pushed it's head open a few days before the end of January. I was pleased. Especially as they are so beautiful.

Grow To Eat: Nasturtiums

There are fun aspects to eating flowers. Especially if you do it in front of kids who find it fascinating. Or 'those ladies' who Cara and I were talking about in the comments the other day, they are fun to tease. My favourite flowers to eat are nasturtiums. They have a lovely peppery taste. The leaves go great in salads. I've picked nasturtium leaves to sit on Michelin star plates and ate them from my plain ones. They also make a lovely salsa. The pods can be pickled although I've never done it.

Nasturtiums, on a cold Mofo morning

They are incredibly easy to grow and both the leaves and the flowers look great. They come in a multitude of colours, including vivid red. They are a fabulous companion plant. What's not for the edible gardener to like? My growing advice is this: acquire seeds, sow when frost danger has passed... that's it. I find mine grow steadily over the summer with a spurt in September. they die off with frost. Last year at Occombe we pulled the remaining Nasturtiums out of cold November ground with shards of ice hiding in the foliage and I still came home with flowers.

And their bright red jelly

When I get a few flowers I love to make this jelly. I can't remember where I scrawled the original recipe from but I spent last summer making it, tinkering with it and making it more British. It's a super easy jelly to make, you can do it in just over an hour start to finish and you don't need a jelly bag. The colour depends on the colour of your nasturtiums, I like to grow vibrant reds.

Preserving the Floral Forage

This spring we didn't get much opportunity to forage but we did manage to get a decent harvest of flowers and as the elder flower is still out in force I'm sure it will continue. I tried my hand at preserving some of the flowers in a dandelion jelly (supposed to be a marmalade but I'm four years old and hate bits), a rose petal jelly and, elderflower cordial.

For the cupboard

Al Fresco

Last summer I was getting one big salad from the balcony a week. It was great and I loved it. I can't wait to get back into the habit this year as the weather warms up and the lettuce becomes an unstoppable force. But we aren't there yet. Fortunately a head of lettuce from Riverford is currently filling in the gap

Partly bought, partly home grown: a new season salad

I'm a believer in big salads. Salads have to fill you, they have to have lots of greens (my favourite part!) crispy veggies, herby stuff and tasty, tasty toppings. Bring me dressing. Croutons are optional. Grains are good. Cheese is decent. Falafel are better. So today's salad was lettuce, spinach falafel, balsamic vinaigrette and a few yums from the garden

Floral-Irish Fusion on a Cupcake

One of Stephen's co-workers used to live in America where a much bigger deal was made of St Patricks day then it is here. What with us being English and everything. But rather than have a sad programmer I made him a batch of green frosted cupcakes.

Some little plugs of violets that we bought at the weekend had also obliged us by coming into bloom so two of them where used to decorative the cakes but with Stephen insisting that they are supposedly edible this one got left until last. Sad.

Our former expatriate and the actual Irish chap Stephen works with were quite happy to see the day marked.

Harvest time: drying things out

Our balcony isn't know for how spacious it is. Especially not with all the plant pots. And it's especially cramped at the moment being cut across with a row of beautiful golden shallots. Briefly they lived in out living room, out of sunlight on baking parchment, a talking point for anyone who dropped by. Then in march they went in to one of our medium sized pots, 34" diameter, in spot that receives partial shade. With a little water and absolutely no fuss each bulb broke into a cluster of stunning autumn coloured gems, growing up and then fattening out. Now they are grown and drying across the balcony to be stored for later use. And that isn't all we are drying out right now.

Edible Blooms

I admit that I'm usually not a big fan of flowers in the house. It just seems such a waste. Especially if they have to be imported or grown at the wrong time of year or grown intensively. The part of me the can accept that it's sometimes necessary to grow food in the same way scoffs at the idea of using the same methods for decoration. I suppose I have more of a puritanical streak than I like to admit. And in my own conflicted way I'm still an eager and grateful recipient of cut flowers.

But these are guilt-free. Obtained neither by pouting or paying out myself these come straight off the balcony. Rather eccentric too with cornflowers being nestled in fennel leaves and the flowers of bolted rocket.

Flower Power

The Forage

I've foraged for dandelion flowers before. Last year I made a fowl tasting sore throat remedy to help me get through my endless colds. I put it in green tea to hide the taste. Eventually my taste buds must have told my throat to knock it off already. And that's how you cure the common cold. Revulsion.

So boiled to death and sugared up they taste awful but there is a well-known fact in our flat. If Alys Fowler says so we have to try it. So after watching her make dandelion fritters of this week's episode of The Edible Garden we really did have to.

Hers were dipped in pancake batter and fried so we did a twist on the traditional and used the (American style) pancake batter from Vegan with a Vengeance adapted slightly. The recipe is enough for around 15 dandelion heads which is a perfect for two people as a snack. Any leftovers can be used to make a tiny pancake.

Dandelion Fritters

For the batter:

• 40g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons water
• 75 ml soy milk
• a drop of vanilla extract
  

And:

• 15 dandelion heads
• icing sugar, for dusting

1. Whisk together the batter ingredients. Try to get it as thin as humanly possible. Or cheat. We use the whisk attachment on our mini blender.

