Dreadful trade

Had some very nice Samphire with dinner last night, though to my eternal shame (as a supposed wild forager) it came from a supermarket, no doubt at great expense. Raw, it can be very salty, but boiled briefly or steamed and served with a knob of butter (unsalted) it's great.

My wife was trying to sell it to the kids as seaweed, though it is actually a true flowering plant. The flowers, though, are tiny; mere scales on the surface of the cylindrical fleshy stems. The seeds form inside, and when ripe the whole plant shrivels and breaks up into segments, each containing a seed, which are then washed away on the tide. This puts them in the charming category of 'propagules' - units of propagation - rather than true fruits. You can have that bit of useless information for free.

Our native Samphires are a complicated group belonging mostly to the genus Salicornia. They are all very similar, requiring an expert with a hand-lens to tell them apart, and they languish under the burden of names like Salicornia dolichostachya. Luckily for the wild food enthusiast they are all equally edible and pretty distinctive. The saltmarshes where they grow undergo a transformation at this time of year to rival our broadleaved woodlands, as the Samphires and their relatives turn red, purple and gold.

The title of this post, incidentally, comes from King Lear - 'Halfway down hangs one that gathers Samphire - dreadful trade'. That actually refers to another, unrelated, plant - Marsh Samphire. This member of the carrot family is more often found on rocks and cliffs than in saltmarsh, and was collected for the table at great personal risk to the collector, hence the 'dreadful trade'. It is just as edible as its namesakes, though with (not surprisingly) more of a carrot/celery flavour.

Meanderings

A very enjoyable, but also unsuccessful, expedition today in search of crayfish. Rumour has it that they can be found in a certain stream not far from the village, where local children hoik them out in their hundreds and sell them to posh restaurants.

That's the rumour - in practice all we found was one tiny Bullhead. Still, a wonderful little stream with some of the best meanders I've seen for a long time, and lovely to see the kids wading around and poking nets into corners, albeit for no return.

Rocket Man

I love a bit of rocket in a salad, but I've never let it bolt before. It's actually quite attractive, a bit like the native Sea Radish:

Wildflower ID Course

Great first session of this year's wildflower course - perfect venue, enthusiastic participants, tea and biccies... and I get paid to waffle on about something I enjoy.

What's not to like?

New project

Today I mostly sowed a meadow in a wheelbarrow.

I know, I know - it seems like a strange thing to do, but I wanted something to take to shows that was a little bit more interesting than leaflets and flyers.

So thanks to a chap called Nic, via Freegle, I have an old wheelbarrow. Yesterday I filled it with our horrible clay sub-soil, and today I sowed it with a wildflower mix. I may post photos as it develops...

Possible source of tadpoles identified:

Put a little bee house in your soul

Lots of insect activity in the garden this weekend, and it was gratifying to see the bamboo bee house actually being investigated by three solitary bees (are they really solitary if there are three of them?).

At least one now seems to have taken up residence.

Weed

On a day like this, even the humble dandelion looks good.

Produce

In a neat bit of re-use, I forced some rhubarb under a tower of three old car tyres. We had the first crop the other day, stewed with stems and leaves of Sweet Cicely for a bit of an aniseed tang. Very nice, though I say so myself.

And the tyres are now free to be filled with soil and spuds.

Down on Jimmy's Farm

Had a great tour round Jimmy Doherty's pig farm near Ipswich today, with farm manager Nathan, a man of boundless enthusiasm. Spoke of many possible projects, from meadow creation to biomass. All very exciting.

I hope it is the beginning of a fruitful association.

Taddies' daddies

And speaking of which, what about this pair?

I think he looks a bit spent...

Taddies

I found myself watching tadpoles in our pond today, and then realised that I hadn't really stoppped and watched them for years, probably not since I was a kid.

Note to self: don't forget to take the time to watch things like tadpoles. They're brilliant!

Foreign Flowers are Eating our Wildlife, says Daily Mail

My old mate Andy Tasker seems to be causing a bit of a stir with his website IHateDaffodils His contention is that they don't belong in the English countryside, apart from those few small areas where they are native, and are ousting our own native flora.

I have mixed views about this (sorry, Andy). I agree that planting non-native species in the wider countryside is a Bad Thing. Always. Daffs are no exception. But I'm not convinced that they are aggressively invasive in the same way as, for instance, Japanese knotweed.

Having said that, I visited one of the Notts Wildlife Trust's remotest nature reserves, down a bone-shaking gravel track out the back of a miles-from-anywhere village. And lo and behold, there in the reserve entrance...

A nice clump of daffs.

Who is it that does this? Who travels all these miles to add to the aesthetic appeal of our finest widlife sites with the addition of a clump of Tete a Tete? I would like to meet them. With no witnesses around.

Hedgerow bounty

First forage of the year - wild garlic. Made wild garlic pesto, with fresh grated parmesan, olive oil and (if I'm honest) a bit too much wild garlic.

Note to self - go easy with it next time. Oh, and get some pine nuts. And mouthwash...