September days are here..

September has nothing to do with dates.  I felt it arrive on a breeze, in late August.  So, I have swapped my sun hat for a body warmer and find myself doing more tidying up than planting.  The greenhouse is blurred with condensation in the morning and the door does not need opening until lunch time.  Our daily trug is lighter now that the harvest is slowly dwindling and the last roses are clinging to the departing summer.  Once or twice I have glimpsed a yellow leaf peeping out from the sea of green and the air is thick with the smell of fallen apples.  Joy of joys, there is not much watering to do.

I love September because both the garden and the gardeners mellow.  We are not rushing anywhere and are happy to tick along for a few weeks more, in blissful harmony.   Whilst the pumpkin plants are cropping well, they are a little uncomfortable with mildew but the asters are free of it and very perky, bobbing in the breeze to attract our attention.  It is nice to have the time to pick some for the house.

Doc climbed his new tripod ladder to harvest the damsons.  They were ready much earlier this year- and we now have 20lbs of deep purple rugby ball shaped fruits stashed in the freezer, though we could have probably doubled that if the ladder was taller.  I like to make jams and chutneys in the late autumn when the dark, cold days of November need cheering up with a bubbling cauldron of spicy smells.  Doc likes to make his Damson gin for no other reason than he likes it.

There were two damson trees when we arrived at Springfield nearly 8 years ago and we see them as the elder statesmen of the garden.  They are overgrown, with huge gnarled boughs straining under the weight of age and scarred with a lifetime’s experience.  Every year, they manage to fruit in abundance but every year we think it will be the last.  Last winter the sub-zero temperatures fractured a large limb from each of them and ripped away swathes of their bark too....

But the life of the garden has to go on and we have planted a replacement Shropshire Prune and who knows when it will take over the production of our treasured damsons.  September would not be September without Doc and me warning each other to watch out for squished damsons on the path.