Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera) in flower – Photo by Ian Sutton at https://www.flickr.com/photos/22616984@N07/5003455204

Dear Readers, cherry plum is one of the first trees to blossom – in a mild year, the flowers, which open before the leaves, can appear in mid January. Originally from south-eastern Europe and western Asia, it first appeared in the UK in the 16th century, and is now  widely naturalised across the country – it may have been introduced as a shelter-belt plant for orchards, and it can form part of a hedge. It can also be found growing in the wild in some parts of North America and south-eastern Australia. I love the first snow-white flowers, appearing before blackthorn (which it is sometimes mistaken for, although cherry plum doesn’t have thorns, and blackthorn generally flowers from late March).

Cherry plum in St Pancras and Islington cemetery on Saturday 4th March

Cherry plum is self-fertile, though it also attracts pollinators, and hybridises with many other species of plum. There are lots of ornamental varieties – the one in the photo below is var. atropurpurea, I believe – once the flowers are gone, the leaves are a dark purplish-brown colour.

Cherry plums do have fruit (as the name suggests), though they don’t fruit every year, and the flavour can be intensely sour.

Cherry Plums (Photo By An-d – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27452831)

They are very popular in Georgian cooking, however: plum sauce, known as tkemali,  is an accompaniment to roast meat and is said to be used in the same way that tomato ketchup is used here in the UK (i.e. with pretty much everything). The flavour obviously depends on the sourness of the fruit used. The plums are spiced with garlic, cumin, coriander, dill and chilli, and a herb called pennyroyal, a variety of mint.

Tkemali (Photo by By Georgi1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25678359)

Cherry plum is also used in kharcho, a soup made with beef, rice, cherry plum puree and walnuts, and in chakapuli, a herby lamb stew. Georgian cuisine sounds like an interesting mixture of sweet, sour and savoury.

Kharcho soup (Photo By Lesya Dolyk – Kharcho soup of beef with walnuts and rice. Georgian cuisine., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39339491)

Chakapuli stew (Photo By Georgia About, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38128266)

As a flower remedy, Dr Bach used cherry plum as a way of helping people who felt that their behaviour might spiral out of control. It’s described in this way on the Bach Remedy page:

The Cherry Plum fear is very specific: it is the fear that one is going to lose control of oneself and do something dreadful, such as injuring others or harming oneself. Fears of going mad and of acting irrationally are Cherry Plum states.

Cherry Plum is also the remedy for a loss of control that has already taken place, because of the frantic fear and dread associated with such situations. Think of the fear a small child feels in the grip of a screaming, irrational tantrum: this too is a Cherry Plum state.

Whether you believe in the power of flower remedies or not, I love how specific this is, and how familiar. I would love to know how the different plants were associated with different states. Cherry plum is one of the ingredients of Dr Bach’s Rescue Remedy, which several of my friends swear by. I find it all fascinating.

And here, readers, is a poem, by Australian poet Lesbia Harford(1891-1927). She was always in poor health, probably due to a heart defect, and died aged 36, but in her short life she campaigned vigorously for social change. She travelled to Sydney to campaign for the release of the Sydney Twelve, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (otherwise known as The Wobblies), and she worked in textile factories to gain first-hand experience of the conditions that women workers suffered. She was an advocate for free love, and had lovers of both sexes. I rather like this poem, simple as it is, and full of longing. See what you think.

“Cherry Blossom in an Old Tin Jug” by Lesbia Harford

Cherry plum blossom in an old tin jug —
Oh, it is lovely, beautiful and fair,
With sun on it and little shadows mixed
All in among the fragrant wonder there.
Cherry plum blossom on the workroom bench
Where we can see it all our working hours.
In all my garden days of ladyhood,
I never met girls who so loved sweet flowers.

Wild Carrot by Jo Stephens

Dear Readers, one of the joys of Amy-Jane Beer’s book ‘A Tree a Day’ is that she is generously introduces us to a variety of artists who have used plants as a starting point for their creations. So, I am delighted to share some of the work of photographer Jo Stephens, who lives in Dorset and takes most of her photos within 15 miles of her home. I love that her ‘artist statement’ on her blog is that ‘the welfare of the subject is more important than the photograph’, something I wish some other photographers would honour.

“I’m drawn to impressionism and expressionism in my photographic work as this enables me to communicate my wonder and love of the natural world in a way that representational photography does not always allow. Most of my work is taken within a 15 mile radius of my house, much of it from the woods and fields in the village. It is my hope that my imagery may help inspire people to explore and (re)connect with nature in a responsible yet playful way and to encourage them to protect and defend the natural world from the myriad threats it faces.” (From Jo Stephen’s website here).

