Grumpy Chicks Like Flowers

A legend tells when the Creator thought he had finished giving the flowers their colours, he heard one whisper "Forget me not!" There was nothing left but a very small amount of blue, but the forget-me-not was delighted to wear such a light blue shade.        Wimpy legend from Wikipedia

The first time I saw forget-me-nots was in my mother-in-laws vegetable garden.  They came up every year on their own, making a delightful blue counterpoint to vegetables.  Their happy pale blue is not lost in the green of summer and perks up the scene.  

When I bumped into this Burt's seed packet I remembered those and I remembered a few charming but odd postcards from turn of the 20th century I once had, one of forget-me-not filled baskets being hauled around by chickens! 

This card has the grumpy chick look I remembered from my all cards.   Many more strange and charming cards are at the bottom of this post.

In a quick search I only found one ad that mentions a specific variety a century ago.  While it is a hybrid, I think it counts as they wanted a long period of bloom rather than a new looking flower.                                                     It is hard to improve on the original flower, Other ads just say they have forget-me-nots. 

One more legend.

An 1869 article about forget-me-nots fills us in on their popular history.

TABLE TALK.

THE turquoise is truly a lovely gem; yet how inferior is it in beauty to what Coleridge calls " Hope's gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not." The blue of its first cousins, the brooklime, speedwell or "bird's-eye,"—members of the graceful Veronica family—is also one of those lovely blues that are, this season, among the fashionable colours ; but its hue among gems would match it with the lapis-lazuli and not with the turquoise.

 Forget-me-nots formed the trimming to the blue dress worn by the Princess of Wales at the state ball on July 2nd, and forget-me-nots were also in her head-dress. Out-of-doors they were in full season ; and Ihad seen large turquoise masses of them within a few yards of the very spot where the lovely Queen of Scots had bared her neck to the stroke of death in the banquet-hall of Fotheringhay. But I have never seen the forget-me-not in more luxuriant beauty than in that river in which the poet Cowper was wont to bathe, and whose sinuous course he has celebrated in his poetic descriptions—the river Ouse. Not only on this river's banks, but marking the tracks of all its tributary streams, are such clumps and beds of forget-me-nots as I have never seen surpassed in fineness of flower and purity of colour ; and even every little ditch in the vicinity of the river is glorified by the same wealth of natural gems. 

Some say that the forget-me-not will improve on cultivation ; but I have found that the plants removed carefully from the brink of the Ouse, although they flourish in the garden, are not covered with such fine blossoms. Nevertheless, as it is a free grower, and will take other trimming than that above alluded to in connection with ladies' dress, it is a very useful plant for the garden, and can be used to great advantage in a ribbon-border. I have seen miles of it so used in the gardens of Lord S , where its turquoise tint had no rival even amid the myriad hues around.

 Old Gerarde made the flower to be both useful and ornamental; for he says that it is a " remedy agaynst the stinging of scorpions." We may, however, content ourselves with its present loveliness and popular name, whatever its past history may have been in flower folk-lore. Mills, in his Origin of Chivalry, has assigned its choice as a token-flower to our own Henry of Lancaster, who, for a tender motive, wore the forget-menot on his collar of SS. ; but the German legend concerning the flower will probably continue to flourish in poetry, notwithstanding varieties in the version, and minor discrepancies in the tale. Thus, one version accounts for the knight being swept away by the stream as he was gathering the turquoise flowers, by saying that he was heavily clad in armour. But among those who have made poems out of this legend is our own Bishop Mant; and I think that he has skilfully accounted for all difficulties by representing the lady as seeing the forget-me-nots gemming a small island fixed in the midst of a rapid river, which, in his endeavours to re-cross, overpowers the knight's strength.

Then the blossoms blue to the bank he threw,

Ere he sank in the eddying tide ; 

And "Lady, I'm gone, thine own knight true,— 

Forget me not!" he cried.

Upon which she cherished the fatal flower, and gave it the name of "Forget-me-not," which certainly sounds much prettier than its proper botanical title of the Mouse-ear Scorpion-grass, Myosotis palustris.

Good old Ebay did not fail me when I looked for more postcards.

The next are from my flowered transportation
collection.   On land and sea and in the air the forget-me-not has been called upon to decorate these whimsical conveyances. My favorites here are the hot air balloons...who knew that Father Xmas used them when the reindeer were out of order!

Hardworking accountants?  I think this is an Easter card as Bockpece means Risen.

These are the tidiest jelly beans you are ever going to see.

 I find this an odd design...looks like hams hanging in a smoke house.

Love That Lawn Roller....

above: Notice the scythe...

A good garden tool makes people happy.  Enjoy!

What a good brick garden wall.  I want it.

Hmm...Little Red Riding Hood and her lawn roller?

This next one is fuzzy, but fantastic!!  Mother and daughter?  They are having a wonderful time.

below: What is the story here?  

Seeds: The Mid-century Art of Karl Mann

The coolest thing about zipping around the internet chasing seedy themes is discovering things I did not know about.  The older you get, the rarer that feeling of surprise becomes!   

