Seasonal bouquet – midsummer abundance

midsummer bouquet

Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica), Musk mallow (Malva moschata “Alba), Heliopsis scabra “Giant Double”, Veronica longifolia “Blauriesin”, Silene coronaria, lovage (Levisticum officinale), Anthemis hybr. “Wargrave”, Canterbury Bells (Campanula medium), Verbena bonariensis

It is easy to get wrapped up in the garden chores to a point when you forget to stop and look around. There’s always some pressing task, something needing to be sown/planted/staked/watered/pruned/picked right now and the time I can spend in the garden is usually limited. I know this may sound like complaining, but don’t get me wrong: I enjoy every little task in the garden (except maybe washing the wooden sides of the beds). But we have two garden chairs on the allotment that we almost never sit in.
In a way, every meal made with garden fresh produce is a small celebration of the seasons, but I wanted to be a little more intentional about it this year.

midsummer tea party
Last Sunday, on the first official day of summer, I invited a small group of friends to a tea party in our garden. We served black tea but also fresh mint and rosemary teas. There were tiny tarts filled with berries from the garden, brownies with ganache topping and these cucumber and borage canapés.

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There were also scones because Esther insisted that you can’t have a tea party without scones. Because we already had lots of other stuff, I told her to halve the recipe. Which she did – all the ingredients except butter. I hastily added some flour just before baking when I thought the dough was suspiciously wet. In the end, they did look like scones and nobody complained.

midsummer tea party
But the showstopper of the party was the colorful bouquet at the center of the table. Early in the morning we popped over to the allotment and I picked just about every flower that was in bloom. Some of the flowers are from my perennial cut flower border (Maltese Cross, heliopsis, cenolophium denudatum…), some are welcome self-sowers (Silene coronaria, Verbena bonariensis) and on a whim, I even added lovage flowers to the mix.

campanula medium

Canterbury Bells (Campanula medium) &Musk mallow (Malva moschata “Alba)

heliopsis and lychnis

Heliopsis scabra “Giant Double” & Maltese Cross (Lychnis chalcedonica)

lovage

Lovage (Levisticum officinale)

midsummer abundance bouquet

Cheers, may your summer be filled with fun, friends, good food and as colorful as these flowers!

midsummer tea party

 

 

 

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