It's the time of year that I work a lot more and it's colder and darker, so it's harder to find time to get in the garden. Still, things grow, and if they don't, I can't be bothered dealing with them.
I do need to get onto the nettle patch before it goes to seed though. Although I can trust myself to maintain it I don't know what'll happen when someone rents the place! Nettle gnocchi coming up - this year really must be the year I get on it. It's not that I have a nettle problem exactly - it's I have a 'not enough time to keep it under control' problem. I love nettle - it's incredibly useful, being harvested for meals and for medicine as a nourishing tea. I love it so much I don't even mind the sting.
I love this poem about nettles by Vernon Scannell. It's as much about the futile exercise of entirely keeping your garden free of nettles as it is about how you can't protect yourself, or your children, from the pain of life. You can try, and you can ease it, but there will always be another time where they hurt. I'm reminded of my little boy when we first moved to England, falling in the nettles constantly and me kissing him better. Now he's 26, he has his own trials and tribulations he must solve himself. I can't protect him forever, and somehow had to teach him to manage the pain and get on with it bravely.
My son aged three fell in the nettle bed.
'Bed' seemed a curious name for those green spears,
That regiment of spite behind the shed:
It was no place for rest. With sobs and tears
The boy came seeking comfort and I saw
White blisters beaded on his tender skin.
We soothed him till his pain was not so raw.
At last he offered us a watery grin,
And then I took my billhook, honed the blade
And went outside and slashed in fury with it
Till not a nettle in that fierce parade
Stood upright any more. And then I lit
A funeral pyre to burn the fallen dead,
But in two weeks the busy sun and rain
Had called up tall recruits behind the shed:
My son would often feel sharp wounds again.
The beech is the last tree to lose it's leaves and the last to put them on in Spring. I do love Autumn colour in the garden.
My broccoli is looking good. Not as much green leaves but that might be the variety. Dying to munch into it! I'm kicking myself for not doing successive sowings but I'm finding it hard to keep up. I've also got snowpeas, garden peas, silverbeet, swede, potatoes and onions growing. There's a few herbs still doing well like the vietnamese mint, mint and parsley. I'm going to take down the choko as the season just isn't long enough for it to bear fruit and the vine is taking over the garden.
The violas are providing a splash of colour - I do love putting them on top of dinners or salads, though I don't think Jamie notices, haha. I do though! It's one of the things that just delights me - almost as much as the self seeding coriander that is proliferating in the veggie patch!
The super cool thing that happened this year was that my turmeric was finally worth harvesting. It grows in the greenhouse and what I've discovered is that the neighbouring pines have put their roots through all the way into the beds, so everything is now going in pots instead. Still, the turmeric did better this year. I've harvested some and put some back in pots and will have to give them to a friend to babysit whilst we are away in Europe next year.
Lots of chillis of course, and peppers, which do well in the greenhouse as well. With the turmeric, chilli, lemon and some bought ginger and peppercorns I started a fire cider - writing this has reminded me I forgot to add herbs so I'll get another one started as well I think.
This is usually the view from my window, though we're lucky where we live - the dark, rainy days are often punctuated by bright sunshine too. Still, though it's mid winter, there's still a few months of cold left yet.
What's happening in your gardens?
With Love,
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