The sun is out, Gingernut the cat relaxes on the shed. Our sunflower triffids look terrific in the morning sun - and yet - It is that time of year already.
Summer memories of no rain for weeks and temperatures reaching record breaking levels seem a long way distance. The garden is still in bloom, though this is an illusion. Emergent growth is largely absence, developing growth too. Decay is arriving as the garden moves imperceptibly into that state of stasis between summer bountiful and winter famine. And while the light levels have remained good with temperatures above average, the status quo which ostensibly allowed us to enjoy these few precious days has changing. We've passed the Equinox.
At the weekend we took down the runner beans. The last few pods were blackening and unappealing. A mound of jumbled sticks appeared on the patio. One of my favourite jobs - creating order - cutting off all the string and other attachments, assessing cane structural integrity and putting them neatly away for another year. At sometime in the near distant I or Julie will have tied in the runner beans new foliage. Struggling with rampant growth we'd have tied in tendrils with string after string for days. Now in late September that long forgotten effort to control is no longer needed, the string's supporting time, like that of the beans is at an end. Sorting and unravelling the activity of summer is a pleasant job on a sunny September afternoon, but it reminds painfully that the days shorten.
The garden is quiet of wildlife now. Birds do still come to the feeders but in ones and two's, unlike in spring when the rush to breed saps avian energy, energy eagerly replenished at the smorgasbord we provision like a bandit gang of unruly teenagers. Garden snails have been a nuisance this year, if only we could encourage a song thrush. This mature one with gorgeous markings is wedged into the middle of the greenhouse door, happily sliding back and forth as we wander in and out sorting through the pots.
The tomatoes have now all been removed. Cane tops back in the storage plant pot alongside those bits and bobs we find are very useful to keep 'just in case' but in reality are never ever used again. Not much now fills the greenhouse, some lettuce seedlings are coming up on the ground bed and a lone spinach seedling fights for freedom on the bench. Mostly it is simply quiet contemplative sorting. Pots washed and stacked up ready for a proper sort out on one of those days when in mid-winter we want to be outside but in reality it's too cold and too dark. A few hours in such a mood in the mid December greenhouse satisfies the most primeval of our needs.
Garden spiders are ever present too - every gap decorated with a web of huge proportions. Today is the first for a while where the wind has picked up. With each gust they jostle and gyrate but remain steadfastly on station in the hope a passing fly will entrap itself. In the summer we had numerous nest explode with spiderlings. They are amazing at that stage where the slightest threat sees hundreds dart away in all directions only to slowly return to a formation of safety in numbers. Those minute humbug spiders, now demand respect in the foliage.
It's that time of year already and a time of year many people enjoy. Quiet reflective times. The heat of summer has gone, the bare nature of winter is yet to come. A time to reflect, to take stock, and plan ahead. Next week I shall be sowing the sweet peas whose seed I harvested on the 9th of August this year. All being well, come early May they will begin to bloom, a past continuity to the future.
I really do like this time of year and just occasionally in the silence of the garden is broken. The robin reminds me his territory is being established with song, reminding us all that it is not long then until nature begins the cycle of rebirth once more.
Christmas first though, 90 days away today. Time to light the candles.