Here are just a few of her images. See what you think. I am reminded that someone once told me that you have to ‘see’ something properly before you can photograph it. I feel as if the subjects of these photos have been truly ‘seen’ in all their beauty, and I find it very moving.

Jo is just about to publish a book of her photographs, and her shop also has cards and prints.

Amy-Jane Beer’s book is here, and heartily recommended.

Redwings…

Dear Readers, it’s been about six weeks since I had a fall and damaged my ankle, but today it felt strong enough for me to resume my Saturday walks in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery. Regular readers will know that this is one of the UK’s largest cemeteries, with an estimated one million people buried or cremated here since it opened in 1854. It isn’t actually in Islington or St Pancras, but is instead about a ten minute walk up the road from where I live in East Finchley. Today was a cold, grey day, but there were flocks of redwings everywhere. At one point, I followed the sound of them off the path and into the woods, where the sound  of their calls seemed to come from every point of the compass. It sounded like a stream of sound, but sadly when I tried to capture it for you the sound of the North Circular Road drowned it out, so I will have to leave it to your imagination. Suffice it to say that there is a kind of urgency about these birds now, as they fatten up in preparation for heading back to Scandinavia where they will spend the summer. God speed, little thrushes!

Redwing in an ash tree.

In other news, there was a very confident fox who seemed to pop up every few minutes as he trotted around the graves looking for something edible. I suspect that he is supporting a vixen who is denned up somewhere, expecting her cubs, or maybe even with cubs already born. You could almost track him by watching the cars of some of the cemetery visitors, who often slowed down to watch him and try to get a photo. I only hope that they got a better shot than I did.

There really is so much going on at the moment – I heard a buzzard and then another one, and watched them flap away, pursued by crows as usual. There are great spotted woodpeckers drumming, green woodpeckers yaffling and goldcrests being their usual hyperactive selves in the yew trees, plus all the usual finches and tits and other little birds. And the spring ephemeral plants are coming into flower. I saw my first lesser celandines today, and noticed that many of them have variegated leaves. How had I not noticed this before? They were one of Wordsworth’s favourite flowers, and I think they’re fast winning me over too.

The snowdrops are still out in the shadier places.

But the crocuses don’t seem as prolific this year as last year – I wonder if the drought last summer, followed by a cold snap this spring, have hindered them a bit? It’s always lovely to see them nonetheless, although they all seem a bit sad and droopy.

The delicate leaves of the cow parsley are spreading themselves across the forest floor…

and the more robust leaves of the hogweed are waiting for their moment too. Interestingly, looking at the photo below I think that the stinging nettle-y plant to the right is probably a species called small nettle (Urtica urens) – the leaves are more deeply toothed than on common nettle (Urtica diocia), and the little ‘tooth’ at the end of each leaf is about the same length as the other ‘teeth’. Alas, it is every bit as ‘sting-y’ as its larger relative, but it also feeds red admiral, peacock and small tortoiseshell caterpillars, so I’m happy to see it.

One plant that is in very fine form is the cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera), which is all over the cemetery in both its wild and cultivated forms. And very pretty it is too! It is the first of the plum trees to bloom, and by the time we get to March I for one am desperate for some signs of spring.

And finally, dear Readers, in the woodland burial area there are a lot of these plants, which look most unlikely candidates for a forest floor. Any ideas about what they are? I feel that I should know, but the sight of them in this location has rather got me flummoxed. They seem to be doing rather well, but I can’t help thinking that they look a little out of place.

Fortunately there are some primroses coming through as well, which is always a cheery sight.

And then it’s time to head home to immerse myself in my cell biology. I have yet another assignment coming up on 14th March, which is less than a fortnight away, and here am I still catching up on my Cell Communication, which is fascinating but involves a lot of new vocabulary. I think if I hear about phosphorylation one more time my poor brain will combust, but I’m sure it’s good for me. Onwards!

Dear Readers, I was minding my own business drinking a cup of coffee when my husband called up to me as he was about to head out of the front door on his way to work.

“Come and see this!” he shouted. “It looks like a clothes moth on steroids”.

This, Readers, is one reason why I love him. Clearly this is not a clothes moth, but he knew I’d be interested.

