fruit – TRAVEL WORDS

Red Squares in July

During July I will be joining in with Becky’s SimplyRed Squares.

Nature Photo Challenge: edibles

Once upon a time (2016) I ran a challenge on my Earth Laughs in Flowers blog with different topics for each month. During July it was edibles. So I have picked out a few of my favourites from that month for Denzil’s challenge this week.

As summer comes to an end you see the fruits appearing in the orchards all over the country. Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ and where better to show you fat, juicy, purple plums

and fresh crisp pears.

Known as zucchini in the USA, Germany and Australia from the Italian word zucchina or simply squash or baby marrows in other parts of the world. The word courgette comes from France. Although considered a vegetable in the culinary sense, botanically it is actually a fruit.

Herb gardens and potagers are favourites of mine. And herbs are really the only edibles that I have been successful in growing.

My herb garden: Society Garlic, Golden Marjoram, Lemon Verbena, Sage, Nasturtiums, Sweet Cicely, Parsley, Borage, Garlic Chives, Origanum

A potager is really a combination of a traditional English kitchen garden (which always used to be consigned to the back of the garden) and the style and elegance of a French garden. Plants are chosen for their edible and ornamental nature and put together in such a way to look beautiful whilst providing food for the table.

Potager where edible flowers and herbs grow among vegetables.

A potager can be any design, from traditional knot gardens to informal cottage garden style.

Sunflower seeds or kernels are commonly eaten as a snack food. Often used in bread making and baking, added to muesli and other cereals, mixed with peanut butter or even made in to sunflower butter as well as being sold as food for wild birds.

Finally my daughter’s allotment. With a growing family and a full-time job as a child minder as well as studying for a degree she no longer had time for it so had to give it up, but for several years she managed a plot a few hundred yards from her home where she learned how to grow her own produce for the table. Beans, carrots, onions, squash, courgettes, sweetcorn, garlic, peas, radishes, beetroot, strawberries, rhubarb and even Cape gooseberries.

An allotment is a lot of hard work – preparing the soil, digging in lots of compost and manure (where she lives it is all clay), weeding, sowing, watering, keeping bugs at bay – but the rewards are immense.

Not only the flavours of freshly picked produce, but also the ability to grow unusual varieties not found in the supermarket, the knowledge that no air miles are involved, the sense of achievement in growing your own and the enjoyment of sheer hard work keeping you fit and healthy and outdoors.

Denzil’s Nature Photo Challenge #24 | Edibles

Last Photo

Brian (aka Bushboy) is running a monthly challenge where he asks you to post the last photo on your SD card.

The rules are simple:
1. Post the last photo on your SD card or last photo on your phone for November.
2. No editing – who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like or the subject matter didn’t cooperate.
3. You don’t have to have any explanations, just the photo will do
4. Create a Pingback to this post or link in the comments
5. Tag “The Last Photo”

My first Persimmon fruit. Apparently there are two types: astringent, often called hachiya persimmon, and non-astringent, or fuyu. I’m not sure what this one is. I guess the firmer one (fuyu) so I peeled it and sliced it and ate it like an apple.

I found this description of the taste of the fruit online: “They have a silky, slippery texture and taste kind of like the fabulous fruity love child of a mango and a roasted sweet pepper, with some cinnamon in the background. They are rich and tangy and sweet, all at the same time.”

It tasted just like a mango to me. But I do like the internal star pattern.

March Square | Circles

If you fancy a distraction from the weather this month then join in with Becky’s (“A life of a 40 something”) March challenge of square photographs with the theme:

‘Squared Squares’ – think multiple squares and squares within squares
‘Squaring the Circle’ – the perfect post will be a circle within a square

March Square | 5th March

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.