Inbetween
I am a haphazard gardener, I have fallen into it gradually, I am not a dedicated allotment keeper with neat rows of veg. Just as with housework (which I am equally sporadic about) I have surges of enthusiasm, I plant seeds too early, I fill windowsills with seedlings that turn spindly. Things frequently die, sometimes I learn from this and do better the following year, sometimes I don’t. But I have learnt to live with my limitations. Perennials work best for me, a patch of rhubarb that just keeps unfurling leaves each year, inviting me to pull stems and make crumbles, cakes and tubs of stewed fruit that I tuck away into the freezer for another time. I have two fruit trees, a plum and an apple, both struggling now in the drought. The plum is loaded this year, even though it has been jettisoning unripe fruit for weeks, presumably due to water stress. Every day I prowl around it to assess ripeness, for unlike the tree I do have time constraints, and am going away to visit my parents next week. Such abundance has to be prepared for, I think about jam, doing rough sugar calculations, gathering clean jars. I know from experience that jam-making is a hot sticky hellscape, but such smugness and satisfaction comes from it, jewel-bright jars lining a shelf.
I am out of sorts too, as this August is not in the style of past summer holidays. The endless days of sun are unsettling to a woman who spent her formative years holidaying in various parts of the UK, always with a cagoule and an emergency jumper to hand. We were used to ‘making the best’ of the weather, there are windswept photos of me and my brothers on beaches, bluelipped in our swimming costumes, or climbing the ramparts of ruined castles in varying stages of drizzle. These weeks of heatwave are completely at odds. Last week I was chatting to a volunteer who helps look after the green space where the preschool and holiday club runs, a beautiful place full of mature trees and lush planting. As she diligently emptied her watering can, she said she had been looking after her grandchildren while their parents were at work, and that even taking them to the park had become an ordeal, as the safety surface under the play equipment was scorchingly hot in the sun. Later we walked past the stream that runs through the site, which was nearly completely dry. To aid relaxation in these troubling times, I have been drinking mugwort tea, another harvest from a friend. It is said to promote vivid dreams. Last night I dreamt it was raining heavily in my garden, there was a whirl of sloshing and gurgling, as I woke I felt uplifted and hopeful. And then thudded back to reality looking out of the window at parched leaves and crisped grass.
This August ‘making the best’ of it requires sinking into the strangeness, doing what I can. Trips to and fro with a watering can, cutting bunches of lavender to dry (a harvest even I can manage), eating handfuls of blackberries warm from the sun on a dusty walk. It has been a summer of butterflies, and grasshoppers bound from my step as I walk my patch. Keep drinking the tea, keep dreaming, and maybe one day soon the rain will fall.
Photo shows some of the rampant Agapanthus in my back garden. Yesterday evening I watched from my hammock as a Hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) came to visit, rapidly sticking its long proboscis into each small trumpet. Agapanthus are originally from South Africa and are proving drought resistant in my Bristol garden (so far...)
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