“Bring your camera!” he yelled, and so I did, and what I found was this really beautiful, new-minted Angle Shades (Phlogophora meticulosa). I took a couple of photos and then released it into one of my well-planted window boxes outside, where I hope it will be invisible to birds and will head off when darkness comes.

Angle Shades is a very common moth, but this one is very early – their flight season is normally May to June, and then August to October. The caterpillars normally pupate in soft soil, but they will use soft mortar on a wall. As our house is south-facing at the front, I wonder if the heat has encourage the moth to emerge, and maybe it pupated in the big plant pot next to the door. It also comes to light, and so maybe the light over the front door invited it in. At any rate, it is subtly beautiful, in olive-green and pink, and I love the ripple through the wings.

The caterpillars are the ubiquitous little green critters, but the broken white line along the back is helpful for identification. The foodplant doesn’t help much, as they seem to be happy to munch down on more or less anything.

It’s amazing what turns up, at any time of the day or night. And in other news, the magpies are continuing to build their nest, it’s turned very cold and so the frogs have given up on the breeding for now, and the crocuses (especially the white ones) are still in full flower. Spring is on the way, but very slowly.

Dear Readers, there are many exotic and attractively-coloured birds on the Red List this year, but somehow the one that breaks my heart most is the house sparrow. Is it because they’re associated so strongly with cities, especially London, especially the East End? After all, they’re sometimes known as ‘Cockney Sparrers’, and there is something about their no-nonsense attitude to life, their belligerence and their sheer domesticity that appeals to me. House sparrows usually spend their whole lives within one square mile of where they were hatched, and so the birds that turn up in my garden are probably the sons and daughters of the ones who were here when I first arrived back in 2010.

They are undemanding little birds – they need a nice thick hedge, or a building with holes in it (a broken grille or a loose roof tile will do). They like to stick together, so a single nest box will not do. They need caterpillars and aphids to feed their young, so pesticides and plastic lawns and slate chippings and low-maintenance gardens will not work for them. They love a patch of dry soil to dust bathe in, the seeds of groundsel and sowthistle and even Buddleia to feed on. It seems so little, but it’s clearly too much. In a study in Leicester, it was found that many chicks died of starvation because their parents couldn’t find the caterpillars that they needed to eat. The populations were increased when mealworms were provided, but the colony sizes as a whole didn’t increase, which implies that there is another cause of fledgling mortality once they leave the nest. However, there are reasons to be hopeful – house sparrows are actually increasing in number in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which makes me wonder what we’re continuing to do wrong here in England.

Air pollution is a major factor in the decline of many birds, particularly urban ones – let’s not forget that canaries were taken down into coal mines because they were so exquisitely sensitive to gas, and that caged birds often expire on exposure to the gases in paint, wallpaper, cooking materials etc.

The truth is, nobody knows exactly why the house sparrow population has dropped by 71% since 1977, but let’s be glad that they are coming back in some parts of the country. I can see me ordering in some live mealworms when we get to breeding season, and I already have a house sparrow ‘terrace’ of nest boxes which they are studiously ignoring. Maybe one of these years.

20th March is World House Sparrow Day and here, just a bit early, is a poem by Paul Farley (you might remember him from the Mistle Thrush poem last week). This one is one of the ‘Poems on the Underground’ that were posted in tube trains, and which always used to give me pause for thought. See what you think.

For the House Sparrow, In Decline (Paul Farley)

Your numbers fall and it’s tempting to think
you’re deserting our suburbs and estates
like your cousins at Pompeii; that when you return
to bathe in dust and build your nests again
in a roofless world where no one hears your cheeps,
only a starling’s modem mimicry
will remind you of how you once supplied
the incidental music of our lives.

Dear Readers, as those of you in the UK will have noticed we are having a bit of a problem getting our usual fruit and veg, and our illustrious Secretary of State for Enviroment, Food and Rural Affairs has suggested that as we can’t lay our hands on tomatoes and cucumber we might like to turn to the humble turnip instead. So, this seems like a good moment to resurrect this piece which I did a few years ago. I still don’t like these knobbly little chunks of nastiness, but maybe you have a turnip recipe to convince me that they have some redeeming features. We might all need to get onboard the root vegetable train very soon. 

So now, let’s shuttle back to 2020…

Dear Readers, when I got these turnips in my vegetable box last week, I admit to being stumped, because of all the roots in the world, this is the one I like least. In Scotland, a ‘neep’ is a completely different animal – in England we’d call it a swede, in the US it’s a rutabaga, and whatever it’s called I’m  rather fond it, especially when mashed and served with ‘stovies’, a delicious mix of leftover meat, potatoes, onions and gravy. In fact, swedes probably merit a blogpost all to themselves, so I shall move on (with regret) for now.

