Tidying up

 I noticed my Japanese Wasabi plant this week, it has started to grow again and has sent out lovely flower spikes.  These flowers really do look like those from brassica plants, say radish, cabbage or broccoli so I can assume that despite the leaves looking different, it is distantly related.  This Wasabi plant is in a pot up against a North facing wall underneath a dripping tap which connects the garden hose. Ideal conditions.

 Meanwhile, elsewhere on the plot I was cutting back the blackberry stalks.  This is really vicious stuff!  Pruning out last year's stems and tie back the new shoots for this year's fruit.  Actually, this blackberry plant was deliberately placed in a gap at the end of the garden to stop my dog Buddy from escaping when we first had him!

 This stuff jumps out and grabs you from behind and it won't let go!  I literally feel like I have been dragged through a hedge backwards and have injuries to prove it.  Do you remember when Steve McQueen was riding his motorcycle in the film The Great Escape?  He tries to jump over the barbed wire to freedom and falls off and gets tangled in the barbed wire when the German soldiers get him?? Well, I felt just like that while pruning my blackberries!

The fruiting buds are just starting to show on the new growth. By Summer this should be a lovely crop of blackberries!