A Nod In The Direction Of Chelsea

No visitor to my blog can doubt that my main interest is vegetables.  I used to be a paid up member of the "if you can't eat it don't grow it" school.  The thin end of the wedge was the flowering alliums.  I mean, they are onions aren't they? Last autumn I was buying some for planting up in troughs when these "black" tulips caught my attention on the same shelf at the garden centre. Given that they like the same conditions it would be easy enough to plant them up too. Well they've stolen a march on the alliums and flowered before Chelsea!

It has been a bit of a job protecting the long stalks from the high winds!

The alliums aren't so far behind:

While on the subject of eating I'm including my latest bread experiment: soft pretzels:

Pretzel or Peace 

 And just in case you think that was a one off here's the rest of the batch:

Pretzel Motley Crew

The characteristic crust colour of pretzels comes from dipping in an alkaline solution called "lye",  but  as this is an industrial strength solution unobtainable to home consumers I've used a bicarbonate of soda solution instead. The results aren't quite as satisfactory. Even so they they were very popular and soon disappeared.