Summer evenings imagined: lounging on the garden bench in the sunshine, wine chilled to perfection, an olive or thirty within reach. There is knitting – perhaps a skirt-in-progress, with neither dropped stitches nor tangled yarn. On the lawn in front of me, children and wildlife gambol endearingly. (No, I didn’t say gamble – that would be a bit less charming.) The Stoic Spouse is nearby, being stoic of course.
Summer evenings lived: Oh, is it raining again? Never mind, I’ll just relax in the sitting room with this delicious glass of HOLY YARN-BALLS, WHAT IS THAT?! TWIN ONE, HAVE YOU DUCT-TAPED TWIN TWO TO THE CEILING AGAIN?! GET IN HERE NOW AND UNPEEL HIM OR SO-HELP-ME I WON’T TAKE YOU OUT TO WATCH COMBINE HARVESTERS WORKING IN THE FIELDS TONIGHT! *
Yup, it’s the school summer holidays. Much as I adore my boys (and I really, really, do adore the pesky little blighters), I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Big respect to parents whose children’s leisure time comprises Latin on Mondays, archery on Tuesdays, oboe on Wednesdays, nuclear physics on Thursday, and squirrel anatomy on Friday, but planning ahead has never been my forte, and my sons would sell me to the lowest bidder on eBay if I dared book them in to any organised activities. I know that it’s important for children to have unscheduled boredom-time in order to stimulate their imaginations, but we’re quite an extreme case of structureless living. (And yeah, they have excellent imaginations, so that’s the upside of my incompetence.) We have at least wandered around in the countryside, splashing in streams and catching critters:-
We even spotted a fox, whilst visiting the Gregarious Grandfather:-
But on days when I haven’t been working the day-job, we’ve mostly been pottering at home. By which, I mean that the twinnage have negotiated too much screen-time, whilst I’ve felt guilty about not doing enough with them, not doing enough for the house, the garden, the book, my friends, my family, the wider world, the everything. But at least we’ve had a few visitors and a few days out, and since the twinnage haven’t completely forgotten how to use a knife and fork, say thank you, and put on trousers, I’m counting this summer as a not-complete-failure. Yeah my standards are pretty low, now that you come to mention it.
Work on the book about stranded knitting is trundling along. I’m not progressing as rapidly as I ought to be, because at this time of year, the garden is an irresistible draw. After all the hard work during our ludicrously late/freezing/dry/wet/generally-mad spring, we’ve finally reached the stage of abundant and effortless harvests of much loveliness. You can just wander into the garden and MUNCH!
Breakfast in August involves going outside and grazing. I love it. (OK, so I obsessively weigh everything first to compile an accurate log of crops, but still…) All of those books that I read over the past 18 months about permaculture, forest gardening, no-dig, wildlife gardening, and organic gardening have opened my eyes wide and have had a massive impact on how I produce food and encourage wildlife. And yes, I probably am just as irritating in real life as I sounded in that last sentence.
But there was no escaping the fact that our garden is small, until a friend who lives one minute’s walk from here invited me to cultivate the raised beds in her garden because she no longer uses them.** Er, yes please! It’s fair to say that I’m excited about the prospect. These past few days, I’ve been sowing seeds of over-wintery thingummyjigs (technical gardening term) that I’ll soon be able to plant out in in my friend’s beds. The plan is to grow low-maintenance, high-space, harvest-all-at-once stuff in my friend’s garden (potatoes, onions, garlic, celeriac, amaranth grain, leeks, fennel, sprouts, parsnips, edamame, quinoa, sweetcorn, etc), saving the divas who need a nightly bedtime story, hourly harvests, or daily fertilizing using mermaid tears for home (tomatoes, celery, beans of various kinds, peas, all the fruits, broccoli, cauliflower, and squashes). It’s going to be awesome.