2. Heat the pan with a little oil test that it is warm enough by dropping a bit of batter in. It should sizzle.

3. Holding the flower by the green back dunk it in the batter and splat it into the frying pan, yellow down. Do about half the flowers at once.

4. Once the bottom is browned, which should take no more than two minutes, flip over. You may need to push it down a bit with the spatula to cook evenly.

5. Once the other side of the fritter is browned remove from the pan and cook the other half in the same way.

6. Dust with icing sugar and eat.


The Pansy Problem

This pansy was supposed to a violet. I went shopping for violets. We walked up to the local B&Q and Focus. We comparison shopped for violets. I decided on the basic violets being cheaper and a mix of colours. I came home with pansies placed on the wrong shelf. Oz. I planted them anyway, fully prepared to resent them. But I love the colour of this one, and it's velvet soft petals. So perhaps pansies aren't so bad. Violets next year though.


The Promise

But by far the most exciting flowers we get are the ones that turn into food. There are a few strawberry flowers poking up right now and masses of black current. I know food plants aren't supposed to be beautiful and you are supposed to hide them away in a plot or patch rather than a garden proper but come on... who can look at this and not be excited. And who can say it isn't beautiful.

First Forage of the Season

When I saw that Riverford were selling their Wild Garlic I thought it was about time to drag Stephen to my favorite patch to see if the young leaves were in. Not quite up to last Aprils lushness yet but a few plants were ready for the harvest.

As the plants are young it is important to be extra careful. One or two leaves from each plant quickly adds up to a nice amount but without doing irreparable damage. It's important to be a responsible picker - trying to keep to paths, not talking an entire plant - both for the local environment and for the forager who hopes for a continuous supply.


I also helped myself to some of the young nettle tips we found. Returning form Cockington Supermarket I cooked up a simple, classic tea of pasta with wild garlic pesto (recipe on link above) I'm also going to try a recipe I have for nettle pesto once I'm feeling brave enough to get stung again.

See also: weekly crocus picture from the purple tub.


Post submitted to: Grow Your Own #40

'I'll turn you into a woooooo'

Even though it's gaining a great deal of popularity Halloween just isn't a big deal in the UK. Sure there are events (and anti-events for devout kids) and merchandising but it isn't the great cultural force that it is in America. Which admittedly I've only experienced in a rented house outside Orlando but felt real enough to me.


However it is an excuse for sweets and silliness so I've baked a bunch of cupcakes to take to workmates, volunteermates, and neighbours. They are graveyard dirt chocolate cupcakes with sludgy butter cream frosting and pumpkin goo (inexpertly) piped on top. Stuck in each one is a pumpkin, zombie, blood or... blue coloured lolly pop.

For Stephen's workmates we set them up on a table with our pumpkin, some roasted pumpkin seeds and some Halloween sweets.

Beaujolias

I feel guilty not having spent more time outside this week. Especially as the stunning Laura Ashley Sweetpeas have come into their own.

Beaujolias, said the seed packet. Beautiful burgundy, like velvet with a shocking violet centre. Colours squeezed as if straight from the paint tube.


I feel like I should be staring at them constantly. Taking in every burst of colour and the desperation of the tendrils, winding around whatever they can find.

I'm a sweet pea fan girl.

cut off twin flowers and placed them, as a surprise, on boyfriend's bedside. In our salvaged glass vase next to his Cambridge Alumni Magazine we can watch them even if it rains.

Wild Outside

This week's Wild Wednesday is straight from the balcony. I'm feeling rather proud as my hard work from earlier seasons is paying off now. I find each and every flower so exciting. What was a building site a year ago is now home to bees, butterflies, moths, spiders, flies, ladybirds and yes, even aphids. Yay.

In which I shall not mention that guerrillas sounds an awful lot like gorillas

Last year we had plans for a guerilla garden on a roadside verge. Most of the plants died in the great blackfly attack of 2008 and we didn't have anything left to garden with. Then we moved away from that patch.

We've been scouting out a new one for a while now. And it think we found the perfect spot. Torquay is littered with disused water fountains and although I'd rather they where still used to provide a free drink most off them just end up being... littered.

Through the years most of them have been topped up with concrete but this one is special. Judging from the state of it it looks like the leaves from the tree above fell in and created soil. Or perhaps someone dumped a load in at one point. Either way it has worms and soil but not much growing.

Enter Stephen and Clare. We popped down with a tape measure, a compass, a camera and a note pad. We made a diagram of the area and noted how much light it got. Discussing it over cake we decided we wanted to go for natives and shade tolerant plants.

We decided on red campion, primrose and wood sorrel. The campion will hopefully grow tall, the sorrel will hopefully grow and cover the soil a bit more and the primrose will do... whatever primroses do.

While we were waiting for Royal Mail to deliver our plants we popped down to clear the area. I would have lived to have got rid of that brick and swept away the leaves but the brick was heavy or I'm weak. Either way it's still there.