Mann continues to work with collage and assemblage to this day...very different from these early pieces. Check out his web site.

I had never seen Karl Mann's works from the 1950s.  I'd love to have these three pieces that were at Skinner's auction.  

Rhubarb from Seed: Good, and Good For You

Watching the weather on the 5 o'clock news tonight, I was totally appalled to hear we may be getting 6 inches more snow.  I love snow, I really do, but my town is covered already to that lovely stage where everything is smooth...the weeds are buried, the bumps evened out.  The roads are reasonably clear, too...all is right with the world.  But now, more snow.  *sigh*   So, I am writing about my very favorite springtime event...the coming of the rhubarb.  I love rhubarb, my husband loves rhubarb!  When he was single, I hear (often), one year on his birthday he had seven rhubarb pies made for him by seven ladies.  Now he gets one. 

Rhubarb is usually started nowadays by buying a root division. Seeds are still available but they have the interesting, or annoying, property of being very variable.

When you sow them you will get a variety of plants which you can pick through for the sort you like.  The highly colored crimson stems may be present, but so are green ones.  They taste the same but the color is lovely...and traditionally the colored stems brought more money in the market.

It wasn't used greatly as a stewed treat or pie until into the 19th century. In 1810, "Mr. George Myatts of Deptford, England,... sent his two sons to market with five bunches of rhubarb stalks, of which they could sell only three". By the late 1800s it was accepted and a very good market garden product. 

It was pursued with great fervor as a purgative, however, for hundreds of years before then with a huge amount of effort and money spent on traveling to distant countries looking for the best rhubarb, the elusive "true" rhubarb that was being traded from Russia and China. 

Link: Pantologia. A new (cabinet) cyclopædia, by J.M. Good, O. Gregory, and N. Bosworth assisted by other gentlemen of eminence - 1819  This is a passionate history that conveys the importance placed upon rhubarb as a curative. A story of complexity and adventure; a search for the best laxative...perhaps not movie material but interesting.

Link: Early Canadian Gardening: An 1827 Nursery Catalogue, By Eileen Woodhead  This is a clear history you can follow :-)  A currently available retail book.

Below are some modern rhubarb seed dealers.  Following that are a few articles from the 1800s and some rhubarb ephemera.  Enjoy!

There are few varieties commonly offered anymore. 

Rhubarb

Rheum rhabarbarum

Rhubarb is a garden anchor common around old farm houses.  It is long lived and typically     grown by dividing the plant crowns.  Starting from seed is not difficult but you will need to     plant at least twenty seeds to cull out ones that do not exhibit the desired traits for the         variety.  For the average family, three plants will be enough.                                                

Rhubarb 'Glaskin's Perpetual'

Rheum x hybridumHardy Perennial
Started in heat in late winter Rhubarb 'Glaskins Perpetual' can be harvested lightly the following year. The large, juicy stems are excellent for tarts, pies, jam, and wine. As its name suggests, this reliable rhubarb can be harvested late in the season due to its low oxalic acid content. This easy to grow garden variety will produce some variation in the seedlings ranging from green to pink and even red stemmed plants. Height: 60cm (24"). Spread: 120cm (47").   1 packet (60 seeds)

Victoria Heirloom Rhubarb Seed

Perennial. OP Heirloom. Victoria has been around since 1837, and originated in England. It is reliable, productive, and long lived. It has a gourmet, winey/tart flavor that complements strawberries just perfectly. We can up dozens of jars of strawberry/rhubarb jam and syrup from our Victoria patch every year. It also freezes well, so you can have rhubarb cake in January! Rhubarb is easy to grow from seed. It does not require bottom heat. It prefers cool room temperature to germinate. The plants start small, however, and should not be harvested from until the second year. Folks seem to want their rhubarb red, although we have never noted a taste difference between red and green. Grown from seed the color is variable. If you want red, start extra seeds and select the reddest seedlings. Germinated at 80%.

Old Homestead

This variety has been grown on my family’s farm in Fisher Branch, Manitoba since my great grandparents first settled there. The greenish stems are good for pies and very hardy and long lived! Perennial. Zone 2   Package Qty: 25-50 seeds - Price: $3.00

Strawberry (Pre 1930)

An old extremely rare variety that I obtained from the noted food historian William Woys Weaver. It was part of his grandfather’s collection in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A very nice rhubarb with reddish stalks. In general, seed grown rhubarb is quite variable, but a good number of seedlings should have red stalks like the parent. Rhubarb is very easy to grow from seed and is usually ready to harvest lightly the following year. Perennial. Zone 2 "Not Available for 2014" Package Qty: 25-50 seeds Price: $3.00

VictoriaExcellent cooking quality in this early, abundant producer.

Victoria is well-adapted to most regions and is widely grown commercially. The large, tender, rosy-red stalks gradually turn to pink and then solid green towards the tip. Sweeter and milder than other varieties. Grows best in Zones 2-8. Avg. 31,300 seeds/lb. Packet: 100 seeds.