Meanwhile last, but very definitely not least, I want to thank you again for the donations to pancreatic cancer research that are still arriving, as sponsorship for my year-long 1084-mile run. You’re fabulous. (There’s still time to sponsor me here, should you wish to do so.) The total currently stands at over £2600, which is just brilliant. Thank you. Your money will help make a difference to future outcomes for this hideous disease.
*OK, the flaw in this paragraph is the unlikeliness of combine harvesting occurring during a downpour, but why let realism get in the way of a story?
**Actually, age-related infirmity has made gardening difficult for her. Fair enough, but I want to offer her something in return for the use of her garden. Money, a share of crops, and labour (eg lawn-mowing) have all been offered, but the most she’s agreed to so far is “I might take the occasional carrot”. Consider this a work in progress.
Do you know if the Crayfish are native or the American immigrant?
x
American signal crays, unfortunately.
I love the crayfish!! And I also love your beautiful bowl of luminous, gem-like fruits!! I only have a few potted plants in my little apartment, but thank you for the clue — I now know that they’ve been languishing for lack of mermaid tears.
Thank you for sharing your humour, your wit and your journey.
Yeah, a teaspoons of mermaid tears and a pinch of unicorn fur, and your plants will be right as rain. ????
Always so refreshing reading your posts. Love them! Your twinnage is a term that has me in stitches, and I can well relate to the situation with your neighbour. My mum is just like that… so I have taken to literally fulfilling her polite non-requests. Last time she wanted nothing, so I baked her favourite yeast cake shaped in the 3 letters “NIX” (German for nothing). She couldn’t well refuse this nothing, could she? May I cheekily suggest you knit a carrot bag for your neighbour and fill this with all the goodies you want her to have? Might just do the trick. ????
Ha, I like your style! And your idea for my friend has got me thinking….
Definitely a case of school holidays are too long, combined with a severe case of garden-itis. Ok, I don’t know how you pack all of this in a day or a summer. After months of garden drudgery it is harvest time. No beans of any kind, no sunflowers. These became garden fodder to the wildlife.The tomato plants grew out of control, then came blossom rot, ugly invisible tomato worms and just plain rotting before ripening. Still the crockpots are simmering with tomato sauce. I have to go pick more tomatoes today, and eggplant, peppers and corn. Yesterday the deer were chuffing in the wild blackberry thicket while I was in garden 3. Waning summer, harvest time, first days of school. A rite of passage. It appears you have survived fortified by wine and olives. Your children have become ruffians and poor Stoic Spouse has survived your summer mania. Happy harvest. Thanks for the entertainment.
And thank YOU for your wonderful summary of your veggie summer. (Garden 3? May I cautiously ask how many gardens you have?!)
I have 4. The entire side yard is dedicated to veggies. Each plot has a grassy strip between for walking and mowing. It makes it easy to rotate the nightshades and makes each garden manageable for up keep. Garden 3 had the bedding plants, the nightshades. 36 purple peppers, 36 eggplant, 36 table tomatoes and 72 canning tomato plants. Plus this year we added 28 grow bags for the potatoes just for giggles.
I’ve got 3 kids. I’ve barely done the housework and we haven’t done very much all summer. My daughter sent a postcard to her teacher from the beach we went to for 4 hours whilst the car was being serviced!
I blame the weather completely!
Yup, can totally relate! (Yup, definitely blaming the weather. That’s the ONLY reason we haven’t got out there and brushed up on our nuclear physics.)
All that home grown produce looks wonderful. Makes me quite envious.
Thank you. I squeeze as much as I can into our little growing space.
What a delightful post Phil! Enjoy your lovely fresh produce, you worked so hard under difficult circumstances – they should taste especially good!
Thank you! Not going to lie – everything has been delicious so far…
As usual, a very entertaining post with your usual quality of wordsmithing! Is that a word? But if I may make a suggestion, would you consider black text rather than pale grey? My 59 year old eyes are really struggling to see it. I must reiterate that I LOVED knitting the All That Jazz cowl. It is bee-ootiful!
