For me, spring is announced by the full sprouting of the Mandrake. A plant both rare and magical - on whim, it may be mysterious, lethal, shielding or full of spite. Woe betide the fool who dares to drag it from its soil, for they may hear it scream, and that will kill them. I am not joking!
My Mandrake keeps to a schedule unlike any other - its leaves are the first to arrive, it blooms, fitfully, while there are no insects to sup of its juice, and it will be gone to ground long before the Solstice knocks. It has never borne fruit, though that, perhaps, is due to the lack of a suitable mate.
Many years ago, as a student, I purchased some dried Mandrake root from a crusty in the sadly long departed Kensington Market. This I steeped with alcohol to make a tincture, which I drank one afternoon, while sitting in the sun in the middle of the campus. It was deeply bitter. To this day, I cannot quite explain my motivation.
I used to have the Mandrake's distant sister, Henbane, which - being annual - did not last out the year. Strangely beautiful and yet vile at heart, it will kill you so much as look at you. I bottled up some of the flowers, in vodka, just in case. I still have that liquid on my shelf.
So, to Spring, and while a hearty chunk of deer bone simmered into stock (this I purchased from a monomaniac Venison vendor at Borough Market), I decided it was time to turn over what little soil I have to food. Being somewhat haphazard in my planting I accidentally pulled out a few items I had shoved in previously - sprouting remains of dinner, mostly. And then showered the earth with - onion seeds, strange ball-head carrot seeds, various greens, and whatnot. Who knows whether they will sprout. Probably - in my experience, it is much more difficult to stop a plant from growing than to let it grow.
So I may be in for a feast.
Of course, the snails will love it. They always do. But if they're not careful, I'll eat them.
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