How it Grows

The last of the seedlings are still waiting to be put in situ at the allotment. I'm still learning as I go along. I have actually no clue what I'm doing, but you know what? I do enjoy this process of playing in dirt and pretending it's serious business.

Currently waiting for a tray full of carrots to finish putting second leaves up and around 70 tomato plants to be sturdy enough to transplant (I may have lost my mind a little, but we eat a lot of tomato paste here). All (ha!) we need to do now is keep on top of the weeding and watering and we cant enjoy the show for a while.

Ready to Grow

Part of our weekend was spent thinking a lot about about seeds and our allotment - our little slice of land. It's ready - we're ready - the seeds? Well, they're nearly ready, but I think we're readier than they are... we've also taken on a bigger plot this year. Keen? Yeah.

We made plans, sketched a map, looked at upping our potatoes and wondered if this year we could feed ourselves entirely on what we grow (I'm a realist, and think not, but the potential is that we could get quite a bit of food if things go our way). We have all this freshly dug land in front of us and it's like a fresh page or canvas - all potential.

I've missed it. Really, really, really missed it.

Strawberry fields forever

We usually go for corn in October. Maybe pumpkins, depending on whether we have decided to 'like' them this year. But we found ourselves this past weekend picking strawberries instead. In a heatwave. In the sunblasted landscape of the farm. An anachronism amplified by the crazy long shadows usually associated with early evening in summer or, uh, October mid-day as we wrap up with hats and scarves.

Chatting with the farmer this is the first year in his forty years of farming that they've ever offered strawberries so late. And my mother informs me up north they've had rain. Of course. And maybe even snow will fall at the end of this week. The farmer and I agree - something's broken, surely?

Embracing the season we are in, whatever that happens to throw at us, we have been enjoying the Indian Summer as hard as we can - road trips, beach trips, days out, and pool play.

Next week corn should be ready, and if this weather persists it will be the only year in my life so far that I have been able to pick corn and berries on the same day.

And happy as I am to have summer back, I can't help but feel a little worried too...

The harvest bushel bag's (seen above) pattern can be found in the first edition of Seasonal Living and Learning. Out now.

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Plum Picking

This farm, which we are so very, very lucky to live near, is never far from our minds in summer. Not many weeks go by without a hit and run reccie for fresh vege and perhaps some hand-picked strawberries for the table. Summer wouldn't be summer without fresh fruit.

And walking over the hills, searching for glistening hidden gems, breathing in all the fresh, quiet air, well, it's more than the tummy that gets fed, isn't it?

This time of year plums are beckoning and the boys and I fill up our baskets with fruit that will supply us with the best part of our year's jam batch. I think they know that when this fruit is ready for picking the last of the summer is winding down. They make the most of the farm, the farm dogs, the playground, the open, outside living.

And we gather as much of the summer as we can.


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From the Garden This Week

My little farmers took their chance with the break in the weather last week (I know some of you have been having a heatwave so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you it's been like the start of winter here! Stop hogging all the sun, OK?!) to harvest some food.

They took charge of some vegetables this spring and have been patiently waiting to see what the big deal was. Now they get it.

As I write this post the boys are in the sitting room playing farms and making statements with such conviction, "you CAN'T put the pigs with the cows, they'll be no cud!", or "mummy, brother hasn't fenced off the vegetables - TELL HIM", or "no it's a nanny goat; look at the udder - put her near the farm so mummy can get to the milk easily". I just hope that this farm playing, farm dreaming, farm knowledge can grow and grow into something much more lasting, solid, bigger, better and real.

Cross your fingers for us.


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