Autumn Harvest 2017

Worcestor Pearmain - a taste to savour every September

At this time of year, despite the often restless swirling winds outside, everything seems to take on a strange kind of stillness. It's a stillness that's difficult to articulate, yet I think all who work with the seasons know it. A strange kind of nostalgia... the sweet smell of decay on the breeze reminds us that things are completing their annual cycles. Yet so gentle is this sense of completion, I think it serves to remind us also that in nature there is no such thing as death - only a graceful culmination of cycles, a harvesting if you like, of all that once grew and flourished. A great sense of peace and abundance can be felt, as with unconditional generosity, nature offers us the fruits of another year's effort.

We, alongside nature have worked hard and enjoyed the exhilarating energy of spring and summer, now it is time to enjoy the fruits of our labour. An inner harvest comes with the outer harvest. It is this feeling of harvest that brings us to stillness. It is time to rest.

How have you all done during the 2017 growing season? Nature certainly seems to have been expressing to us more than ever this year of her distress. Distorted and very unpredictable weather patterns are even more noticed by those of us who work closely with the land. The drought during the spring and early summer is still evident in local streams and rivers that are still only trickling much of the time despite the huge quantities of rain lately. The ground just keeps soaking it up, the Earth was clearly very thirsty.

All the sunshine and heat we had early on did seem to get things ahead though, and just gave the edge needed to lengthen the season for those crops that lie in the margins of what's viable to grow in our climate.

For those places that avoided the late hard spring frosts, a bumper crop of tree fruit has been enjoyed by many. Here on our farm, frost pockets became very evident - fruit trees lying in valley bottoms gave no fruit at all this year compared with almost branch breaking volumes on those higher up the hills.

Apples did brilliantly - our one hundred year old Worcester Pearmain faithfully delivering more basket-fulls of her delicious, sweet early apples.

An old Devonshire Damson tree delivers again...

Plums and Damsons also did well for many. As you can see we had such a glut of damsons, we just didn't know what to do with them all - so I'm trying something new. Inspired by my friend Sagara's brined sloes, I thought I'd give brined damsons a try. It's still early days but they already have a delicious juicy plummy olive kind of a vibe going on!

(Check out Sagara's amazing facebook page for more details on brining fruits and beautiful photos of his autumn harvest https://www.facebook.com/Eastdevonforestgarden )

Smaller than from the shops, yet much sweeter!

I was also very excited to get my first couple of pears from our old wild pear tree that I top grafted many years ago (before the days when grafting troubled me so!) - Doyenne de Comice, the Queen of pears, ripening really well against the south wall.

Grapes were also a success this year. My Brandt vine giving her best ever crop to date. The vine climbs up a stair case to find the warm haven of a south facing wall. Grapes growing against the stone ripening a good bit earlier than those left dangling in the open air.

Perhaps most excitingly of all fruit-wise though was my first proper crop of hardy kiwis - also known as Siberian kiwi, Tara vine or smooth kiwi - or in latin, Actinidia arguta. My self-fertile cultivar 'Issai' giving out generous lots of its tiny sweet delicious fruits. Once they soften, the flavor is almost identical to a really ripe fuzzy kiwi - and the best ones are even more aromatic and flavorsome than that. A real winner, and providing the foliage doesn't get hit by late frosts it seems quite at home in our climate. I can see many more people growing this crop in years to come. Perhaps it could even become commercial?

Brandt Grapes - very tasty once fully ripe!

All in all, a very fulfilling harvest is being enjoyed at Symbiosis. I wonder how this growing season has been experienced by the rest of you, and as always I'd love to hear back from you on your own successes and struggles in growing forest garden plants in our funny old fickle climate...

So write in! symbiosisnursery@gmail.com - I look forward to hearing from you.

Keep enjoying the harvest :)

Charlie


 

Yes, I'm very chuffed to be growing kiwis!!!