Starting another year at the Annecy Garden

Just three years ago we met for our first session in the Annecy Garden. The beds had been prepared for us by the Council and were completely empty apart from some stepping stone pavers.
Today it's a very different picture...

Plenty growing here!

The two middle beds of perennial vegetables and herbs are almost full and need little attention. The other four beds also seem quite full. The self-seeded salads - rocket, lamb's lettuce and land cress -  have been very productive all winter, and are now flowering and preparing to produce yet more seed. 

Rocket in full flower, globe artichoke behind.

People often tell us how much they enjoy coming to the garden. At this time of year the abundant flowers of the wisteria on the pergolas beside the vegetable plots are an added bonus.

wisteria is always spectacular.

Chervil

Chervil (Anthriscus cerefolium) is a pretty little culinary herb, an annual with white lacy flowers ~ it is, after all an umbellifer. It looks like a small version of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) & it is indeed a close relation of that beautiful hedgerow plant. Chervil is not much grown, but it is particularly nice with egg dishes.

Chervil, Anthriscus cerefolium

Also flowering now at the Annecy Garden is lamb's lettuce, Valerianella locusta. This has been growing all through the winter, forming little rosettes of leaves with a delicious nutty flavour, a fine addition to a winter salad. The plant is a winter-growing annual & the flowers are now here, very unspectacular, the pale blue of skimmed milk, but charming nonetheless.

Lamb's lettuce, Valerianella locusta

Another salad plant now flowering is land cress, Barbarea verna. This is recommended as a substitute for watercress in sites that are too dry for watercress to thrive & while the plant grows easily, the flavour of the leaves is rather strong & peppery. But the flowers are pretty now:

Land cress, Barbarea verna

Also looking pretty in the beds & an unexpected over-wintering survivor are the Virginian stocks, Malcolmia maritima. This plant comes from Greece & seems very happy in the warm, dry, sunny conditions of the Annecy Gardens & there are many self-sown seedlings:

Virginian stock, Malcolmia maritima

This is the third year of Transition Town Cheltenham's Growing Group working the Annecy Gardens & some of the perennials are now forming very substantial clumps, not least the globe artichokes, Cynara scolymus.

Lorraine standing next to monster clump of globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus