September reflections

I asked my partner what she liked best about the garden.  Her reply – she likes the “general unpredictability” of it – how there is often a harvest of the unexpected arriving in the kitchen.  She also likes the way it is so attractive to wild things – bees and insects – and more recently blue tits that have been eating something in the fennel early in the morning.

I particularly love the way it yields tasty vegetables for very little work.  I have just added up the produce (from the Borderland garden) so far this year; it amounts to 15.3 kg:

• 7 kg roots
• 3 kg green leafy vegetables
• 5 kg onion-y things
• 8 kg fruiting and podding vegetables
• 1 kg others

I also love ‘just being’ in the garden.  This afternoon we needed to dig out some of an earthen bank to make space for a storage chest for garden tools etc.  I did some of the work but Pat valiantly did most of it.  I needed a break and went to sit by the polyculture patch just taking time to look at it, to lazily pull some ripe radish pods (to save the seeds) and watch the bees humming on the toadflax and fennel.  After a very wet August it was so peaceful enjoying spending some time with the late summer flowers and their accompanying insects.