At this time of year it’s difficult not to miss the wild borage, with its large dark oval leaves covered in fine silvery hair. It grows wild in the valley, like a weed and is just becoming noticeable. We have two plants in our herb bed and I swear they’ve shot up six inches overnight and now have three huge flower buds each.

The flowers around here are blue, although I have seen white and pale pink versions elsewhere. Our plant book describes it as an annual but maybe that’s just in the UK because here it behaves like a perennial. I’ve added the star-shaped flowers to salads, very pretty, and made tea with the leaves in a herb tea mixture of anything culled from our herb garden – mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, wild fennel.
5 to remember
la borraja – borage
óvalo/a – oval
plateado/a – silvery
la hoja – leaf
perenne – perennial [plant]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Borage grows wild in the valley, like a weed #Spain via @Spanish_Valley http://wp.me/p3dYp6-bW