Category: Flower crops

‘E’ is for Elder

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elderflower

Creative Commons Photo Credit: Jean Mottershead

I hope you don’t think I’m cheating by including something in our ‘Allotment A-Z’ that doesn’t actually grow on our allotment, although it does grow just beside our allotment fence! I thought about ‘eggplant’ (aubergine here in the UK) and endive, but I honestly find our elder tree more useful than both those crops, so here we are…

The elder tree or shrub is one of my absolute foraging favourites and can be found growing pretty much anywhere in the UK. It has distinctive frothy ‘sprays’ of creamy-white flowerheads in spring and bunches of dark purple-black berries in autumn. Both the flowers and the berries are brilliantly useful in the kitchen.

‘E’ is most definitely for Elder…

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Sweetpeas

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sweet peas

Sweet peas have to be one of my all-time favourite flowers. They’re so easy to grow, look amazing and smell heavenly. A jam jar full of sweet peas on the kitchen table just says Summer!

I’ve been growing these flowers and saving their seeds for such a long time that I can’t actually remember our varieties, but something similar to Cupani, Lord Nelson, Hi-Scent, Heathcliff and Anniversary. All long stemmed, with an incredible scent and ranging from deep purple to pinky-white in colour. Sweet pea seeds and seedlings are widely available to buy and are a brilliantly abundant addition to any garden! I wouldn’t be without them……

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