Late February – it’s a high maintenance moment! Following my last post, I’m happy to tell you I spent all weekend ‘pushing my own barrow’, in both the ornamental and Kitchen Garden. The most important task of all was to cut back tomato overgrowth, in order to promote another flush of fruit. Similarly, where I’ve been coaxing shade to protect vulnerable aubergines, I’ve cleared it away to expose them to more sunlight and encourage a good autumn harvest.
Late summer tasks don’t end there though! Harvest time is on overload, checking beans & figs both morning and afternoon (if your aim was to put me into a very bad temper, the worst thing you could do would be to pick an unripe fig from my tree!), collecting tomatoes, finding time to make pesto, fig jam, tomato sauce. Another crop of elderflowers are budding up which will see me go into cordial hysteria and the Butia capitata, or Jelly Wine palm has cascading branches of tiny orange fruit that also need to be dealt with (their sweet scent is trapped all around the front of the house at the moment, it’s quite divine).
I revel in the way colour combinations change throughout the season. While I still have such a lot of red & green produce – think tomatoes & basil (which always remind me of Italy’s flag and Alfa Romeos!), the season is turning to violet, purple burgundy and burnished pink, interspersed with blushes of gold. So much beauty….(if so much hard work!).
On another note, but not entirely unrelated, I’d like to draw your attention to Dr Vandana Shiva’s talk this coming Friday evening: Planet on a Plate: Eating & Farming for our Future. To be introduced by the one & only Joel Salatin, this will be a terrific opportunity to hear her hopes for the future….her fight to save seeds, farmers and food from corporate monopolies. There are still seats available and these passionate people have good, sensible words to be heard. I’m hoping to make a last minute dash (with an event here on Saturday I’m a bit nervous about whether I’ll make it but I’m certainly going to try!).