Our First Masterhalum of the Year!

I planted at least a gazillion of them a few weeks back and now they are popping up all over the place.  Nasturtiums!  Or mastershalums as Pooh called them:

I do know,” said Pooh, “because Christopher Robin gave me a mastershalum seed, and I planted it, and I’m going to have mastershalums all over the front door.”

Inside: Christopher Robin’s Friends

“I thought they were called nasturtiums,” said Piglet timidly, as he went on jumping.
“No,” said Pooh. “Not these. These are called mastershalums.”

Last year they took a long time to get going but, when they did, there was no stopping them.  Up and over the porch they went, heading straight for the front door.  They gave up about a month before Christmas and two feet short of in the living room.

Nasturtiums always make me think of my grandmother.  She was probably the one responsible for them growing around the edges of my grandfather’s vegetable garden.  My friends and I used to help ourselves to them – sucking the nectar from the pointy tip at the back – and I don’t think Papa minded.  I don’t really remember if Granny used the peppery-tasting leaves and flowers in her salads, but I suspect not.  Cooked (and cooked and cooked) vegetable were popular in those days; salads, not so much.

Last Year:  Nasturtiums-on-the-Move

I also doubt if she had ever met Winnie-ther-Pooh.  He first appeared way before I was born, but after my mother and her siblings were too old for him (if such a thing is possible.)  In fact, I didn’t meet A. A. Milne’s cast of characters in ‘Hundred Acre Wood’ until I read the books to my own son.  Over and over again!  We loved them all – Winnie-the-Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner, as well as the poems in When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six.

My Granny would have loved them, too, I am sure.  After all, she wrote me letters when I was a little girl that began “Dear Little Miss Muffet” and she told me stories about the monkey that lived next door when she was growing up.  Pooh and Piglet, Eeyore and Rabbit, Tigger and Roo and Kanga would have fit right in!  Mastershalums, too!