Cuckoo Flower

I've found Cuckoo Flower, or Lady's Smock (Cardamine praetensis) growing in the garden. It's a beautiful native wildflower which is both edible and medicinal.

Cuckoo Flower is rich in Vitamin C and minerals, including potassium, iron and magnesium, and can be eaten as a salad plant or taken as a tea. The fresh, aerial parts are used, i.e the young leaves, shoots and flowers. Because of its high levels of Vitamin C, it is a useful antiscorbutic, which means having the effect of preventing or curing scurvy. 

Here is a lovely description from Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal from 1653:

"Ladies-Smock, or Cuckow-Flower:

Place : They grow in moist places, and near to brooksides.

Time : They flower in April and May, and the lower leaves continue green all the Winter.

Government and virtues : They are under the dominion of the Moon, and very little inferior to Water Cresses in all their operations; they are excellently good for the scurvy, they provoke urine, and break the stone, and excellently warm a cold and weak stomach, restoring lost appetite, and help digestion."

Discovering such unexpected flora is yet another aspect to the joy of gardening wild. I'm trying to be very mindful while creating this garden - I want it to be a place rich in wildlife, as well as a place to grow our food. This beautiful wildflower is a wonderful example of what is already here, and what could too easily be dug up or 'weeded' out. 

As there are only about half a dozen of them at the moment, I'm leaving their little area totally wild, and as they are perennials, I'm hopeful even more will come back next year.

A Garden In Progress

We've been living here in the uplands of Cumbria for about 18 months now, and we've learned, though a disastrous previous year, how much the rainfall and wind effects, and checks, plant growth. Last year was distastrous for gardening and farming in much of Britain, so we certainly weren't on our own. Observing which crops survived last year, through the most difficult of conditions, has definitely influenced planting this year. Potatoes, which we planted pretty much straight out onto the fells behind the house, did really well, particularly the earlies. After that, the lack of sunlight and levels of rainfall effected the yields quite significantly, though we did still manage a few small crops in pots. Garlic and onions also did well, as did greens that we protected in a small greenhouse - but greens outside of containers were devastated by slugs and struggled in the waterlogged soil. Broad beans and mangetout (also known as snow or sugar peas) cropped about a month late, but we did get a small harvest from the container grown plants. We began a small field garden last year also, which pretty much completely flooded, and all of the plants except for a few potatoes in the highest rows of the garden were lost.

So this year, we're sticking with what we've learned - we've expanded the container garden, planting garlic, potatoes, strawberries, mangetout, broad beans (both dwarf and standard varieties), yarrow, mint, chives, nasturtiums and jerusalum artichokes (last year these died from too much damp and extreme winds, so this year I dug up the tubers and planted them in pots - and they've grown beautifully!) We also have plenty of greens on the go including mizuna, mibuna, garlic mustard, rocket and various lettuces. They can now be better protected from the wind, and moved into the sun when necessary.  

We're going to try again with the field garden, but with a few changes - we've chosen to plant only at the top of the garden, as it is on a slight slope, and we've raised up the soil level in the beds also. We've planted early potatoes, onions, beetroot, a few carrots to see how they'll fare in our quite heavy clay soil, spring onions, and nasturtiums, both for the ground cover they'll hopefully provide, and for their peppery young leaves and delicious flowerheads. We've collected dried bracken stalks from the surrounding fells to use as a mulch.

We had let the field garden go completely wild through the winter as we didn't think we'd be using it again. Of course, it became filled with Curled or Yellow Dock (Rumex crispus), Stinging or Common Nettles (Urtica dioica) and various grasses. I've left the docks and nettles pretty much alone, only pulling up those which were in the spaces where I wanted to make beds. I've found that docks around the edges of the garden are a wonderful buffer against the insistent winds - I'm using them in the same way I would a shrub-layer, for protection of the young plants. And in the areas where I've pulled them the soil is now crumbly and beautiful, compared to the sticky clay of last year. Their deep roots have vastly aerated and improved the soil. The young leaves are edible and have a tart, lemony taste, bitter for some - due to oxalic acid - so caution should be used when consuming them.  

Stinging nettles are an important food source and habitat for the caterpillars of many butterflies and moths, and the young tops are delicious as a steamed, wild green. Both Curled Dock and Nettle are valuable medicines. I'll be posting more on both plants soon.

Curled Dock and Nettles surrounding the potato beds.

Potatoes & Onions plus Beetroot under bracken mulch

Inception

Here in the Cumbrian Fells of northern England we are experimenting with ways of living more in harmony with our landscape. We moved to the uplands 18 months ago, to a small stone cottage in a steep valley, where the winds can be near-constant and furious - but when the sun does shine it is a truly incredible landscape to be in. For some time now my husband and I have been wanting to live more sustainably. I've been studying organic and permaculture principles and wanted to begin implementing them, particularly in the area of food growing. I'm also a writer and lay herbalist, so in addition to the more practical aspects of sustainable living, thoughts upon poetics and medicine gathering, art, landscape and folklore, will also make their way into these posts.

Some points to be taken into consideration regarding our land use:  

1) We are trying to do as much as possible for free, finding what we need on websites like Freecycle, and through second-hand or charity shops.

2) We try to supply as many of our needs as possible from what is already in the local environment i.e water, mulch material, wild foods, medicinal plants, and composts/fertilizers.

3) As we rent our cottage, we are somewhat proscribed in how we can alter the land, such as building structures, fences or windbreaks.

My hope is that these writings will be a way to share our experiences of living in this quite harsh, rugged and mostly deforested landscape, and that some of the information may be useful for others who are trying to grow and thrive in similar climates or conditions. 

Becoming a part of any place should increase our respect for, and our awe of, its unique characteristics. Through exploring this environment and sharing what I find, as well as revealing what has been lost, by trying to live here harmoniously and as sustainably as possible, by growing food and collecting medicine, I hope to deepen my connection to, and understanding of, the place where I am living.