Seasonal Stopping

Last week we visited my family in search of sand and sun.  The winter squash in a pot we had given was sprawling over the back step.  It was time to stop any future growth and encourage the plant to put its remaining energy into fruit rather than shoots. My husband also attended in similar fashion to the tumbling tomatoes.

Our squashes by the front window have not been so prolific -  it is probably because we do not face south at sea level.  We do have some bigger squash to store.  One plant is on its last chance before uprooting.  The other is still producing courgette sized fruit.  The time will come for our tomatoes too with the standard advice being to stop further growth after a certain number of trusses.  I have also trimmed our prolific runner beans.

I become reflective at this time of the year when I consider the number of growing weeks left to us in the cool north and that even in the shelter of the greenhouse tomatoes will not continue for ever.  The sweet cherry tomatoes were the first to ripen and are still producing.  The others are slowly turning from pale yellow to red.  Time to review what has been successful and begin to plan for the coming seasons.

 

Blackberrying Holiday

For several days in late July we walked around likely blackberrying spots in search of ripening fruit.  Others were there before us -  the trampled grass and broken stems showing the impatience of other pickers.  But we put on our wellies and went a little further along the bridleway into the narrow wasteland that lies between us and the ring road where the builders busy themselves; to tracts damp and boggy where rabbits hide themselves, green rushes grow and meadow butterflies alight on willow herb and ragwort.

Here were blackberries tangled among the sloes that were slowly turning purple.  So we picked enough for our needs and relished the cache.  It set me thinking about annual holidays in August and September where we ended up doing the very same thing.  Our honeymoon in Brittany, self-catering in Wales and Suffolk, with friends in Eire, on visits to Cumbria; in each location we set out to forage and were not disappointed.

So this year as we wander through the little wilderness that lies ten minutes walk from home, I recall the happiness that holidays brought me as those memories superimpose themselves amid the sunshine of the present.