Weeding the Web

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: sunny colour

I first encountered mesembryanthemum when my mother ecstatically pointed them out to me during a holiday on Jersey when I was eighteen. They don't tally with my normal style of gardening, but after my visit to Ball Colegrave I'm coming round to the idea of some self-indulgence with pots. Combine this with the fact that a local nursery was selling these half-price, £1.75 for twelve plugs at the beginning of the month, and I found them irresistible.

These are a particularly vibrant combination and I love their dedication to sunshine - wide open in full beam, but beginning to close, even while sitting in a sunny spot, at five in the afternoon.

I queried the possibility of keeping them going through the winter and the nurserywoman told me that you tend to think you're doing very well by keeping them going till February, when the short days get them and they give up the ghost. "Give it a try, though," she said encouragingly, but I know my limits. 

This is part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, run by May Dreams Gardens. Pop over and see what else is blooming in gardens around the world.

Growing Victory in the World Wars

With all the grim stories of WW1 being told at the moment, it's a relief to come across the  Infographic below that looks at a different aspect of life during the two World Wars.

It's always difficult to crowbar a full picture into this type of artwork, so I've added a few comments at the bottom. 

I'll just balance the paragraph about the soldiers' food having gone off with something I've read recently in the fascinating book about WW1, Mud, Blood and Poppycock by military historian and ex-soldier, Gordon Corrigan.

British commanders knew that, while an army mught not exactly march on its stomach, in the Napoleonic sense, men who were hungry or whose food intake lacked the ingredients essential to good health would not fight as well as men who were well fed. A balanced diet was provided, and the administrative staff took great pains to ensure that it was delivered.

A daily ration for British soldiers (note, not French - their rations were so bad that they contributed to the French army's 1917 mutinies) included:

• 18oz fresh or frozen meat
• 16oz preserved meat
• 18oz bread
• 12oz biscuit
• 4oz bacon
• 3oz cheese
• 8oz of fresh vegetables
• 2oz dried vegetables

The preserved meat was an alternative to the fresh/frozen, the biscuit was an alternative to bread, the dried veg an alternative to fresh. Gordon Corrigan adds:

Soldiers rarely went hungry except in the most extreme circumstances, such as the chaos of First Ypres of the withdrawal of spring 1918. Soldiers did not complain about the lack of food, although they did complain about its monotony.

It's not surprising If not everything worked well; it was an unprecedented situation. I think we can be proud of the national response to the need to feed ourselves.  For more about life on the land in WW2, see my review of the recently reprinted Land Girl, A Manual for Volunteers.