Red Treasure

Monday, July 6th, 2020

Today was one of sun and cloud, of angry downpours and gusts of wind, of light and dark. Isn't it strange when the weather so perfectly reflects our mood? Or is it our mood which affects how we experience the weather? With these questions in mind, I wandered out into the garden, its lawn freshly mowed, its banks strimmed and a bonfire attempted: too wet - just sweet-smelling smoke. Sometimes you just have to know when to give in to the elements. 

And so I collected up my runner bean seedlings and took them up to the top of the garden where my vegetable patch lies. It is not the best position for a vegetable garden but it is the only one that was viable in the context of the rest of the garden layout. Over the years I have done everything to try and improve the chances of growing robust and healthy vegetables - from raised beds, to dry-stone walls to protect it from harsh winds and weather and creating a micro-climate, to cutting back greenery that prevented sun etc etc etc. I have fed the beds, practiced the dig and no-dig methods of cultivation to see which works best and all has been inconclusive. I have thrown in bio-dynamic planting. Two years of horticultural study has left me well-equipped with knowledge, yet still I struggle with this plot of land. It has a mind all of its own, it seems.

But let us not dwell on failure, let us dwell on success! My most regular triumphs are all things red: reducrrants, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and blackcurrants. Some things red and green: rhubarb, chard. And some things green: runner beans, herbs (sage, verbena, parsley, chives, mint, sorrel), broad beans and peas (at times). My success is limited with carrots, parsnips, beetroot and radishes and often my potatoes rot (though not always), despite being grown in pots. The water supply is either flood or drought as I rely entirely on a small waterbutt and a spring. All in all, it is rather unsatisfactory, yet still I plod on.

This year I thought 'Good! At least I will be here this summer to tend my plants and harvest my crops!' (all travel plans being up in the air....). But even this did not go according to plan: I planted seeds in the warmth of spring, but then we had weeks of drought so nothing germinated. I tried again with a second round, this time planted in pots rather than directly into the ground. This time we had nothing but cold and rain. They rotted or just said 'Can't be bothered'. I will never know. What I do know is that I had precisely six runner bean plants that germinated and one pea (which then disappeared overnight - mice, I assume). How tragic!

Yet even just planting my six pathetic little bean plants I felt the negative emotions I'd been feeling all day start to drain away. There is just something so impossibly simple about putting a trowel into soft dark earth and digging a little nest in which to insert your new baby, bedding it in and then standing back to see how they look. Suddenly that blank piece of earth comes alive. The sense of nurture is impossible to ignore and fills me with immense pleasure.

Pushing through the abundant green fern fronds impeding the doorway into my dilapidated old greenhouse I found a wooden trug on the work bench. I turned it upside down and tapped out the worst of the dried mud and then had a bright idea: I broke off a number of those ferns and lined the trug with them so that the soft fruit I was planning to pick would not be damaged or dirtied. It looked remarkably pretty too and a perfect nest for those red fruits.

As I foraged about for red-ripe jewels amongst the green foliage I felt my stress, and even my sense of disappointment in my less than abundant crops, drifting away on the wind. I did not even mind that the mice, birds and caterpillars had beaten me to many of these fruits - I'm sure they had greater need than me.

As I moved around the small plot, I was gently washed in the sweetest scent from a pink rambling rose with its multi-floral sprays of small pink perfection, some in flower, some in bud, some gone over, all on the same spray. I dead-headed and admired and took delight in the perfumed air. The variegated sage was flourishing as was the lemon verbena which I'd rescued from a pot and put in the raised bed next to the sage. It almost instantly took on a whole new vigour and its tiny pointy leaves packed a huge punch of citrus as I rubbed them gently between my fingertips. What a fine tisane they will make when bedtime calls.

And so the day ended, more positively than it had begun, with thoughts of red berry jellies to complement the meats of the autumn and winter seasons, too quickly upon us.

If there is a lesson to be learnt it is this: enjoy the moment, count your blessings and plan for future comforts when the dark season returns.

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