Over the winter months, the volunteers and the Skills for the Future Library and Archive trainee have been keeping warm by re-organising the newly decorated library at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum.
The library was originally started in 1976 as a resource to help staff identify objects and object histories donated to the Museum of Rural Life and the library now has a dedicated space in which researchers can have access to these resources.
Some of the items available include:
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Its such a fun time of year when you can walk outside to your backyard and harvest food from your garden. Nothing says fresh like that. I have been growing some different tomatoes this year. I am able to harvest tomatoes everyday since they are in a greenhouse and ripening sooner than those outside.
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| Yellow Pear & Golden Rave |
The yellow pear tomato is one of my favourites. It isn’t as acidic as some and a great snack while in the garden. The two larger yellow Roma tomatoes on the bottom of this photo are Golden Rave. They are a couple of inches in size, great for snacking or in salads.
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| Brandywine |
My favourite red tomato is the Brandywine, an heirloom tomato with fruit weighing about 1/2 pound. This is the perfect tomato for fresh eating. It tastes like it has been roasted already with its deep flavour. I will…
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Paper is not dead…
My blog has been named for a ‘Shine On’ award by“This award is for the blogs that shine, make you feel good and are inspiring to the reader.”
Thanks for this award!
Crocus ‘Jeanne d’Arc’
Crocus (plural: crocuses, croci) is part of the Iris family and consists of around 90 species. They are perennials, growing from corms. Cultivated mainly for their flowers which appear in autumn, winter, or spring, Crocuses are also cultivated and harvested for Saffron– the spice obtained from the flower’s anthers. This practice was first documented in the Mediterranean, notably on the island of Crete. Saffron’s bitter taste and hay-like fragrance is complimented by its rich golden-yellow hue, used to colour food and textiles.It has been traded and used for over four thousand years. Iran now accounts for approximately 90 percent of the world production of Saffron. Because each flower’s anthers need to be collected by hand and there are only a few per flower, Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world.
The name Crocus is derived from the Greek (krokos), which in turn is probably derived from a Semitic or Sanskrit word, which mean saffron or saffron yellow. Over the years the classification of Crocus species has been revised several times, the division of the many species challenging botanists because of the range of characteristics that are available for scrutiny. Some of the species are:
C. aureus = golden
C. biflorus = two – flowered – the ‘Scotch Crocus’
C. chrysanthus = golden – flowered
C. minimus = smallest
C. nudiflorus = naked flowered
C. ochroleucus = yellowish – white
C. sativus = The Saffron Crocus
C. sieberi = after Sieber, a botanist
C. susianus = from Susa, Persia
C. vernus = spring flowering- the Dutch or Spring Crocuses are derived from this species
C. versicolour = changing or varied colour
The first crocus seen in the Netherlands, where crocus species are not native, were from corms brought back in the 1560s from Constantinople by the Holy Roman Emperor’s ambassador who sent a few corms to the botanical garden in Leiden. By 1620, new garden varieties had been developed. Some species, known as “autumn crocus”, flower in late summer and autumn, often before their leaves appear. They should not be confused with Colchicum, a different genus of autumn – flowering plants.
At the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, in 1987, Reader’s Digest sponsored the planting of 1.6 million corms of cultivated Dutch crocus for their 50th anniversary. A further 750,000 corms of C. vernus ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ and C. vernus ‘Purpureus grandiflorus’ have been planted since – a visit to Kew to see this ‘Crocus Carpet’ is a must.Sources and further information:
The Alpine House – information
National Crocus collection – Wisley
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Nigel Boldero aka 'Old School Gardener'
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