We decided to get rid of the weeds by cutting out a piece of cardboard to the shape of the fountain and cover it with compost. Then we placed a little sign (which has since been nicked) to say who we are and what the garden is for.

Today the exciting bit happened. Our plants arrived. After rush hour we went to the garden with our tools, water and the baby plants. I positioned them gracefully and artistically. Stephen, ever the mathematician, insisted on symmetry.

We dug through the top layer of compost and the card. This disturbed more worms than I'd ever seen in such a small place. It really was an encouraging happy sight. Especially for balcony gardeners like us.

We put the plants in without much fuss, only a supportive shout from the other side of the road, and called it a day. I admit that they don't look too impressive yet but plants grow and gardens look better with time and love. We'll give it plenty of both.


Edit: To find our garden.... We're on the corner of Falkland Rd and the Kings Drive. If you come out of Torre Abbey by the main gate look left and you will see us.

Going to war

This is not a good news post. It is the story of the first disaster on the balcony. And it involves crawly things. We'll start with the story of our Eau de Cologne mint (also known as orange or bergamot but in Latin Mentha x piperita f. citara).

I was quite proud when I brought it home for the Torre Abbey plant sale. I was intending to let it grow a while and then start using it for cosmetic things. Foot baths and the like.

While our primrose was too shocked to live long after we brought it home (a victim of a poor root system and our over enthusiastic desire to save it) our mint soon perked up and run rampant in the way only mints can.

Just after we returned from Chester we found this yucky yellow thing on it. Being new to this I was only able to reason that it was either some form of larvae or some form of mould. We took pictures and sent them off to Stephen's Dad. along with a begging note (as Stephen's Dad reads this blog I feel compelled to point out that Stephen wrote the note so if it wasn't sufficiently begging I apologise)


Anyway he told us that it was probably some form of yucky insect. Not the type of thing I want swimming around my feet in any case. He suggested removing it, washing it and/or cutting the damn thing back and hoping for the best. As it's a mint I thought it wouldn't hate me too much for cutting it back to soil level and begging it to grow again.

The only good part to the story is that I was able to bring it inside to treat it. There is a vicious wind out there right now and I've not been able to do anything on the balcony but tie things down for the last couple of days. So long live container gardening.

I inspected the entire plant. The two main parts both has the yellow yuck. I tried to remove it but it just caused the plant more harm. Then I spotted the green fly. Appalling little things but they seem to like the wind less then I do. The two main parts both got cut to the soil.

The lonely little baby though was free of both yellow and green yuckies. To be on the safe side I gave it a shower. The fast moving water should dislodge anything I've missed. I'll be keeping an eye on it over the next few days and keep a spray bottle of washing up liquid and water handy.

So far none of the other plants have been affected. Happily our jasmine and strawberries are in flower. I don't think it's the time of year for jasmine but I'm not going to argue. And yes that is my hand holding them still for the pictures. It's damn windy out there.

Throwing koans

We went away from my birthday so we missed wild Wednesday. Instead here are some offerings from Chester Zoo's (an annual birthday thing) green houses and gardens.


Yeah, as well as being an amazing zoo full of well kept animals with many successful breeding programmes Chester Zoo is also committed to plants.

The gardens and the plants in and around the animal exhibits are truly fascinating. I enjoyed seeing the medicinal plants such as tea tree and eucalyptus up close as well as what some of my herbs (pictured: chives) will look like when they grow up.


So we popped in the green house for a quick visit. The orchids, cacti, carnivorous plants and other tropical yummies kept our cameras occupied.

Unfortunately some of the most adorably coloured flowers weren't real These fabric flowers had a small cup inside for feeding the butterflies of the show stopping butterfly house.


Some of the other animal exhibits had tantalizing horticultural displays. This one I was tempted to pick. I've never had a Durian before but I'd love to try some.

Cures for Anxiety

I worry about the plants. Well of course I do, it's 8:22 and already I've hyperventilated today. But I worry a lot about the plants.

How can those tiny stems, only now poking up through the soil turn into a beetroot before winter? How can that green blob at the top of my soil grow leaves, start climbing and produce beans?

They are so small, so delicate. How am I ever going to get food from something so tiny?

Yesterday the tomatoes relived me of my worry. The beautiful yellow blossoms have been spotted. Hey, I've even got a baby tomato.

The tomato plant in question had a conception as accidental as mine. It was emerging from a tray of chives when I returned from Florida. Obviously a mix up in sowing.

I transplanted him and his brother into tiny pots of their own originally destined for the Torre Abbey plant sale (26th for those wondering)

The plant sale tomatoes left the nest before they could be donated. I swapped one for a Rosemary and gave another to Stephen's Dad. All that was left was my one accidental tomato plant.

Boyfriend suggested we leave it as an indoor plant to observe the differences. I transplanted it to a larger pot and a higher window. Almost immediately we noticed the flowers.

As the flowers depart, leaving tiny shrivelled yellow cases at the bottom of the pot, the stems support a tiny green jewel. Our first tomato.