June’s Garden Update
A Strawberry or Two…
When I’m planting a container, or any little secret corner really, I’m in the habit of sneaking a strawberry plant or two into the mix. This is primarily for small hands to find in passing, but I also just think it looks very jolly (it’s impossible to look at a big fat strawberry and feel unhappy - try it, you can’t). Way back when I was a student, I wrote a paper on the symbolism of the many plant carvings found in Rosslyn Chapel, thirteen miles from here, amongst which are strawberries. I remember reading at that time that small children in medieval times were tasked with, amongst other things, collecting berries to feed their families and indeed in the Brothers Grimm tale ‘The three Little Men in the Wood’, the collecting of strawberries symbolises diligence and kindness on the part of the young protagonist.
The strawberries referred to by Rosslyn’s master masons and likely also those mentioned in the Grimm tale would be different to the strawberries I am hiding around the garden today. Theirs would be the wild strawberry, or Fragaria vesca, the much smaller cousin of the culinary strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa). F. vesca can be seen scrambling under hedgerows and along woodland margins, and has much smaller, sharper fruits that are best enjoyed opportunistically, straight from the plant, due to the small yield and fragile fruits. I won’t labour the point here but it is a plant mired in symbolism dating back as far as Roman times, via Vikings and Renaissance painters. By comparison F. x ananassa didn’t exist until a cross was made the 18th century between one North and one South American species. This cross has since been manipulated continuously to extract the desirable characters that we associate with strawberries today – size, colour, yield, flavour, scent etc. but to me the point remains the same, so keep your eyes peeled if you’re visiting us in June.
❦
Now that the last of the annuals have been planted, we are in full on weeding and tidying mode. This lasts usually from around mid-May until late August, or until we really just can’t stand it anymore and need to find other things to do – whichever comes first. The garden is not just abundant with weeds though - we’re already reaping the rewards of earlier sowings of salads, and have been harvesting radishes, mizuna, rocket, lettuce, and pak choi for a couple of weeks now. We sowed new batches of those last week, scattering seeds like love letters to summer, and a hopeful but very late second batch of parsnips after the first one failed to materialise (any tips appreciated!). So much of what happens from here on in is in the lap of the gods, but what I can say is that for now the gardens are looking glorious in their early summer regalia, and we realy hope you’ll come and see us and perhaps find a strawberry or two.
Kate