Eek, good point (about the text colour). Someone asked a while ago and I’ve tried to remember to change the font to black, but as you can see, I haven’t always succeeded. Must try harder. (And thank you re the ATJ cowl! Wear and enjoy.)
I so understand the holiday struggle. Had it for years. This is the first summer youngest has a holiday job and is not hanging around mom. Girlfriend and he are working their @ss of. So proud. Oldest went on holiday with girlfriend, in a tent, without complaining, yaya! I love the idea of your friend to give her garden in your use. So sweet. Isn’t it marvelous and healthy to eat your own home grown food <3 And yes, I have two boys too, don't you dare blow up Buddha's statue! Oh dear, his arm blew off. No, You may not sword fight with your brother with real swords, don't you dare! Give that sword to me! It's antique, not to kill your brother. Nohooo! They survived, yours (probably) will too.
I smiled so much at every word of this! Congratulations on coming through the crazy years and raising your sons to something resembling adulthood. (Also, YES re the home-grown food.)
I just love you…and all you produce.
And I appreciate your kind response very much.
Congratulations on your harvest! We’ve been eating the results of our First Ever Veg Patch (in 40 years!) The potatoes were a triumph (from some in the Veg rack which started sprouting), and due to the combined diligence of our local wasps and me, we still have broccoli and curly kale. We’re keeping up with the Runner and French beans and the Chard is amazing. We’ll be growing that again.
All the best with your extended acreage (minus the odd carrot) and seriously, if the Twinnage still know when to say please and thank you and do, you’re pretty well ahead.
Oh, I love every word of this! Congratulations on your successful harvests! (Really not sure I am ahead on the parenting front, but thank you anyway.)
Thank you for your very chipper posting. We evacuated our home (New Orleans) a few days ago and it is not clear when we can go back so I was definitely up for a cheery, veg- and knitting- filled post. Lest anyone feel massively sorry for me, we evacuated to a place we have in the North Carolina mountains and my children and pets are all safe so I have absolutely nothing to complain about. Prayers for my fellow Louisianans who are less fortunate would absolutely be appreciated however.
Oh my goodness, you have plenty to complain about. Of course the important thing is that you and yours are safe, but even so. The situation in New Orleans sounds horrific, and I hope so much that your home is salvageable. (Puts my pathetic grumbles into perspective.)
Your gracious neighbour sounds like the kind of person whom you deserve to have in your life, Phil.
Just tell me your health is sound and I’ll toddle off rather than rave egotistically for pages ..
Oh Phil, I loved your post and chuckled as I read your wry observations. Wonderful that your twinnage are nurturing their imaginations and that you have a chance to spread your harvest to some shared raised beds. How are you, in yourself? xXx <3
Leave a celeriac plant to go to seed and you will never have to replant again. They will self sow prodigiously.
Our veggie garden has to look after itself as we help our widowed daughter with her 16 month old triplets.
We are currently going through lockdown #6 and hope that the restrictions are lifted by November so that we can go home and harvest the garlic.
Congratulations on an awesome run effort.
I tried three times to reply to your questions about how many gardens I have, but the reply never went through. So once again. We have 4 veggies gardens. The entire side yard is tilled into four plots. There are strips of grass in between for walking and mowing. There are peonies on one strip and fruit trees on another. I didn’t want one giant plot of dirt. It makes weeding and harvesting so much easier. It also helps me rotate crops. Garden 3 was the Nightshades this year. I planted 36 purple pepper, 36 eggplant, 36 table tomatoes and 72 canning tomato plants in there. I will be freezing and dehydrating tomatoes for awhile. We also added 28 grow bags for the potatoes this year. Those bags line 3 of the gardens. Your gardens methods are much more modern and sustainable. I’m trying to convince a retired crop farmer that organic is better. I love your garden adventures along with your slice of life posts.
Ha, as always brilliant Phil. I’m all for free range children and I hope you’ve been leaving some healthy soil on your fab produce. X
mudah dipahami
Thanks for sharing