Unfortunately, the promises of warmth offered to us at the end of March were cruelly snatched away from us in April. Heavy frosts greeted us most mornings and hung on for hours, despite a bright sun gracing the sky. The MET Office declared it the second coldest April since 1884 and who am I to disagree with that? It was, indeed, bitterly cold for most of the month. In addition, it was the fourth driest April since 1862. (Yes, the MET Office again). No April showers for us, not a raindrop has fallen for weeks. By the end of the month the land looked parched and the young trees in the field were thirsty. The dry earth and the bitter winds that have blown relentlessly from all sides, have browned the beautiful young leaves of the field maple and silver birch. Their branches now bare, and it is a sad sight. Even the woods in the valley are filled with trees waiting for their leaves to emerge. Rumour has it that there was a lot of sunshine but little warmth came through and all the seedlings have struggled to flourish as they would generally at this time of year. The upside is that the slugs and snails have not yet invaded the fields and garden.
Some regular visitors did well. In particular, the low land of the riverbank provided a more fertile and benign environment for lush and verdant growth. Wild garlic thrived and provided us with several weeks of pesto. The docks and speedwells, the common violets and the ground ivy all flourished, providing flashes of blue in amongst the grasses and under hedges. Towards the end of the month the bluebells started to appear in the hedgerows and valley but far less than we saw last year. However, it was the alexanders that were the stars of this month. They are out in force this year and have increased their numbers considerably from last year. They look strong and upright and have withstood the battering of the winds, from both the north and the east. I knew only that these plants were called alexanders and were edible and there my knowledge ended. Given that these plants were now forcefully making themselves known to me by standing in my way at every path and hedgerow, I thought it was time to investigate.
As often with the natural world, the list of uses from alexanders went on for pages. As far as I can work out Pliny was the first on the scene to mention alexanders in 70 AD. (This information comes courtesy of Robin Harford of eatweeds.co.uk). They are part of the Apiaceae family, known as umbellifers, mostly aromatic flowering plants that include celery, carrot and parsley. It also includes the poisonous hemlock plant, which is deadly and definitely not for the kitchen table. Cow parsley shares many similar features with hemlock but luckily the alexanders have clear differences and these we can eat. These plants have been used for food and medicinal purposes all over Europe for hundreds of years. The flavour is somewhat similar to chicory and fennel and is often found growing wild in old kitchen gardens in the ruins of castles and abbeys. (Monks have always been responsible for the growing of their own food and used wild edibles as part of their diet). Everything in this plant can be eaten; leaves, shoots, leaf stalks, flower stalks, flowers, seeds and roots and it can be harvested from March to November. It was used as a garnish for fish and seafood during the Elizabethan era and as a remedy for scurvy for sailors. In 2014 a study for the Journal of Food composition and Analysis supported this traditional use of alexanders because of its high level of ascorbic acid and suggested it would be a good vegetable to re-introduce into our diet. And finally, here’s one for the next pub quiz, ‘what essential oils does this plant contain?’ Here’s a clue, it is a class of compounds responsible for the odour of myrrh and turmeric. This particular class is, as we all thought, furanosesquiterpenoids. Time to harvest the alexanders.
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