FLOWER FRIDAY

We love our garden and get very excited when we see all the beautiful flowers, but today, I thought I would like to take a different sort of flower for the Flower Friday challenge.

Mr. HCB said that there were a lot of flowers in the greenhouse and having fought my way in through the tomatoes and cucumbers, this one caught my eye.  A friend gave Mr. HCB a pack of gherkins so he put them in, and said that if they came up they came up, but if not, then it didn’t really matter.

Well, he has four plants and they are covered with little yellow flowers and some already have the gherkins growing - I love gherkins so I might even try pickling some of them.  I read up on how to get rid of all the little spines - in fact, you just run them under some water and they come off quite easily, because actually, the first one that Mr. HCB picked was very small and it would have been difficult to peel it.

You may remember my Tiny Tuesday blip on 20th June, when I photographed the flower of the asparagus pea - Mr. HCB picked our first tiny peas yesterday - see my extra shot - and I used them in a stir-fry.  They look rather strange with their frilly edges but we both felt the delicate flavour was rather overpowered by the chilli sauce, so tonight I am going to steam some broad beans from the garden and also steam some of the asparagus peas, so that we can better judge the flavour of them.

The runner beans have set well, as have the purple mange tout and the tricolour courgettes are also looking good, so I guess once the lettuce finishes, we will be having a lot more stir-fries.  As for the onions and garlic, they are looking the best they have ever looked and Mr. HCB is very pleased.

You can’t beat vegetables and fruit straight out of the garden - just need a bit more sunshine now for the blueberries to ripen.  How could we ever be bored with all this beauty surrounding us in our garden? 

“Growing your own food
     is like printing your own money.
Gardening is my graffiti - 
     I grow my art.”
Ron Finley