More weeds...

I have too many dandelions in my garden, and they're not easy to pull out. They have such long twisty roots, which invariably break and regenerate. But according to various books and websites it seems that every part of this plant is edible and very nutritious.

The leaves and roots can be made into a gentle diuretic tea. The leaves can also be used in salad, fried, boiled or even wrapped around cheese. The roots can be eaten raw or cooked, or can be roasted and ground and used as a coffee substitute. The flowers can be added to salad, fried in batter, or made into wine. Even the seeds can be sprouted and eaten.

So why do we pull them up and mutter and curse about them? I guess it's because we can't control where they grow.

I took pictures of the seed head just for the fun of it. Here is a sample of three photos....

I hope it's given the impression of the seeds with their parachutes blowing away from the main plant.

Time to confess: I cheated and placed the seed head on a glass table top, and then knocked a few seeds off and spread them around to look as if they'd blown away. Did my trick work?

By the way, Dandelion is from the french dent de lion which means lion's tooth, because the leaves have a ragged tooth shape.

Vicious Stinging Nettles

It's that time of year when I do battle with stinging nettles. They creep into my garden, hiding among the flowers and fruit, and seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere, fully grown, and towering over everything else.

The other day I set to work pulling up a couple of clumps that had grown out of their hiding place in two quince bushes that grow against a fence in my garden. Being an old hand at dealing with this perrenial weed, I wore long thick gardening gloves and started pulling. As well as the danger of being stung, the quince bushes are quite thorny, so I was very careful.


You can see above that they've just popped up through the quince, but by the time I see them they're pretty big and very vicious.

Here is a closeup of one of the leaves. Those fine hairs on the leaves and on the stems are what cause all the pain.

Despite taking very good care, I still got an extremely nasty sting on my arm just above the edge of the gardening gloves. I pulled too hard, too fast and too low down the stem, and the top of the plant whiplashed onto my bare arm. Ouch!

I may have been wounded, but look where the nettles ended up. Score so far: 1-1

Apparently they make a good and nourishing soup, but it would take a huge leap of faith for me to even try it.

Fruit feast

I've spent a good part of today working on the vegetable patch. I'm happy to say that the strawberries have started to ripen.

I picked my first batch yesterday, and they were absolutely delicious.

The raspberries are just thinking about turning red, and I don't have a net over them, something I need to do in the next day or so, or the birds will get to feast on the fruit before I do.
Just a bit ahead of the raspberries, but not quite ready yet, the blackcurrents are starting to darken. This particular bunch should be ready to eat in a few days.
It's so exciting going out there each morning, to see what's ready and what's developing. It's so rewarding.

Flowers Everywhere

I went to the Chelsea Flower Show yesterday, and it was, as usual, a truly amazing experience. I've posted some of the show gardens I saw there, and as you can see there was even a flower-decked bus on the road outside.

This garden was called "From Life to Life, A garden for George" and was dedicated to George Harrison. It was so lovely.....

Inside the covered area there were displays of different types of flowers, and one central display was a huge circular walkway made entirely of roses, so I got lots of shots. I've put a selection of them in a blog I've called Roses, which you can find by going to my profile and clicking on it (or you can click here ).

A barrowful of bulbs

I've been taking advantage of the nicer weather to tidy up the flower beds in my front garden. I've dug up all the montbrecia in one of the smaller beds, and put a few clumps back in after planting a Jasmin that my mother gave me, and replanting a bleeding heart that I had planted too far back originally. This is what's left over, even after giving the equivalent amount of bulbs to my next door neighbour.

So I think I'll pot some of them up and hopefully people may want some later on. They look gorgeous when they're in flower, with orange flowers growing up a stem.

Growing my Own

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous, and so I took advantage of the warm sunshine to go outside and start working on my vegetable patch. I had already transferred the strawberry plants from one end of the patch to the other, so I dug up any strays that I missed last time and moved them to the new strawberry area.

I decided to divide the big patch up into three smaller patches, with pathways in between, so I laid some posts down as markers and allocated these areas:


The strawberry area is 4 feet by 7 feet, with a small patch of asparagus at the top. These are all perennials, which self propagate and come back year after year, so it's just a question of keeping them tidy.

I've decided to try companion planting, so I've allocated a 4 ft by 3 ft area for brassicas (cabbage and broccoli) with celery, oregano and thyme to deter cabbage white butterflies. I will also plant salad greens in between to keep the area productive until the brassicas get going. This will be the first area I plant. The four green shoots you can see are bits of an onion that I had which was past eating, and had shooted. I broke it up into four separate bulb, but the two at the front have no roots, so I don't know how they'll do, or even whether each of them will grow into a big onion.(?)

I've allocated the area at the back for something that's known as 3 sisters: corn, beans and squash. You plant the corn indoors and when it's ready to transplant, you put it outside and plant a couple of beans at the base of each corn. Meanwhile, you start of your squash plant in pots indoors. The corn grows, and the beans grow up the corn. Then you plant the squash at the base of each of these, and that covers the ground. It sounds brilliant, in theory.

Here's a picture of the tools I used this afternoon. The hook like tool is the best weeder I've ever used. I got it at a National Trust shop, but I've just checked their website and couldn't find it. I hope they haven't stopped stocking them, because it's a really good gadget.


I'll post regular updates as the vegetable patch gets planted and grows. There are two more smaller patches (4 ft by 8 ft) that I've never planted in before. I'm planning to get them started this year.

Yesterday I mowed the lawn

Well actually, I've just looked at the clock and realised that it's 1 a.m., so strictly speaking I mowed the lawn the day before yesterday. It was quite cold, but the sun peeked out long enough to warm the mower so that it started when I pulled the cord. It was amazingly long in spots, and when I'd finished the back lawn I felt like taking a break. But the sun had gone behind clouds and I was afraid that if I took a break and the mower got cold I wouldn't be able to start it again. So I went straight on to mowing the front lawn.

You may wonder why I'm mowing the lawn when we've had a snow forecast for Easter. The reason is that the grass was quite long, and my daughter was coming home and bringing Hooli (the Australian Shepherd) with her. I was worried that if Hooli went out into the garden and did a poop in the long grass, we'd never be able to find it. So you see there's method to my madness.

About 30 seconds after I finished it started to rain, or rather sleet!