A swede or a neep, depending on where you live (or indeed a rutabaga) (Photo One)

I have a long and unhappy history with turnips, however. Back when I was a young thing and was working in Dundee, I had a blond Adonis of a boyfriend who was very into self-sufficiency. One of the things he grew was turnips, and when they were in season that is basically what we ate. There were turnips and broccoli for lunch (with additional earwigs which we where meant to pick out and put to one side). There was turnip and blackberry jam, following a war-time recipe. There was turnip and blackberry pie with custard made with wholemeal bread flour (don’t ask). There was turnip curry (which at least disguised the taste). Suffice it to say that turnips became my nemesis and I have never willingly or knowingly eaten one since. But here they are, and I am not going to waste the poor darlings.

Anyhow, what is a turnip anyway? Its Latin name is Brassica rapa subspecies rapa, and the wild plant is another of those mustardy cabbage plants with yellow flowers that are so confusing to the amateur botanist.

Wild turnip (Brassica rapa) (Photo Two)

The name ‘turnip’ rather charmingly comes from the word ‘turn’ (as in ‘turn on a lathe/make round) and ‘neep’ from napus, the Latin word for vegetable – so, ’round vegetable’. The poet Sappho apparently called one of her lovers Gongýla, which means ‘turnip’, and I have to admit that when I was arranging the vegetables for the photo they reminded me so much of a pair of breasts that I had to turn one of them at an angle to avoid offending anyone’s modesty. Clearly, this lockdown is affecting my brain.

Turnips actually have a double whammy when it comes to food – the green tops can be eaten as a substitute for spinach or chard, although they have a punchier, more mustardy flavour. In fact, some varieties of turnip are grown solely for their greens, and I’m sure that they’re all the better for it – broccoli rabe, bok choy and Chinese cabbage are all actually turnips. The root is apparently milder when cooked (but still, I would argue, not mild enough), but turnips are also often used as animal feed.  In 1700 Viscount Townsend, a Whig statesman, retired to his country house and became involved in agriculture, no doubt to the delight of the local yeomanry. He did, however,  invent a four-year crop rotation system featuring turnips, barley, wheat and clover, and became an enthusiastic proponent of using turnips as a year-round animal feed. Such was his association with the vegetable that he became know as Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend.

Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend (18 April 1674 – 21 June 1738), probably not wearing his gardening clothes (Photo Three)

While turnip greens are high in Vitamins K, A and C. the root is hardly a nutritional powerhouse, containing 14% of an adult’s daily requirement of Vitamin C and rather a lot of water and carbohydrate. Nonetheless, some people have leapt into the fray and tried to make something of it. Its radish-y qualities mean that it is sometimes grated and used in salads. I note that the Good Food recipe site has turnips in marmalade, turnips with duck, crispy salmon with turnip, mandarin and noodle salad and turnip tartiflette . I am going to put my turnips into a red lentil and turnip chilli from one of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s books, but as my husband’s stomach can’t tolerate chilli I shall be splashing on the pepper sauce after cooking. If you have any failsafe turnip recipes that don’t taste too much of turnip, do let me know.

Marmalade glazed turnips (Photo Four)

There seems to be something essentially comedic about the poor old turnip. For example, in an attempt to puncture what’s perceived as the po-faced nature of the Turner Prize ( the UK’s chief prize for ‘modern’ art of all kinds), some wag dreamed up the Turnip Prize. The prize is given to exhibits that display a lack of effort, and which are rubbish, though I also detect a very British love of puns. Some of its winners have included a builder’s hard hat with elf’s pointy ears attached (‘Elfin Safety’), a lump of dough with toy children embedded in it (‘Children in Knead’) and a pole painted black (‘Pole Dark’). The prize is, of course, a lump of wood with a turnip nailed to it.

Nonetheless, the turnip has also played a more serious role in history. During the winter of 1916-17, the German populace were close to starvation. The harvest of the potato, a staple food in the country, failed and this, combined with the Allied blockade, the seizure of farm horses for the army, the diversion of nitrogen fertilizers to make explosives and the lack of agricultural manpower as people were drafted into the army made for a perfect storm. The government attempted to substitute turnips, normally used for animal feed, for the lost potatoes, but turnips have a much lower nutritional value, and mortality, particularly among women, increased by 30% in 1917. Furthermore, it’s believed that the malnutrition also had a lasting effect on the immune systems of those who survived, making them more vulnerable to the so-called Spanish flu pandemic which ravaged the world right after the war. The Germans call this period ‘The Turnip Winter’, and a loathing of turnips lingers to this day amongst the older population.

