I might have maligned the doves. A few months ago I accused them of eating all the black poppy (Papaver somniferum) seeds which I had sown way back in February .
Now I'm not so sure. Beautiful darkish hued poppy flowers are slowly unfurling around the garden. If one looks deep and long enough into the heart of these flowers they are black.
On the other hand I also sowed seed of Hungarian Breadseed poppies, (also Papaver somniferum) saved from my 2021 harvest, and which I use in baking, especially pancakes and muffins. This week's blooms could be those. This is a garden mystery which I can live with.
I couldn't resist picking a handful of fava beans to steam for breakfast. This young and fresh, I eat them with the skins on.
Just a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds makes a delicious, tasty meal with hardly 30 minutes from cutting from bush to my mouth. Garden to table sometimes works at this time of year.
Though it is hard when I know how tasty they are at this green stage, I shall try to let some of the fava bean crop mature for dried beans for the off season food pantry and seed bank.
The deliciously cocoa scented, night/early dawn blooming Chocolate flowers (Berlandiera lyrata), a southwestern USA and Mexico native perennial, is covered in flowers, perfuming morning pranayama in the garden.
Mosquitoes, the first this season, also attended my early morning forays in the garden today, thanks largely to a rare overnight thunderstorm which brought a welcome almost half inch of rain, leaving everything moist with puddles and dripping foliage this morning. Mosquito heaven.
The birdbaths and rainwater tanks were treated, a few days ago, with granules which promise to zap mosquito lava while not affecting other life which depends on those water sources.
Yarrow (I forget which variety but shades of pink and rust) and Santolina are just starting to add their colours to the unexpected cottage garden outback, while this season's garlic (right of image) is possibly just a month away from harvest.
I even manage a few cut flowers for the household altars, though I mostly prefer to enjoy them in their natural and/or deliberately gardened setting.
My ancestors from both maternal and paternal sides gave me love of, curiosity about and respect for plants, as well as the pursuit of the mystery and magic of gardening as a thing to do with a life. For which I am truly grateful.
Daily I realize how much I still have to learn about different climates, geographies and plant personalities in my wanderings.
These days I am hugely grateful, too, to the Last Emperor who continues the teachings that the ancestors began in me, and who gifted the outback the outline of a garden design which mysteriously resists all attempts at xeric minimalism.
Ja. Nee. No fine.
Sometimes love is a thing with thorns.
Or horns.
Or both.