Now, here are the varieties from the 1865 - The Field and Garden Vegetables of America! 
We used to be more serious about our rhubarb!

 Rhubarb was a very useful and effective cathartic, as the period literature called it, and much valued.  Basically a good laxative, rhubarb is well tolerated by people, including children, so it was used in many concoctions.

Here are some recipes from A Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts, and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades, Including Medicine, Pharmacy, and Domestic Economy: Designed as a Comprehensive Supplement to the Pharmacopoeias, and General Book of Reference for the Manufacturer, Tradesman, Amateur, and Heads of Families. 1856

Rhubarb is the earliest "fruit" and it was looked forward to by people craving fresh produce after a long winter.  I called it a fruit because in the United States it was classified as such, letting it be imported with less tariff than vegetables.

Me, I like it baked in the oven until "stewed" when I plop sweetened biscuit dough on top.  I use mostly stevia for the sweetener, but add some brown sugar to give the sweet taste some deeper "notes".  Orange zest added before stewing is really good!  And a pinch of real cinnamon, I think...my hands usually do it without me thinking...but that is it I believe.  Happy Spring!

King Tut's Peas: Mummy Seed Craze

Even if the craze for anything Egyptian wasn't sweeping Great Britain, who could resist the idea that seeds found with mummies might germinate!?

The following from : Mummy wheat: notes on the history of a myth by Gabriel Moshenska.

"The publicity surrounding the mummy peas and mummy wheat was a source of
interest to the man who might have been expected to know more about them
than anyone: Sir John Gardner Wilkinson himself. In an undated letter to
Pettigrew he sought clarification of the issue:

My Dear Pettigrew

Can you give me any account of the Pea which according to an account in one of the newspapers has been grown from one I gave you out of a jar brought by me from an Egyptian tomb at Thebes. 

They say there are two kinds of Peas, a large one & a dwarf, both from seeds I gave you when unpacking the things I brought to the British Museum in 1833 or 1834.
The subject has excited … interest & I am anxious to get the best information from an authentic source. Of course the fact of their growing must rest with the person who planted them the first time, whose name Ishould like to know also. You can tell me if they are the same I gave you & whether there were two seeds or how many. 

Do you know of anyone who has grown the wheat from seeds taken from Egyptian jars found in the tombs? (Wilkinson n.d.)

Download his PDF which covers this topic beautifully.

Below -Ottawa Citizen - May 5, 1932

LINK - Another current brief page on mummy peas :-)

Chile’s Chinchorro Mummies:   Many Chinchorro mummies have an O-shaped mouth reminiscent

of Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.” One explanation is that the artisans failed to tie the skulls tightly enough to close the mouth, which would have fallen open in death. Or maybe this was a deliberate practice, to give the face character and make the person seem to come alive. (“The Scream,” it turns out, was inspired by the expression on a natural Andean mummy in a Paris museum.)...Karl Reinhard of the University of Nebraska has identified seeds of wild tomatoes and mint in the bowels of several mummies. 

Oldest viable seed   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a mummified (accidentally) ground squirrel...see below.

Carbon dated: The oldest carbon-14-dated seed that has grown into a viable plant was Silene stenophylla (narrow-leafed campion), an Arctic flower native to Siberia. Radiocarbon dating has confirmed an age of 31,800 ±300 years for the seeds. In 2007, more than 600,000 frozen mature and immature seeds were found buried in 70 squirrel hibernation burrows 38 metres (125 ft) below the permafrost near the banks of the Kolyma River. Believed to have been buried by Arctic ground squirrels, the mature seeds had been damaged to prevent germination in the burrow, however, three of the immature seeds contained viable embryos. Scientists extracted the embryos and successfully germinated plants in vitro which grew, flowered and created viable seeds of their own. The shape of the flowers differed from that of modern S. stenophylla with the petals being longer and more widely spaced than modern versions of the plant. Seeds produced by the regenerated plants germinated at a 100% success rate, compared with 90% for modern plants. Calculations of the γ radiation dose accumulated by the seeds since burial gave a reading of 0.07 kGy, the highest maximal dose recorded for seeds that have remained viable.[1][2][3]

• The oldest mature seed that has grown into a viable plant was a Judean date palm seed about 2,000 years old, recovered from excavations at Herod the Great's palace on Masada in Israel. It was germinated in 2005.[4][5][6][7] (For more details refer to Judean date palm: Germination of 2000-year-old seed).
• The third oldest viable seed recorded is the carbon-14-dated 1,300-year-old sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), recovered from a dry lakebed in northeastern China in 1995.[8][9]

From -  http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/group/scythian.htm

Scythian Mummies:

The Greek writer Herodotus visited the Scythians and described what they did when a king died. After digging a large, square grave,

"...they take the king's corpse and having opened the belly, and cleaned out the inside, fill the cavity with a preparation of chopped cypress, frankincense, parsley-seed, and anise-seed, after which they sew up the opening, enclose the body in wax, and placing it on a wagon, carry it about through all the different tribes."