Little Purple Flowers

  The weather has been warm so far this December.  While this is not too unusual for this far south, it does keep it from feeling like Christmas. When I can wander about the gardens in short sleeves and find flowers blooming, it is hard to imagine Ole Santa flying in on his sleigh.  I thought that sleigh needed snow to make easy takeoffs.  Hmmm....wishful thinking for here, I guess.  

  This morning, I went out to check the progress on the slowly ripening tomatoes only to find a clump of purple flowers gracing the planter boxes.  No, these are not some that I planted but rather "volunteers" that figured I needed a bit of a "pick-me-up" first thing this morning.  I have to admit that they did make me smile.  The oxalis were in full bloom with their pretty purple flowers nodding in the breeze.  I love these little things even though most folks see them as nothing but weeds.  The whole thing is that more folks should indeed plant the oxalis or at least encourage them to grow where they sprout.  You see, oxalis are not only pretty, they are edible.  Yep, this "weed" is a free food source in a world where folks are starving.  However!  There is one drawback!  Anyone who is plagued by kidney stones should not feast upon the plant.  The oxalic acid in them may cause problems.  That statement, alone, may cause some folks to be leery about tasting the plant but when you consider that spinach also contains oxalic acid (so do beans, chard, tea, parsley, berries and chocolate,  Yikes!  CHOCOLATE!  Yep!  Chocolate!), it becomes a lot easier to ingest the plant.  I do.  AND, contrary to what a lot of folks tend to believe...it is quite tasty.  The greens and flowers are a bit tart while the tubers are sweet.  (Strange, I know!)

  Years ago, Darling Daughter and I went on a binge of making "flower jelly".  We scrounged around the yard and woods to find blooms that we knew were edible and boiled them to get "flower water".  That became the base of our jelly.  To be honest, some blooms had literally no flavor but others were remarkable.  The oxalis or wood sorrel were some of the tastier of the bunch.  I was pondering the idea of letting the oxalis take over the yard just so I can have the fun of stunning folks with a jar of flower jelly now and again.  It is rather fun to watch their expressions when you tell them just what is on their morning toast.  Oxalis...its what's for supper...dinner...breakfast or just a snack while meandering the gardens!