Wild Garlic

When we went to the bluebell woods a couple of weeks ago, we stopped off along the way to pick wild garlic first. We've been doing this for a few years now, and it's become one of the seasonal markers in our year.

From mid-April into May the unmistakeably pungent aroma greets the nostrils of anyone who passes through the woods or along roadsides where it grows. We followed the path and went over the stile, and we were there, surrounded by garlic.

Like bluebells, it grows in deciduous woodland and carpets the ground with little white flowers when in bloom. Its other names are ransoms, bear's garlic, jack-by-the-hedge and stinking jenny, and it is a member of the allium family which includes onions, leeks, garlic and chives. 

Unlike garlic, it's the leaves which are eaten, and not the bulbs, but care must be taken when picking not to take too many leaves from one plant. You must also ensure that you have identified the correct plant (your nose will tell you!) For anyone interested in foraging, this book is invaluable, and gives rules on picking.

The flowers are pretty little globes of white stars, although apparently you should aim to pick before too many of the flowers have opened, as the taste is better. I smelt the flowers, and they have a curious perfume of honey mixed with garlic which was not unpleasant!

There were lots of other signs of spring that day - buds were opening on the trees.

Tiny yellow celandines were dotted here and there on the ground.

Red campion was also in bloom, such a pretty wild flower. It always seems to link spring into summer for me, coming as it does, as the bluebells are past their prime.

Its hairy stems are particularly attractive, and so soft to the touch. I can remember picking them as a child and putting them in jam jars with butter cups and cow-parsley.

 The buttercups were there too, a gorgeous saucer of egg-yolk yellow.

Bright and sunny, with reflective waxy petals to catch the light.

So much to see in one quick trip to the woods! All around us the carpet of green and white stretched under the trees and we worked quickly, collecting a couple of bags of leaves to take home.

Once home, I washed and roughly chopped the leaves, and then whizzed them up in a little processor to chop them very finely. I then whizzed up some pine nuts, grated some parmesan and mixed it all together with lots of olive oil to make pesto.

  

The smell is absolutely heavenly, and so appetising, I can almost smell it when I look at this picture! I put some into jars, and the rest I froze in little tubs and ice-cube trays, so that we can enjoy it into the rest of the year.

I've got a small patch in the garden which my son planted for me a year ago, and will use a few leaves to make some cheese and garlic scones, as well as putting it in a salad. It goes especially well with tomatoes and mozzarella, and can be used in the same way as spinach in many recipes, wilting down very quickly when added at the end of cooking. We like to eat it with pasta and courgettes, and when we do it reminds us of our trip to the woods.

Rain

It looks as though we're in for a spell of lovely weather with blue skies and warm sun, but over the last week we've had a mixed bag of heavy rain and sunny skies, with a lot of strong winds as well. One minute the sky was gunmetal grey under a heavy blanket of cloud.

And the next minute the clouds were blown away and the sun came out.

It really was a case of 'sunshine and showers', The winds were very testing for the new leaves on the trees and many have been blown off completely, but everything is growing so fast now, it's always a surprise and a pleasure to go into the garden and look at the new growth. And I always remind myself that the rain is responsible in great part for this.

I love to walk in the garden after rain at this time of year to look around. One of our bird baths is becoming hidden by foliage.

And a bird-feeder turned into a mini bird-bath 

The pebbles around the shed looked wonderfully shiny and colourful after rain.

Unfortunately the rain brings out these little creatures with all of their friends and relations, and they do love to feast on my seedlings!

However, raindrops catch most beautifully on the leaves of certain plants, such as aquilegia 

and lady's mantle

Raindrops and sparkling dew gather so perfectly in its leaves that in medieval times the water droplets were used by alchemists when trying to change base metals into gold, hence its Latin name of alchemilla. It was also believed that the dew had magical youth-preserving properties, which led women to wash their faces in it.

I also love the look of rain on slate. Our roof is tiled in slate and after it has rained it looks wonderfully shiny and dark. When he wrote his 'Poem in October' Dylan Thomas described this effect as he looks down on the town of Laugharne below him

'Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail

With its horns through mist and the castle

Brown as owls' 

When I look at wet roofs I'm always reminded of these lines. Somehow I don't seem to mind the rain so much at this time of year. Maybe it's because I can see how it makes everything grow, or because I know that summer isn't far away. It makes me enjoy the sunshine when it comes too! x

Bluebell Woods

This weekend was a long bank holiday weekend, and we felt in need of a visit to the woods. In particular, bluebell woods. They are usually at their best a little later in the month, but we had already glimpsed many in grass verges and in gaps in trees from the car when we've been out and about. I knew there was no time to spare, if we were to catch them at their peak, and so off we went to some woods a couple of miles away from where we live. The woods are in the grounds of a big old estate, and a road bisects them. We parked the car and after a few minutes came to a large patch of them.

That blue haze is unmistakeable, and Sara Maitland refers to their 'strange smoky shimmer' in her book Gossip from the Forest (a brilliant read if you're a fan of woodlands, forests or fairytales).

They are such a quintessential spring flower. The UK has around 50% of the world's bluebells, as we have just the right damp climate and plenty of ancient deciduous woodland. In Scotland the little campanulas that English people call harebells are called bluebells.

