The pickings for the colander harvest are a little thin at the moment but at least there is the over-wintered flat-leaf parsley. It is looking good today.
A pinch of parsley
I enjoy using both flat and curled parsley with lemon juice in salads, but somehow the flat-leaf parsley seems more evocative of summer holidays in France or Italy.
I am going to use it to make a tabbouleh to share with my visiting US and locally-based London cousins. Although the parsley tastes good even though it is a winter harvest I can hardly wait until the first summer harvest of my tomatoes.
Handy Barbara
I am usually alarmed if a little pink finger is showing across the lens of my camera but today I have deliberately taken a ‘finger-selfie’ so that I can post this tiny blog in my friend Michelle Chapman’s Twitter #mygardenrightnow event this weekend (4 and 5 March). (You can find Michelle on Twitter – her handle is @Malvernmeet.)
I have to say that taking a photograph of one hand cutting herbs into a colander is quite a feat (pun not intended)!
Apricot buds
The apricot is causing me a mixture of joy and apprehension: it is so lovely to see its pale pink to white buds opening on the shoots. But I am so fearful that the weather will damage them, that there will be a frost or that the pair of lovely bullfinches that have visited the garden in past springs will appear once more. Last year there were but a handful of apricots on the tree, compared to the bucket-load that there were in 2015.
I live in hope!
Oh I love tabbouleh, it’s one of my favourites! I must grow more flat leaf parsley this year…
Thanks for taking part Barbara! Note, there’s a Link app in my blog post today for you to add your post’s URL to, so that people can visit you 🙂
Thanks Michelle: it has been fun and challenging to take part… trying to remember where to link what to where etc, but it is a good idea and hopefully your many participants (I see I was number 65 today with my shoe shuffle post!) I will have a read through and comment on others especially those who have been kind enough to comment on my parsley post.
I have, I think, now linked properly to your blogpost with post of yesterday and today…?
I shall keep my fingers crossed that your apricot doesn’t suffer from the weather too much.
Thanks, Alison, for finger-crossing… it produced so much fruit in 2015, so if it gets through weather and birds may I will have a similar harvest… can never have enough home-grown apricots. You and I are also keeping tabs on our quince trees… I haven’t even looked at it this year… steps outside…
We love Tabbouleh too! I have some flat-leaf Parsley on the go now, but it’s only an inch or two tall just now! Some of my curly-leaf plants have survived the Winter though and are just beginning to produce new leaves.
Mark: My row of flat-leaf parsley has also over-wintered in a raised bed. It is only about 3-4 inches tall, but is good enough to eat…! I am going to sow some curled parsley soon. I like using that as well. Parsley is a great herb… and not just a garnish!
Lovely buds – shame that birds as delightful as bullfinches wreak such havoc! Hope your buds are safe this spring (and hoping the same for mine too!)
I love the birds too, so I may do my human scarecrow act if I am going outdoors at the same time as the bull finches appear… but otherwise I will just be hoping. Thanks for your hopes too. Will see how things go during the season. Itching for it to all start being wonderful to see and work in!
I’m impressed by your photo with your finger cutting the parsley – that is quite a feat! Good luck with the apricot – let’s hope no more frosts. Mmmm, apricot pie…
Thanks Julieanne: the finger selfie was a matter of concentration and determination… thankfully not too much hand shake…! I hope all is going well for you with your move.
Good luck on the apricot front. We don’t have bullfinches, but we can’t grow apricots either. Hmmm….is there a link?
I planted this apricot several years ago and it took at least four years before it fruited… but it was worth waiting for. Hope you have another try growing apricots…
The crazy weather we have been having has made many things bud out. We will definitely have more frost and freezes. It is a worry. These buds are quite pretty.
Hi Lisa, gardening is a great pastime and career for many of us… but we do have ‘weather’ to contend with. So I am hoping that the fruit trees will get by anything else that comes our way.