On wintery days when the garden looks deeply dreary, it’s good to reflect on past summer brilliance and on summers to come.
Gardens
It’s Not Too Late To Plant Tulip Bulbs
In fact they are supposed to fare better disease-wise if planted towards the end of the year, rather than in autumn with the other spring-flowering bulbs. I came across this particular bouquet in Aardvark Books (Hereford’s wonderful second-hand book emporium and book lovers’ heaven). Stunning, isn’t it? You can well see why tulip mania broke out in 17th century Holland. (Perhaps one of history’s more benign expressions of humans losing all sense of proportion).
Tulips of course are not native to Europe (hence the excitement when they first arrived there). Their homeland is Turkey where they grow wild, and it was the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire who bred and filled their gardens with ever new varieties. Trade in the bulbs was forbidden and each new variety carefully recorded. But as might have been predicted with such highly desirable items, they escaped at last. And ever since we’ve had more and more new versions, each one designed to incite tulip lust. So much so, I find it impossible to choose whenever I look at a bulb catalogue. On the other hand, as I said, there’s still time to plant some…
Life in Colour: Kaleidoscope Jude wants plenty of colour from us this month.
A Spot Of Bird Watching
In the previous post Chasing the light over Townsend Meadow my header photo featured my ‘stand-on-bed-while-using-open-rooflight-as-tripod’ school of photography. I now confess to using the same method to spy on my local corvids. I think the pair flitting above the field fence may be carrion crows. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but we do have a couple who come daily to forage in Townsend Meadow. It is part of their territory that includes the Linden Field across the road. Also each year they come with an offspring. They call to each other across the field. I note a strain of lament in it.
But back to spying. If, with my stand-camera-on-open-window method, I then turn the lens 45 degrees to the right I can then cover activities in the rookery in the wood beside Sytche Lane. The lane borders the field boundary, and the wood borders the lane and is an unkempt sort of place inaccessible to us ordinary Wenlock folk. Both rooks and jackdaws congregate here, and in large numbers. At dusk, and particularly in autumn, they put on breath-taking balletic performances, swooping and swirling for many minutes over the meadow. If you happen to be out there when they start (sometimes my return from the allotment coincides with the opening passes of the corvid air show) it can be exhilaratingly eerie, and especially when a cohort, several dozen strong, whisks by my shoulder. There’s a rush of air. Wheeeeesh. Then gone before you register quite what happened.
You can get a gist of this phenomenon from my short video at the end of the post.
Related: Rooks Dancing in the New Moon
Orange Power
I thought this marigold square deserved another outing – essence of orange as visual infusion. And yes, I know. I keep writing about this particular cottage garden pharmacopoeia, so just to prove I’m not some old wife telling ill founded tales, here’s a scientific paper that highlights calendula’s potential for all manner of human ills, and calls for a thorough investigation of likely benefits. The list of this plant’s phytoconstituents is breath-taking:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3841996/
The paper also points out that pot marigold, Calendula officinalis, is used clinically around the globe, especially for skin complaints. This has been so for hundreds of years. It would certainly have been found in the monastic physic garden, and the medieval wife would also have grown it in her kitchen garden, since she was the one responsible for dealing with family ills in an era when ordinary folk had to shift for themselves when it came to illness.
Anyway, just looking at my current marigold horde at the allotment cheers me up. So here’s a further dose:
Past Repast, And Not Only For Bees
Today, Jude at Travel Words wants to see examples of edible orange. And just in case you think that only the bumble bees are enjoying my allotment nasturtiums, I have to confess I’ve lately been chomping the flowers whenever I go gardening. At the moment there’s a huge flock of them on the bed where I had broad beans earlier this summer. I’ve no idea how they got there (interspersed with pot marigolds) but they are making a colourful show, and their late arrival (seasonally speaking) means they have escaped depredations from cabbage white caterpillars and aphids.
The flowers are crisp, cool and peppery, and excellent added to salads along with their leaves. The seed heads are also edible, but due to their stronger flavour are perhaps better pickled than eaten ‘neat’.
The garden nasturtium has been much studied for medicinal benefits, and you can see some of the findings in the research paper HERE. This is a quote from the abstract:
The flowers and other parts of the garden nasturtium are a good source of micro elements such as potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, and macro elements, especially of zinc, copper and iron. The essential oil, the extract from the flowers and leaves, and the compounds isolated from these elements have antimicrobial, antifungal, hypotensive, expectorant and anticancer effects. Antioxidant activity of extracts from garden nasturtium is an effect of its high content of compounds such as anthocyanins, polyphenols and vitamin C.
I shall thus keep chomping until the frost finishes the present crop. Meanwhile, too, the flowers are still available for any late-hibernating bee in need of a pollen fix.
And Another View Of Yesterday’s Mystery Square…
It comes with added red tailed bee bum, and so the mystery is revealed…a globe artichoke flower, or rather an artichoke inflorescence since each part is an individual small flower. There were several valiant stabs at it, but Jude and Izzie were the first to guess correctly.
The up-close version as seen in yesterday’s response to I.J. Khanewala’s challenge at Lens-Artists
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And here’s an artichoke flower just opening, the scaly outer leaves meanwhile serving the constructional purposes of a small green spider:
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And now for the whole plant. I grow several globe artichoke varieties at the allotment. The purple ones are probably our favourites:
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Here’s one in the throes of being prepared as an artichoke heart, i.e. before having its inner leaves and hairy choke scooped out:
And now for a ‘B’ Movie: ‘Three Bees In An Artichoke’
Summers Past: Bees In My Border
Past Perfection: Marigolds
Like cosmic solar entities dropped into the garden: what’s not to love about the orangeness of pot marigolds (Calendula officinalis). They are among my favourite flowers, which is just as well as they grow everywhere on my allotment plots. I mostly let them do as they please. They keep on flowering too – from summer through autumn and sometimes into December. I use the petals in brighten up my salads, but I think the whole plant is edible – in fact a miniature pharmacopoeia in every stem. My medical herbalist’s guide lists numerous healing properties, besides which, just looking at them makes me feel better.
Passing them on to brighten your Monday.
Life in Colour: Orange Jude’s October colour selection at Travel Words
Past Squares #4 Becky says interpret the concept of ‘past’ however we will – just so long as the header photo is square.
Past Glories
We’ve been having a brilliant show of morning glories this year, but the sudden switch from summer to autumn is now dampening their spirits – more dreariness than glory. Still, their portraits from sunnier days make a cheery show.
Day’s End Over The Garden Fence
Summer came back this week, a few days of full-on sun before tomorrow’s promised thunder storm. As you can see, the helianthus in the guerrilla garden are all of a glow, caught here yesterday evening – sun dipping over Wenlock Edge. Even Townsend Meadow, recently doused with herbicide, looked quite good in sundowner light. The story here is that after the barley was harvested in July, much of the fallen grain germinated, turning the field into a grassy sward. This has now been dealt with. Next comes the ploughing and drilling. It is also the season of muck spreading, though thankfully not in the field behind the house. Even so, the odour is wafting about the town, especially pungent when combined with a heat wave. All of which is to say, beauty presently comes with a bit of a whiff.
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Meanwhile back in the Farrell jungle, all is gold…
