Halloween and the end of summertime. When darkness rules. The clocks go back. We return to a meaner Greenwich Mean Time.
I am a winter’s child, born in January, so I find much to like about shorter days. But perhaps slightly harder to love in the garden.
Halloween was when we handed back our neighbouring plot after a year rescuing it from abandon. A celebration tinged with melancholy, pumpkin lanterns and marshmallows for the kids. Fourteen years ago now. When I first worked closely with Howard.
There was deep digging, we were muddy, often wet and cold, but it is where I learned the joy of garden collaboration, to listen to land and to other voices. Much of how I grow was defined in that time.
A more recent Sunday, Howard picks me up to gather the late Painted Mountain corn, stunted this year, and to pick the last of the beans, multiple French styles with a few Gold of Bacau, our harder-to-find favourite.
The sunflowers are finished, heads more likely now to be eaten by snails than passing parakeets. The verbena are fallen, beaten down by heavy rain and throttled by nasturtiums, themselves hanging on until continued frosts cull them.
The ldkongen marigolds are revived, bright and bushy again with scarlet flashes. We pick the first failing flower heads for seed. We will have to wait a few weeks for the remainder.
There are large paper bags in the shed. One packed with a large bunch of drying coriander. Half the seed we will cook with. The rest will be saved for sowing.
There are still crimson heads of amaranth on the plot, their pathway to seed slower this year. We need to clear a little and compost, but I am reluctant to disturb autumn’s last gasp. For now there is late rocket, chard and chervil. Winter can wait.
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