April Showers and Flowers.

It has been a challenging Spring for gardeners, with higher than average rainfall and scarcely day, seemingly, when it is dry enough to get out on the soil. When the sun briefly graces us with it's presence it can feel like a blessing. A happy couple of hours on my allotment yesterday revealed just how far along into the season we really are. It can be easy to forget over winter, when plants and insects are sleeping, just how quickly and enthusiastically everything surges back to life with just a few warm days. The blossom, particularly on pear and cherry trees, is fabulous this year, having been spared the frost and watered well. Looking up into my dessert cherry, (Prunus avium "Stella"), a froth of white with flowers buzzing with grateful honey bees (Apis mellifera), brought to mind a line from the Jethro Tull song Aqualung; ".....and the flowers bloom like madness in the Spring". Perhaps it's wrong to doubt Stella's sanity, thousands of years of evolution suggest she knows what she's doing, but I can't help but admire her ambition. If only half of those flowers set fruit then I may stand a chance of a very good cherry harvest this year. Assuming II manage to beat the blackbird to them of course.

In addition to the pollinating honey bees, I also saw a lone peacock butterfly (Aglais io), spiders, flies, beetles, and quite a few adult ladybirds,who had over wintered. Curiosity about the name, lady bird, and a quick google (got to love mobile phones, a whole library in your pocket, in the garden) suggests that they are named for the Virgin Mary (Our Lady), as she was often portrayed wearing a red cloak in early Christian art. The scientific name, Coccinellidae, from the Latin coccineus, meaning scarlet, means that this little beetle is defined by it's clothes whichever way you look at it. Very dashing and dandy, like the Scarlet Pimpernell. Red is a warning colour in nature, and while some species will try to bluff predators into avoiding them, the ladybird's warning is genuine; they are toxic if eaten, containing large amounts of oxalic acid.

Oxalic acid is also found in the leaves of rhubarb. The stems, however, have relatively safe amounts and are a welcome crop in early Spring, one of the first to fill the "hungry gap" between harvesting the last of the winter root vegetables and brasicas, and the start of the new year's crops. I harvested a good bundle yesterday, choosing some of the longer thicker stems and pulling them firmly to detach at the base, before cutting off the leaf to add to the compost heap. I love rhubarb in a smoothie, quicker and easier than making a crumble or pie, and if you add a banana for sweetness there is no need for sugar. Rhubarb plants need plenty of space, but they are striking enough to merit a place in an ornamental border if space in the veg garden is tight. They need minimal care, just a good feed overwinter and perhaps a mulch in Spring to prevent their roots drying out in Summer drought. If you want to harvest them as a food crop, remove flower stems as they pop up to prevent the plant from weakening itself. The plants can be lifted and split over Winter when they become to big to be productive, and I like to plant a piece to flower in my herbaceous border. The season is moving swiftly on, and gardeners scramble to keep up at this time of year. A few weeds do no harm, and it's important to take time to look around and admire the sheer exuberant joy of it all. Nature is a great teacher, and I feel that her lesson at the moment is to do what you can, but go with the flow and enjoy it.