The Write Stuff

This Echinopsis is quite spectacular. Never had two flowers before. Smells amazing, unfortunately the bloom will be gone quite quickly.

Urban foraging with some added bonus pics. This is a Nicotiana, probably alata, aka Persian tobacco. The leaves are a bit sticky and the flowers are often trumpet/horn shaped. The rest of the shots are from around some Brighton mews in Kemptown. Very cool little spot, and nice to see this city still has some surprises left for me after all this time.

My first ever ripe fig. Pity not all of them are as ripe as this. Picked and enjoyed today. All the sun we've had this year must have pushed this to be edible, and monstrous too. And delicious it was.

Amongst the excellently named mint family black horehound, next to a tree stump on Ditchling road in Brighton, are some potato plants. At the bottom of the pic. They've been growing here for some years apparently. Who knows how they got here?

in a little series of urban "edibles". This is prickly lettuce, Lactuca serriola, closest known wild relative of cultivated lettuce, L. sativa. Wikipedia describes it as having a "fetid" odor. That doesn't exactly sound appetising.

Little experiment this year with a tiny crop of barley. I found some growing last year, so I've used them and some harvested from fields to create a little square metre patch in my garden. If I have a bit more space next year, I'll use these to seed hopefully enough for a small batch of beer from home harvested wheat, hops and some wild yeast. Though it may very well not be enough for even that!