Taking chances
Monday 3 August. I never know how many pumpkins to expect from a vine. There is just so much growth. I adore eating them and I adore growing them, and I am keen to get a culinary return from my investment of time and space. I peer underneath leaves and around corners trying to discover how many fruits have set. The big green ones look well, and there are some grey skinned ones that seem almost ready. I cannot tell you which varieties these are. Blue Ballet? Crown Prince? I labelled them so carefully when I planted them, forgetting that the vines shoot out yard and yards in every which way, entwining and tangling with one another. Until the fruits are ready for harvest and I cut back and follow the stem back to the original place of planting, which one is which will remain a mystery.
Tuesday 4th August. So much driving at the moment. My imagination strays to the books I might write, the videos I might make, the people I might talk to. I conjure up sweet pea growing guides in my mind. Covering common mistakes, their habits, and the secrets of keeping them happy and content. Top tip, if you are going to grow in a pot, it needs to be much much bigger than you ever imagined. And I find bamboo canes are too slippery for their tendrils, even if you tie them in. They will go up them eventually, but they’ll never look truly comfortable.
Wednesday 5th August. There is much chuntering about the weather, the heat, the stickiness. I drive through the village and up the hill onto the Blackdowns. It is clear blue heat in the village, and the hills have a cap of mist. It is like driving through a cloud. As I reach Devon, a grey rolls across the sky and rain hammers down in stair rods. I feel grateful for the water on the garden but when I get home, the sun is out again and the ground is as dry as it was when I left. Many of the roses are putting on a second show and I give them a good soak with a tot of seaweed.
Below: David Austin ‘Grace’
Thursday 6th August. I cannot wait. I shop carefully for the best buffalo mozzarella. I pull out the best Babylonstoren olive oil. I wipe down the best platters.
The tomato harvest has arrived. I grew all sorts of different ones: Christmas grapes, brown berries and the jet black Indigo Rose. But an old packet of Franchi Costoluto Fiorentino proved to be the absolute winner. You get a lot of seeds in a pack so I grew a lot of plants, and the germination rate was excellent despite the packet being many years old. (I know; do as I say not as I do.) Despite putting slightly too many plants in each crate, each vine has an amazing crop of huge, fat, absolutely glorious, ribbed, beefsteak tomatoes.
Have you ever ever smelt anything like a freshly picked tomato on a hot summer’s evening?
Friday 7th August. After working away for the week, a Friday working at home. I can hear a combine in the distance and the light slants hazily through the dusty leaded windows at the front of the cottage. I retreat to the studio at the end of the kitchen garden for the phone calls and zoom meetings; Hugo has a tendency to greet callers otherwise. He knows that me saying hello means that a potential intruder has arrived in his space. Although hot, there is a blissful peace to being at home. Padding barefoot to the orchard for plums off the tree in my breaks between appointments. An all-encompassing, if a little sticky, heat. A peaceful stillness. The crab apples take on a blush of colour in the sun.
Saturday 8th August. A little baking update. I would not say I am addicted because that would imply a compulsion, or even an attempt to resist. But I find myself baking every few days. Almost unconsciously, I have fallen into a rhythm of feeding and preparing my starter and starting a loaf at breakfast time. The mixing, the rising, the resting. Each loaf I think it will be my last, but after a few days, my hand instinctively reaches to the top shelf for the bag of flour and we begin again. I find that I am able to sense the timings without a clock, although I have just made the connection with therapy. Every psychologist quickly learns to time an hour’s worth of a therapy session without looking at their watch; it tends to put people off sharing their most intimate vulnerabilities if they sense their listener is clock-watching. The same distance in time as a resting window for bread. I won’t stretch this metaphor too far, but maybe there is something in this being a good length for the development of something meaningful. Long enough for something to happen. Ended before anything becomes too spent.
Sunday 9th August. There is a moment in the year where I have to take my chances. I am still sowing seeds but when they flower will be down to the seasons. If we have a long, warm autumn, I will get flowers this year. A last hurrah as we go into the mild West Country winter. (The true hardy annual sowing will happen in early September, don’t worry.)
I have never ever seen sloe trees as heavy with fruit as they are right now and that does portend a long, harsh winter. If the cold comes early, the hardy annuals will simply halt and wait until spring. The nasturtiums will probably perish, and so I pulled out the carrots to give them room in a deep, rusty tank; the intention that I might be able to lift them into the greenhouse if I see the cold coming.
I am still testing and trialing seed varieties for the next shop opening on 31 August. Yes, Nasturtium Ladybird Rose is in there, although they will be for next spring’s sowing as they are half-hardy. Oh, and a very very special white flax that is going to lift your heart.
Have a lovely week whatever you are doing,
G x
