Sorrel and Nasturtiums
Nipped up to Scarlett’s allotment in Hampstead this evening. What a little haven, a paradise! All you can hear are birds singing!
We went to pick sorrel for this week’s menu. I will make a soup using this lemony leaf. I also found Nasturtium flowers for the salad and comfrey, a compost accelerator.
To one side there were bee houses; a posh one and the ‘backpackers’ scruffy hostel. The bees chose the ‘backpackers’. Legend has it that bees will die if you don’t inform them first of a death in the family.
“At Stallingborough, in Lincolnshire, about 1840, a few days after the death of a cottager, a woman staying with the bereaved family asked the widow “Have the bees been told?”. The reply being in the negative, she at once took some spice cake and some sugar in a dish and placed the sweets before the hives…”
oo I have never tried sorrel – do you have to purposely grow it or can you find it wild? Like the little story about bees – they are fascinating aren't they?
Love the story about the bees! They're certainly very special creatures.
I sow it purposely Curious Cat, but you can find wild sorrel.
We picked my overwintered sorrel for Ms ML's soup and I'll sow another crop this weekend, both biodynamic 'leaf' days.
I'm totally obsessed by the bees!