HOLY VALOTTA!

I don't often swear at all (except for the odd 'bloody') and I think I will take this new incantation (is that the right word?) as my own, personal exclamation of stupification and awe. How could so many beautiful flowers appear out of nowhere ? I swear (there, you see, a use for Holy Valotta already) they weren't there 1/2 hour ago. I bought these evergreen bulbs from Diggers years and years ago and have never seen a flower before. It is wonderfully hardy to dryness because I have given up on it several times and stopped watering it on my weekly rounds and it just doesn't care. In fact, maybe that's what has got it going at last.

While we are on flowers, here is an ordinary old hollyhock that self-seeds everywhere and I leave it to do so. Well, on the weekend, while off sailing (again) I read another great book , again by Joy Larkcom, called "The Organic Salad Garden". Dull name, great book, and in there she says you can eat hollyhock flowers and cooked buds. I tried a petal just now and it was OK but I guess it would be pretty in a salad if you like. I will pick a few buds to throw in my next stir-fry and report in on that too.

While we are on self-seeding in a vague sort of way, my self-sown pumpkin and I are currently on speaking terms BUT I know that it has a plan to take over the driveway, my potting area and my whole front garden and I don't want to be the sucker I was last year when I ended up selling 98kg illegitimate pumpkins to Wilson's Organics ! I have noticed another, this time a butternut type creeping up the bean frame and I am sure they are in collusion! What should I do?

The experiment with the lettuces and the terracotta pot full of water is going well and I couldn't resist putting water spinach in the water which is growing like a wild thing.

The crimson okra are a bit like the valotta - not there one minute, then gigantic the next!