Strangely enough though, just across the border in Austria, the municipality of Keutsch am Zee features a very splendid turnip on its coat of arms, probably a nod to the agriculture which was the chief source of income for the area until tourism came along.

The Coat of Arms of Keutsch am Zee (Photo Five)

And finally, did you ever wonder what people made Halloween lanterns out of before pumpkins arrived from the New World? Well, again it’s our old friend the humble turnip, though I suspect the larger swede is more often involved. Apparently these lanterns are still made out of turnips on the Isle of Man, and in Ireland and Scotland (so do let me know if the pumpkin has made inroads into lantern-making in your neck of the woods – I do suspect that pumpkins are much easier to carve).

A traditional Cornish Jack-O-Lantern carved, as I suspected, from a swede (Photo Six)

And so, a poem. How delighted I was to find that Seamus Heaney had written a poem about a turnip snedder, a machine used to slice up the turnips to make feed for the animals. Here is one from Sentry Hill in County Antrim, from an excellent blog by Anne Hailes – well worth a look.

Wesley Bonar, Museums and Heritage Officer at Sentry Hill with a turnip-snedder (Photo Seven)

Northern Lights above Lendrick Hill in Clackmannanshire, Scotland (Photo by William Starkey, taken in 2016)

Dear Readers, my Mum always wanted to see the Northern Lights. She’d seen a BBC TV programme featuring Joanna Lumley, (and you can watch some of it too here). She never did see it: after their sixtieth wedding anniversary I tried to organise a cruise for them, but Dad wanted somewhere hot and Mum wanted to see the Northern Lights, and so many criteria were designated that it became impossible. Now, I realise that they were both terrified to go so far out of their comfort zones, but they didn’t want to tell me. One of these days, I will find a way to see the Northern Lights myself, and I will see them for Mum and for me.

The Northern Lights (and the Aurora Australis in the south) are the result of particles emitted by the Sun, that are drawn towards the Earth by gravity, but which then bounce off of our atmosphere, releasing energy as light. Normally they just bounce off of the top and bottom of the planet, but when there’s a particularly splendid gust of the ‘solar wind’ we can see them much further south. Incidentally, other planets also have auroras, being subject to the same particle emissions as us – have a look at this photo of the aurora around the poles of Jupiter. Now, that would be something to see.

Jupiter with aurora – photo from Nasa

For now, though, I am keeping my fingers crossed that someone who reads this has actually managed to see the phenomenon from their back garden in the UK – the Northern Lights can often be seen in the Outer Hebrides, or the Shetlands, but it’s much rarer to see them as far south as St Albans (where they appeared on Sunday night), or in Cornwall. You can belong to something called Aurora Watch, which will give you a shout-out if there’s a chance of a sighting (though I didn’t get one, harrumph). The trick seems to be to find the darkest place that you can (something of a trick in North London) and look north. It won’t be as spectacular here as it is in Svalbard, but surely such a rarity is worth a look! You can see some splendid photos of Sunday’s display here.

As with many natural phenomena, the Northern Lights have been seen as harbingers of doom or auspicious signs. If you watch the Joanna Lumley piece, the scientist at the start tells her that it’s very bad luck to whistle at the aurora, in case it notices you and spirits you away. On the other hand, some Native Americans/First Peoples believed that the aurora will carry messages to the dead for you if you whistle to ask them to come closer. And in Japanese culture, it’s believed that a child conceived under the Northern Lights will be both lucky and beautiful. In Iceland, it was believed that the the aurora eased the pain of childbirth, but a pregnant woman shouldn’t look at them because she would give birth to cross-eyed children. So if you do get a glimpse over the next few days, you will have a multitude of ways to behave, some more fun than others.

Let me know your Aurora stories, if you have any! And I will be keeping my eyes peeled, and will let you know how I get on, though I think I will have to go a bit further north than Totteridge to see them.

The Aurora Borealis in St Albans (Photo by Joel Rabinowitz)

Dear UK Readers, just a quick heads up (ahem) that the Aurora Borealis was visible across much of the UK last night (Sunday), as far south as St Albans and Cornwall – this doesn’t happen very often, and it may well be visible again tonight (Monday), so watch the skies, and let me know if you spot (or have spotted) anything…good luck!