July 8th
It's a little strange what draws us to certain places through the seasons. Citrus takes us to the coast through winter & early spring & we love visiting all the little beach communities during this time. Today we walked from the Succulent Beach to the mouth of the Esk river & found some interesting creatures there. The Succulent Beach is found at the end of Le Quesne road (pronounced Lucane), we've been coming here a while now. It's quite fascinating what can be found growing at the beach. Often the community will dump garden waste in various spots & sometimes out of those deposits a certain plant or bulb might unexpectedly make itself at home. You wouldn't overly expect a Jade plant (money tree) to thrive at the beach, but they do & they flower all winter long giving off a sweet fragrance & attracting bees & bumble bees with ease.
Wood sorrell (oxalis) has happily occupied this bank. The lemony flowers are handy in salads.Puha finds a home almost anywhere but it has an extra salty tang when foraged by the sea. A good cooked winter green.
Nice to add in with other wild leaves like nasturtium. Few pests & no frosts by the sea so available all year round.
The leaves are quite spicy raw & not to everyone's taste but they are fabulous cooked & can be used anywhere you'd normally add spinach.
Right at the end of the road there's a track that takes you out to the mouth of the Esk river, if you follow it. Along the way we came across these wattles- fascinating flowers.
And amazing seed pods. When we got home I discovered that they are: Brush wattle (Paraserianthes lophantha).
Which is apparently regarded as being very weedy, however, in this situation they are not supplanting anything more worthwhile.

No comments:
Post a Comment