Borage and butterflies / La bourrache et les papillons

Borage has one of the prettiest flowers of all the herbs: purple stars which line the roadsides and the vineyards here in spring. The flowers can be put in salads and in drinks, the leaves can be cooked in soups and sauces. Today we picked leaves and flowers and I made borage and cheese parcels - the recipe is on the Mediterranean cuisine blog.

La bourrache a des belles fleurs: des étoiles pourpres au bord de la route et des vignobles en printemps. On peut mettre les fleurs dans les salades et dans les boissons et les feuilles dans les soupes et les sauces. Aujourd'hui nous avons ramassé des feuilles et des fleurs et j'ai fait des pastelles à la bourrache et au fromage. La recette est sur le blog Mediterranean cuisine.

Borage is a good plant to have in the garden as it attracts bees and is said to improve the flavour of tomatoes grown nearby. Traditionally it has medicinal uses, including the relief of stress. But for me it adds colour to salads and flavour to dishes like these parcels. The older leaves have prickly hairs on them and so they need to be cooked. The young leaves are delicious in salads, with a taste like cucumber.

Two swallowtail butterflies were chasing each other around the garden and refused to stay still and pose for the camera. The best I could do was this action shot of one of them:

Deux machaons se pourchassaient autour du jardin et ils ont refusé de s'arreter pour le photo. J'ai dû prendre cette photo d'action.

and a butterfly coincidence ...

I had just posted my swallowtail photo when I looked at the Jardim com gatos blog and found I had been given this award - thanks gintoino!

I don't usually participate in these blog awards and games, but I can't resist this one! I read so many interesting blogs, but I'd like to forward it to the following blogs, the first two are about gardening in Mediterranean climates, like gintoino does in Portugal and like I do in the Languedoc, the third has beautiful photos and makes me laugh, the fourth is a good mix of campaigning and gardening ...
http://fromseedtotable.blogspot.com/
http://www.citygarden.eu/
http://inelegantgardener.blogspot.com/
http://homesteadinginacondo.blogspot.com/

The tulips were easier to photograph / les tulipes étaient plus faciles à photographier: