I spent the morning harvesting peas, a huge great big bowl of sweet, fresh, green peas. I split the first pod just to be sure they are satisfactory and of course, they are superb. I take them to Nancy in the kitchen who is preparing for a large lunch party. I also bring in beetroot ‘Choggio’, the candy striped variety with a deep earthy flavour, radish and nasturtiums for heat, bright yellow courgettes and the round “Tondo chiaro di Nizza” too. Lettuce leaves “Freckles”, “All the Year Round” and “Lollo Rossa” are added to the mix after I remove the outer leaves and the creatures that have been sheltering within them.
I’ve heard an awful lot this year about how terrible the slugs have been and I admit it was something I was very worried about when I first started working in the kitchen garden. I had vowed, as always, to work organically. I was determined to trust in the natural balance of nature and produce food for the Manor and its guests that was not only good to eat but good for the environment too. It's nothing new to me, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but worry about the slugs. Will I go in on Monday morning to find everything devastated? Would I have anything to show for my hard work? I’d wake in the night and pray to the hedgehogs and the toads and the song thrush, “Please look after my veg! The beans are still so young and tender, the lettuce so succulent, they won’t make it on their own!” In this instance, there was no need to worry. The hedgehogs, toads and song thrushes did play their part, and although there were signs of their presence, the slugs did not consume the lot.
Gardening is basically a year-long game of ‘Chicken’. You have to hold your nerve and resist interfering and yes, sometimes things aren’t always going to go your way, but if you continue to hold out and trust in the natural balance, predators will take out the prey, not to eliminate, but to sustain themselves, and therefore sustain their presence in the garden. If you lose your nerve and defer to toxic chemicals for help, you are simply prolonging your agony and destroying any hope of balance.
That being said the young Mitzuna is peppered with holes thanks to flea beetle, although as the plants grow they should be troubled less and I have been compensated by the sight of a charm of finches who take flight every time I round the corner into the veg garden. The nasturtium are also doing their job, providing food for the cabbage white caterpillars who have so far shown only minimal sign of interest in the brassicas, despite the butterflies squeezing through the netting with ease.
Nancy’s menu today requires one more ingredient that I have played absolutely no part in the cultivation of, and that is blackberries. It’s all too easy to consider the garden produce ‘mine’. I sowed the seed, I watered the seedling, completely forgetting the soil life, sunshine and other creatures that played a greater part. But the blackberries are wild and it is simply fortuitous that I find them rambling freely and happily amongst this hedgerow. They are not ‘mine’, they are the blackbird’s, and the bee’s and the wood mice’s and all of the other animals living out in the countryside beyond the boundary of this tamed patch and it reminds me of the ‘Honourable Harvest’, a term used by the botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer. She writes in her book ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’;
“The guidelines for the honourable harvest are not written down, or even consistently spoken of as a whole – they are reinforced in small acts of daily life, but if you were to list them, they may look something like this;
Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others. Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share. Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.”
The hedgerow at the back of the garden is studded with black jewels and it’s impossible to resist this first flush of fruits that have been sweetened by the recent sunshine. I begin to harvest and thank the bees busy pollinating the flowers destined to become the next crop of fruit. It could easily become a case of one for the kitchen, one for me, but I do not forget the Honourable Harvest and so there is plenty for the kitchen, a sweet snack for me and even more for nature. I head back to the kitchen, tuning in to the song of the blackbirds, ignoring the frayed petals and silvery pathway on the dahlia, and am grateful that along with all of the fruit and vegetables, we have cultivated reciprocity in this garden.
