Please buy Local/UK Flowers!!!

I've joined Vanessa Kimbell's campaign to change our attitude to buying flowers.  To me it's just a short step from "going local, seasonal and British" for food to flowers.  I've long had a big problem with those bunches of "garage flowers" seen on fuel station fore-courts which are often bought as last-ditch guilt-presents for un-suspecting hostesses or long-suffering wives and girlfriends!  I've long detested those big, blousey bouquets of stinky lillies which "puff" out their over-powering scents.  Even worse when they're proudly displayed in restaurants, wafting over the food!  Imported, long-stemmed roses on Valentine's Day are guaranteed to turn me off!  Out of season flowers, flown half-way round the world to appear in our houses at Christmas are simply one big No! No! to me.

What I love is to follow our seasons for natural, UK/home-grown flowers.  Searching the bare garden for the first sight of January snow-drops.  That splash of yellow from the winter aconite.  The keen anticipation of the first daffodils is, to me, as exciting as the first shoots of the new season's rhubarb.  Spring flowers represent the freshness of the new year and the scent of blue-bells in a damp wood is to me a wonder of the world!  A bowl of old English roses, shedding petals over polished wood and posies of summer wild flowers rammed into jam jars are more delightful than any over-done floral display of unnaturally-forced imported upstarts!  By following the flower season there will always be interest for your vases and you can set your calendar by it!

I bought this gorgeous bunch of tulips from my local butcher in Leintwardine and they were grown on a local farm.  I just could not resist them.  Please show your support for home-grown UK flowers by joining Vanessa's challenge.  Click here!  British Bloggers in Support of British Flowers Challenge

Sprouts. Love them or hate them!

Sprouts may not be only for Christmas however they do make a good, edible door wreath! 

Tomatoes in January

The other night our on-site weather station recorded -5 and yet we're still gathering tomatoes from our un-heated greenhouse.  All these salad leaves and greens are growing in the ground outside and a ladybird visited my kitchen yesterday!  Salad days are here again!