30 Days Wild; Day 27 & 28 The Forgotten

Day 27

We went for a nice wee walk outside, it was a lovely sunny evening and I was thinking today I need to focus on the forgotten wild plants or rather the least liked wild plants in the Nettle and the thistle.

I did a bit of reserch into the nettle and learned that some butterflies [e.g. Red Admiral, Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Map Butterfly and others] in particluar use nettles to lay their eggs and the caterpillar feeds only on the nettle plant. Also I know that people make nettle tea, relishes and its great with mint and sparkling water. The young shoots also can be used as an alternative for spinach {So my books say}.

Great photo of a Nettle flower , well I think so.

Couldnt have nettles without a Doc Leaf near by.

Thistles; young thistles are good fodder for cattle, horses & pigs

On our walk about I came across more new roses growing amongst the bark.

Theres a great contrast between the roses and the bark

View from above

I realise today that the strawberries growing mad and wild on our wall garden were indeed white strawberries. So hubby and I picked them until we gathered all the ripes ones, some taste like bubblegum and others like normal strawberries so not sure what I think of them yet?! They have been put in the freezer until we figure out how to use them, probably will end up on my weetabix!

Day 28

Found out yesterday that theres an issue with the goosberry bush, i.e. something was eating it. Hubby picked a number of green caterpillars off it. I found out they were Goosberry Sawfly and if not picked off they would eat the whole plant. So I went today again and found another critter, hoping we've saved the goosberry bush.

Decimated Branches by the Gooseberry SawFly

Healthy Branches with fruit

I had a walk about the garden and noticed that our yellow lillies will have an abundant supply of seed pods and also our leeks are seeding as well. That amounts to alot of flowers and an abundance of vegetables. Sounds good, potatoe and leek soup for the table.(yum)

We're gonna have lots of yellow lilly seeds this year

These are our leeks seeding.