It's late August. It's blackberry season. We're fortunate to have a gold mine of a laneway and property-boarder absolutely thick with blackberry vines. Coming from the west coast, it baffled me to see blackberries in plastic containers at Montreal and Ottawa markets selling for four or five bucks a pop, not only because they are such invasive weeds here but also because the blackberries out East actually taste nothing like blackberries. I've been trying to take full advantage of the season by getting out with Seb on my back in the Ergo once a day. He loves them, and is usually content to chill out there for an hour or so as long as he can graze on the fruit. Most of my clothes have dark purple stains down the back as a result of little sticky hands.
But we have competition! There's the old guy with a full body get-up, neck brace, handmade vine-grabbing tools, ladder, bucket-clipped-the-belt, and shears. It's intense. In the last few days he's been replaced by the industrious old Chinese ladies next door who done modest leather gloves but seem to be freakishly apt at this whole berry business. They're into making wine, and some sort of blackberry vodka mixture. But amidst the neighbourhood hunting and gathering there is enough to go around. We aren't as diligent as maybe we should be, but we still have at least five big freezer bags full and we aren't done yet. Alex even made some delicious jam the other day.
Other than the berries, the garden needs lots of daily harvesting attention. It's sometimes challenging to incorporate handfuls of kale, chard, calendular, squash blossoms and lettuce into every meal, especially when all we're craving these days is sushi or halibut burritos from The Shed. We also to have a never-ending supply of purple beans, basil, zucchini and new potatoes courtesy of our backyard, my ma's and the Roberts Creek Farm Gate market. But I've been determined to eat as much fresh backyard food as humanly possible and find ways to preserve the rest for less abundant days. Alex made and froze a big batch of fresh pesto last week from garden basil, kale and parsley. I've got a calendular infused oil experiment going on in a jar and paper bag on the porch. We're also trying to harvest as many seeds as we can for next year. It's not the simplest task. I feel like there's a lot to know; each fruit or plant has a different story. Right now I think I safely have a few packets of calendular and borage seeds. The last of the beans are drying on their stalks waiting to be harvested and preserved. The cilantro has gone to seed and we're waiting for it to dry out so we can have homegrown coriander seeds for curry and soups.
Meanwhile, I wait for and fawn over the squash in the garden. The plot they are in also holds some mammoth sunflowers and literally the most intense, prolific, sprawling tomato plant I've ever seen. Yesterday I stripped it of all it's remaining flowers and even tore off most of its fruitless branches and leaves to speed up the ripening process. The branches and leave filled half a five gallon bucket. We have them soaking in water near the fire pit for fertilizer. The squash on the other hand seem to be withering. We neglected to feed it, and judging from the health of the tomato plant I'd say it's leaching all nutrients right out from under the poor things. So I collected some seaweed from the beach, added some comfrey leave and compost and have that brewing as well, hoping the rich sludge which I dilute and water with each night will give some life to these sprawling plants.
I'm kind of in love with the garden right now. There's something so satisfying about watching the little fruits grow each day, knowing that I can help them if I pare here and there etc... Sebastian and I head out a couple times a day just to check things out, and some days when he is napping I just sit on the slope of the backyard amongst the sprawling vines with a book, or not, and feel utterly content.