A raspberry surprise
There was a report on the BBC World Service this week about the latest fast food ‘craze’ coming from Mexico. The technical term is entomophagy but to you and me it’s eating insects. The programme asked - will deep-fried bugs become the new sushi?
To which I would reply, I haven’t even got round to sushi yet.
However I might have been practicing a bit of entomophagy already. We have half a raised bed full of raspberry bushes in the garden and as I stroll round to look adoringly at the size of my prize-winning marrow* (watch this space) I like to idly pop a few ripe raspberries into my mouth.
I have to admit the taste is variable, some are lovely and some seem slightly musty, which previously I put down to age.
It wasn’t something I took a great deal of interest in until I looked a bit closer and found a shield-like bug clambering all over them. Not being an entomologist (just an entomophagist) I took a photo and compared it with other ‘shield-like bug’ photos on the internet. From which I got the fragrantly-sounding stink bug.
I’ve gone off the idea of idly picking raspberries off the bush now.
*not confirmed as yet, but a shoo-in, trust me.
The seedless variety...
One of the great joys of gardening is that there is always something in the garden to surprise you. And I’m not talking about a cheeky crunchy raspberry surprise. One of my greatest joys is finding plant volunteers in the garden.
Apart from anything else, their spontaneous appearance means that they are fully adapted to grow in your garden, they have chosen their own spot. A couple of years ago I chanced upon an iris-like, magenta-coloured flowering plant which turned out to be Schizostylis coccinea (or the Kaffir lily). Now having split it and spread it, there’s lots of late summer colour in the garden.
This year I suddenly realised I had a clump of purple phlox peeping out from under one of the bushes. There was a great deal of white phlox in our last garden, and the appearance of this purple variety was almost like a reminder to invest in some more. (Sadly too late in the season to find it at the garden centre though).
I don’t remember planting an apricot and yellow-flowered hollyhock but it was the most gorgeous colour. There was only one plant, but I resolved that after the seed heads had formed I’d collect a ton of them and get some seed germinated this autumn for planting next year. Maybe I should have said this out loud.
When I went out to collect them at the beginning of September I found that the lavender-killer had passed through with her green-wheelie-bin-of-death and along with the old allium heads had taken the mallow stalks, the daisies and the three hollyhock spikes that had been dripping with seeds.
That was a surprise.
I had a token look for the dacpitees in the compressed levels of green matter at the top of the green bin, but it was clearly somewhere a lot further below, down in the Mesozoic, so I gave up.
Maybe next year.
