Abundance in August

There is a moment in August when the crops come at you faster than you can pick them.  Remember this in December when all is bare and still.  I had a bit of an "Oh my God" moment, in the midst of almost too much plenty,  when I discovered that the beans I had thought were still leaf and no beans weren't that at all.  I lifted the sprawling leaves thinkingthat maybe they needed tying up and there they were in their tens and twenties and more, another vegetable to be eaten or frozen or preserved.  Don't fret and fume.  Half the world is desperate for what we have.

The plum tree is only in its fourth year but is weighed down with fruit that its slender branches can barely hold.  It is a Victoria, the plums sweet and tart at the same time.  Funnily enough they are sweeter eaten raw than when cooked.  The plum crumble (don't you just love those words together?) which I made yesterday was delicious but nothing like as sweet as a single plum in your mouth.

This is a Shropshire damson.  Yes I know we don't live in Shropshire but it is not far away so practically local.  Damsons grow in the hedges around here.  Damson jam vies with blackcurrant for the title of my favourite but does have the disadvantage of all those stones.  You just have to accept that the time spent at the stove over the simmering preserving pan with the slotted spoon fishing for yet another stone, is the price you pay for the sweet tart darkness of damson jam, an adult pleasure, of a kind.

And apples, there are always apples: apple chutney and apple jelly and apple cake and apple pie.

And more apples here too, weighing the old trees down.  I am bringing the pears inside to ripen.  Their lives are shorter and sweeter.  A perfectly ripened pear, if only you can catch its moment, melts upon the tongue and runs down the chin.  Just now they sit in the bowl on the kitchen table, stubbornly, coldly hard.  Supermarkets trick you with their bags of pears.  They are as much like a pear as a plastic flower is like a rose.

And a wall full of runner beans, solid enough to keep out marauders.  Yesterday I swear there were no beans.  Today they are thickening fast.  Get them just now when they are slender and sweet and they are delicious.  Turn your back and they grow a foot long and can fell a man if you are short of a truncheon.

Did I mention raspberries?  I am still not sure it is possible to have too many raspberries even though I am bringing them in by the bucketload.  We have had our daughters staying for a few days, one with a small child and one with a large puppy.  Puppy and child adored cruising the raspberries and I do too.  I pick them and think I will make jam and somehow what is left in the colander is never quite enough. 

Flowers too.

This is a salvia, Blue Angel, grown from seed by Karen at An Artist's Garden, and singing against the valerian.  Fortunately, it does not need to be eaten, preserved or frozen.