Tasty tulips

The colder, crisper weather heralds the start of the tulip planting season. Verdant green leaves and luscious blooms provide a visual feast early in the year. But tulips are also food for the stomach and their petals make a cool, crisp and colourful addition to the salad bowl. (But note: some people suffer allergic reactions to tulips, so proceed with caution).

Tasting broadly of sweet lettuce but with a peppery kickback, tulip petals range in flavour from grassy - think Romaine - via earthy and and creamy - think butterhead - to bold, hot rocket. Tossed with early salad leaves, also sown now, they are a glamorous, blowsy and dazzling colour bonanza, and all with the crunch of an upright cos.

The best tulips for eating fall into three groups. They are scented; fragrance contributes heavily to flavour, they have bite and texture, breaking and crunching noisily when eaten, and they are beautiful.

Single, early tulips tend to be the most scented. They taste like peas with the perfume adding a floral note. 'Couleur Cardinal' is an intense crimson-red single with a plummy sheen and a sweet, fruity fragrance.
Wonderful together in a pot are hot orange 'Veronique Samson', 'Ballerina' and 'Orange Favourite'.

Orange tulips tend to have the most fragrance. 'Veronique Samson' is a flaming orange single with a rose scent. Lily flowered 'Ballerina' smells heady and sweet like sherbet and 'Orange Favourite', which is later and double, smells of freesias. 'City of Vancouver', a late single, has large, creamy petals that taste of violets. With all these tulips the taste is predominantly sweet.

Larger petals have a stiffer texture and more crunch. 'Menton' is a single early with crisp petals and flowers the size of a goose egg that provide an exhilarating snap. The shell pink colour belies a strong spicy kick similar to mizuna or rocket. It has a pleasing brittleness similar to iceberg lettuce.

Double peony and parrot types are more chewy and so can be used coarsely chopped or torn. Intensely velvety 'Rococo' is scarlet-flamed, puckered with bright red and deeply fringed. It has a subtle, fruity fragrance. Use it to make a sultry salad with lamb's lettuce, red cabbage and chicory or roast peppers, squash and pecorino. 'Creme Upstar' is a pale and creamy double peony type. It looks and tastes fantastic with the mixed bright green leaves of oakleaf lettuce, newly emergent sorrel, mint and feta.

Cool and ethereal or deep and dramatic, colour adds intrigue and excitement and turns a bowl of simple leaves into a showstopping lunch. Try dusky 'Bruine Wimpel' with fresh spinach, pancetta and hazelnuts, or 'Spring Green' with rocket and pea tips.

There is also something to be said for picking and scattering what you are already growing. Fresh, organic and direct from the garden, red tulips are the sweetest. I grow 'Tambour Maitre', a rich red with smoky crimson hue has the sweetness and bite of a little gem lettuce. White are the most spicy, try 'Pax' or 'Purissima' for heat. Yellows such as the elegant 'Sapporo' are sulphurous like broccoli with the unobtrusive bitterness of Reine de Glace lettuce or chicory. The darker purple and near blacks, 'Havran' and 'Jan Reus' share the clear, sweet brightness and the pleasing brittleness of an iceberg lettuce with an initial tang and a sweeter aftertaste.
Salad leaves for winter sowing and picking

The flavour of the leaf varies according to the age of the leaf and the time of year. Cold weather has a sweetening effect, while maturity makes flavour more pronounced.

How To Plant Tulips In A Container

Vast beds of bright tulips might look fabulous in your yard, but what if you don't have a yard? What if you live in an apartment or condominium? Does that mean that you can't enjoy the early spring showing of tulips? Of course not. You just have to prepare a little differently than the gardener with lots of space does.

First, choose a variety of tulip which does well in containers. While tulips in general are a pretty hardy bunch, they do vary in size and temperament. For example, unless you're planting your tulips in a bathtub, you probably want to avoid the giant Dutch hybrids. They will overwhelm most any container you choose for them, and you don't want your tulips to end up looking top heavy.

Instead, choose a variety of tulip which will fit well with the size and shape of your container. If you're using a ten or twelve inch pot, choose a variety which grows to a height of 12 to 14 inches, such as a Greigii or Fosteriana Hybrid. For smaller pots, choose a Kaufmanniana Hybrid, which will typically grow to no more than ten inches tall.

Tulips dislike being waterlogged, so make sure you choose a pot with adequate drainage holes. Fill the bottom with an inch or so of gravel or small stones, then fill to about the halfway point with good quality potting soil developed especially for bulbs. For additional drainage, you can add a layer of sand at this point, but it's not required.

Place your tulip bulbs in the pot with the pointed end up. Since tulip bulbs produce only a single stalk, you don't need to worry that you are planting them too close together. Tulips look best in bunches of five to ten flowers. After you've placed your bulbs, cover them with more potting soil and leave them to overwinter in a cool place. Tulips need six to eight weeks of temperatures averaging less than 50 degrees.

If you've kept your bulbs refrigerated for the winter, you can even plant them in late winter and have indoor blooms long before the outdoor flowers are showing growth. This is known as forcing, and is a common practice among florists. Forcing is what allows us to buy pots of tulips and lilies long before Easter most years. Unfortunately, bulbs which are forced will not typically bloom again.

One great advantage of growing tulips in containers is that you can move them. Tulips prefer bright sun, so if you have a sunny windowsill or balcony, this is the best place to put them. If you really want them to brighten up that dark corner of your bedroom, though, you can put them their when they've had their dose of sunlight. The possibilities are limitless!

flowers to fan the flames

Going on a first or second date is always a little nerve-wracking - from coming up with the perfect outfit to deciding what to order at the restaurant, you want everything to be perfect. Of course, dates aren't limited to new couples! Even married folks who have been together for years can enjoy spending an intimate evening together, and what better way to make your partner feel loved than with a beautiful bouquet of flowers? As with anything, you're probably going to be thinking a lot about what blooms you want to be giving, so here's a quick primer on some of the many choices available to you and what they might signify.
Though you may want to simply bring a dozen roses and be done with it, don't you think that idea is a little tired? Use your imagination! There are so many different flowers out there that can help you bring something unique to the table.
1. Sunflowers
Sunflowers are one of the most pleasant sites to behold, if only because they hearken to vast expanses of green grass, bright rays of sunshine and endless fields of yellow blooms. These will look great on their own, but if you really want to go for the gusto, try pairing them with some purple flowers for an extra burst of color!
2. Tulips
There's something about these modest little flowers that absolutely captures the child heartfelt imagination. They make a great gift, if only for the fact that they practically explode out of the vase. You can fit dozens of tulips into one container, and they come in a wide variety of colors, so you can create a veritable rainbow of flowers without much effort at all!
3. Irises
A properly-arranged bouquet of irises is sure to capture anyone's heart the moment they lay eyes on the flowers golden center against exotic blue. They're absolutely gorgeous and sit in a vase in a way no other flower is able. The deep coloring and lazy droop of the petals creates a truly unique visual effect that you're simply not going to find anywhere else. If you'd like to bring something new to the table, the iris may be right up your alley.
Of course, presenting the flowers is a whole different story. You can choose to either start the evening off with them or finish up dinner with a romantic flower bouquet. Whatever you decide, make sure it's a surprise!