English native bluebells, or hyacinthoides non-scripta, have that unmistakeable droop to them and are an intensely violet shade of blue. They are sadly in decline because they hybridise with the Spanish bluebells which most of us have in our gardens. You can read about it here.

I got down to their level to smell them, and oh, the perfume! It's so delicate, and always puts me in mind of the scene in my favourite novel 'I Capture the Castle' in which Cassandra and her sister Rose visit a department store in London and find a bluebell scent for sale. They are poor and yearn for it, but later on when Cassandra is given it as a present she realises that it can't compare with the smell of the real flowers. I wonder if that's why the scent of bluebells isn't more widespread in modern perfumes.

Bluebells frequently grow under beech trees, and these woods were no exception. Beech leaves are so fresh and green this time of year and I love to see the sunlight through them

The trees around us were very tall and straight and the atmosphere so still, calm and quiet.

On the woodland floor there were many tree stumps attractively covered in moss and ivy.

There were several wild flowers in bloom too. The strangest one is arum. It has many other names such as cuckoo-pint, lords-and-ladies, jack-in-the-pulpit, wake robin, friar's cowl and devils-and-angels to name a few. Some of its names are rather rude, and a good deal of folklore is attached to it.

I also saw herb robert, which is a member of the geranium family, and has a smell like coriander.

There were also some lovely wild violets, growing amongst the ferns.

I'm glad we got out to see the bluebells at their best. They really are so uplifting. Hope you get to see some too this May x

Crochet bag

I've always preferred hand-made fabric or yarn bags to leather-type handbags, and as a result have made quite a few of my own. A while ago I decided to make a shoulder bag from a single skein of this rather lovely yarn. There are so many colours to choose from and these pastelly, watery hues are full of spring colours.

Here's the finished product ...

It's a very chunky yarn and varies between thick and thin as you crochet, producing an uneven, hand-spun look.

I used a size 10 crochet hook and made it in double crochet. Once made, I lined it with pale blue felt, and finished it off with a shell button. (It definitely needs to be lined because the wool is so chunky. I tried it without and soon found that my keys and pens were trying to escape!)

I have a collection of shell buttons and a fascination for small things such as buttons and beads. Shell, or pearl, buttons come from the sea, and go so well with these soft water-colours. I like the unevenness of their texture, and the muted natural tones.

They come in different shapes

and are sometimes dyed in bright, fun colours.

After trying several different ones I decided upon this large, pale one which reflects the colours around it. When I look at my bag I am reminded of Monet's chalky, pastel colours and water-colour paintings.

More bags to come another time x

May

How I love May, the prettiest and freshest month of all, a month of blossom and froth!

This picture of our apple blossom was taken a week ago, and already most of it has fallen. Just a few flowers remain, but just look at that delicate blush of pink against the white and green. The petals are lightly veined and the blossom has such a sweet smell, a foretaste of apples to come in the autumn.

Here is a close-up of the cherry blossom which I featured in my last post. It's quite different, a native cherry, white but with rather lovely long yellow stamens. We bought it just after we moved into our house 16 years ago, paying the princely sum of 99p for it from an offer in a newspaper. It arrived as a twig wrapped in damp newspaper. Now it towers over our garden and birds like to sit in it.

Another white 5-petalled flower with yellow stamens is the wild strawberry. We have masses of it in our garden and in just a few weeks' time we'll be able to have those little strawberries on our breakfast cereal. 

This is turning out to be a post full of white and green! Here's some more.

The lawn is studded with daisies and always makes me think what a pretty pattern for fabric it would make. They couldn't be more cheerful or fresh-looking against that vibrant green.

Here's Clover the cat posing amongst the daisies (and dandelions), soaking up the sun. 

I'm so glad that May is here. Summer is just around the corner, but we still have a good deal of spring left to enjoy. Hope the sun shines where you are x

Shades of blue

At this time of year there seems to be so much beautiful blue around. As you may have guessed, purply-blue is a colour I love. Our front door and gate are painted this colour, as are the bathroom, our dresser and the back of the house! The garden is also full of blue. These grape hyacinths, or muscari, have frilly white edges to their 'bells', and I love the way the stem turns from green to blue as it reaches the flowers.

It's so good to be able to look closely at tiny forget-me-not flowers and see, not only their yellow centres, but streaks of pink in their petals.

Here is a rosemary flower in close-up. The flowers are surprisingly complicated. Because our garden is quite small, space is limited, so I bought a variety called 'Mrs Jessop's Upright' in the hope that it wouldn't sprawl across its neighbours. It's still attempting to, though!

This a gorgeous early-flowering clematis. It grows up the side of our shed (I forgot - that's blue too), and is a delight in April. The colour is truly heavenly.

Below is a little primrose that I bought last year. It's called 'Zebra Blue', and you can see why. Look at those amazing stripes!

Of course, I mustn't forget bluebells. These are the most common garden ones, Spanish bluebells. They aren't as delicate as their wild relatives, but the colour is still intense.

And here is something altogether more purple ... violets.They self- seed around my garden, and are so sweet, but often easy to miss. Wordsworth described them in his 'Lucy' poems:

.

'A violet by a mossy stone

Half-hidden from the eye!'

And now a bit more blue - that fabulous spring sky.