Lesser Celandine

Last week I saw my first celandine in the lane and I am scanning the wet woods and banks for more.  Celandines used to invade the damp lawns of our southern customers and for that reason were called a weed but for me they are a sure sign of warmer days.  This humble flower was a feature of our childhood walks where we were encouraged recognise and appreciate the flora and fauna (with optional Latin names).  

My favourite childhood early spring flower was the coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara - I confess I had to check that in Wildflowers in Colour, 1958); my mother's was the celandine.  She played on the banks of the River Bollin when the runways of Manchester Airport were still farmland and I imagine that the Cheshire ditches were full of them.

Wordsworth also celebrated the small celandine in a poem of 1803.  The verse is somewhat jog-trot but the sentiments are those of heartfelt relief at the promise of sunnier weather that the bright yellow celandine presages: 

Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.

Wordsworth concludes his first stanza in a couplet that my mother used to quote and in affectionate memory of all her subsequent botanizing I finish with these lines:

There's a flower that shall be mine, 
'Tis the little Celandine."

How far can a carrot fly fly?

Spring is on the way and it is time to prepare for the next season.  So today I removed the remaining, rather woody, carrots from the planter and my husband tipped all the sandy soil it contained on to our raised beds.  I took the bundle of carrots indoors to prepare them for a bean casserole.  

A quick quality check gave me about 800 grams of usable 'seconds' carrots for the fridge and 450 grams for immediate use.  However, by the time I had cleaned and peeled these 'thirds' I had discarded about 150 grams thanks to the burrowing activities of carrot fly.  

This set me pondering on one local question and one international topic. The first is how far can a carrot fly fly?  We live behind a playing field that was formerly pasture land as our oldest neighbour remembers.  This is not a good area for carrots - far too much clay.  Our nearest allotments are a good thirty minutes walk away.  The sand for the planter came from my family.  Their garden is constructed on top of sand left behind when the coastal marshes expanded and the shoreline retreated.  Carrots thrive in these conditions, but their garden is primarily ornamental. 

My husband has a theory that the carrot flies did not commute from the coast.  They were living locally on some wild relation of the carrot and moved to our garden, despite my companion planting, when they scented a better option. 

The big international topic is the drastic global insect decline reported earlier this week.  That needs much more space that I can offer here.   The supermarket 'seconds' vegetables look more regular than mine and the organic carrots seem blemish free.  How have the farmers achieved this and how much pesticide have they expended?  What are the long-term effects on insect populations?  Somehow a balance needs to be struck.