Notes from the garden; Summer heat, DIY and the first test subject
On becoming an apothecary....of sorts
Hello! Welcome to this section of my Substack called ‘Notes from the garden’. I have long had a dream of growing my own food. Follow me as I go from supermarket shopper and absolute garden novice, to growing and creating. If you are a grower or a wannabe grower, I would love to hear your thoughts/tips/support in the comments. Anna xx
The hum of the fan wakes me.
Having slept with a single sheet, I pray to the sun gods that this is as high as the temperature will go.
Here, along the south coast of England, a breeze still flutters through the trees and the huge canopies of oak, sycamore, and ash provide much needed relief. For some, 24 degrees is balmy, a very much welcome holiday. In my teens, numerous summers were spent slathering on factor 8 and cooking in the sun like a rotisserie chicken. The long held belief that to be tanned was to be beautiful. As I have aged both days in the sun, and beliefs about what it means to be admired, have long since disappeared.
2 years ago I was working in an office at over 40 degrees. As sweat trickled down my back, and the brick walls held their heat, I felt suffocated. I hated summers. Ranked my least favourite season for years on end. But now it is making a comeback. This is largely due to the fact I no longer have to endure a forced enclosure.
My life is now one of choice.
Days seem long.
So long that I do not know what to do with them. Seeking out trees and breezes at will. It feels very odd.
Much of my life has been in cycles of frenzied doing. When one project was completed, another slid into its place, sometimes a multitude. All with tight deadlines and no time to sleep. What can I achieve next? Where can I go? Shorter bursts of immobility at weekends broke up these frenzied working states. Collapses us city types called ‘relaxation’. Netflix binges and doom scrolling for 2 days before the whole sorry cycle started again.
This slowing down is an art. My teeth are on edge, my nervous system ready to leap. Time stretches and expands in front of me. It contracts into nothingness, freezes and dances in shattered fragments. No longer linear. I am relearning what it means to ‘do’.
Learning the delicate balance between doing and flowing is taking a while to master.
Today is a doing day. I am to be the house gardener.
It is also a flowing day. Time to nurture the plants, watch the bees as they shove and push their way to the pollen, asking the soil what she needs.
For the last year, I have been keen to learn the tricks of the trade from Dad. Trying desperately to be his shadow, and being batted off as a source of annoyance. The garden is his thing, his pleasure and relief. Even in those long stretches in hospital when mum and I had to care for the runner beans, we’d prod and probe; should we feed them? What about the slugs? What are these markings on the leaves?
Just water them, he’d say I’ll take care of the rest when I get back. With no hint of the secrets of growing the world’s most magnificent beans or the skills and know-how to keep them alive. And so we did as we were asked. The runner beans did ok, not as well as they should, but ok. They suffered wind burn, slug infestation, and black fly, but they survived, blessing us with a crop or two in that very hard year.
This year it is different.
On Sunday, Dad turned to me and said the weeding, can I get some help with that? A surrender. I swallowed feeling a lump in my throat, tears pricked the corners of my eyes. Relinquishing to age, the chemo. This had been something that I wanted, but the resignation in his eyes made the truth even more real. The truth is we still have a chance, but even if that chance works, we are all old. Life is not as it once was. So the tears flowed safely behind my sunglasses. Of course Dad, no worries.
First it was the weeding then the watering, cutting back shrubs, the herbs. We spent most of Monday making decisions together about what area to tackle, what to plant and the winners and losers of this early summer. I’ll get a gardener in, ask him to do £50’s worth of work a month.
Let’s see Dad, I say. Let’s see.
Herb maintenance
My first job is to maintain the sheer bounty of herbs. We’ve always been proud to have our own mint with dinner, rosemary with lamb for dad, basil in tomato sauces for me. Dad’s greatest pride and joy is the Greek basil, which at the moment seems hard to come by.
The oregano and thyme are beautiful, particularly in the evenings, the scent as we sit in the cool of dusk rumbles our tummies and has us talking about recipes galore.
Our favourite, the mint itself has begun to turn. I cannot tell if it is the infamous mint rust, or too much sun in the last few days. If it’s the rust we cannot eat it, and I note down to myself to look at how to identify differences between fungal growth, wind and sun burn in a herb.
We decide the best thing we can do is to cut the whole lot back, and regrow, but before we do I take a sample. I like to imagine myself an apothecary, and waste seems such an aberration. Having spent time as a festival last year where alcohol fuelled days were unheard of but workshops on smudge sticks and making our own rope were ten a penny, I learnt some top tips on drying.
To the average gardener this may seem laughable, drying is just drying right? It’s not complicated. And that I agree, but I realise it is one of the most basic of skills that my own innate self has forgotten. It is high time I reawaken this long known logic. And so, to the workshop I go.
Drying herbs
In the workshop, I find an old plank of wood, and several rusty nails. I rifle through my grandmother’s old tin tool box, and find a sturdy hammer. An oak handle, heavily crafted and weighted metal at its end, almost pulling me to the floor. That’ll do the trick.
Hammering in the nails first on the plank of wood, then the overhanging beam, I feel almost invincible. A girl doing DIY who would have thought it? To believe such a thing was only possible by a man may cause a wealth of comments that I have become enslaved to the patriarchy. But I have grown up in an era were women were told that woodwork was not a job for a woman, that the only way to survive, to build, was to find a man who could do it for you. And as I wield my hammer I think not today, not this lifetime. And I feel strong and empowered with my plank of wood and nails.
We watch Bargain Hunt daily these days.
The experts meet those learning a medieval craft between sales. They mould the materials of the Earth into something beautiful, into art that is more appreciated in a buying and selling society instead of the abundance of nature itself. There is something Earthly and otherworldly about the process. To feel old and new life in ones hands, to thank the world for its produce, and take care with how you use what it was gifted to you.
As I look around the workshop, the remnants of an old garage, long since lost its purpose, I sigh at the lack of space. It is filled with things. Things that we feel represent a life, but have just been left gathering dust for decades. Dad exhales, I’ll call a man, get rid of it all. Like my flat I am soon to vacate, we decide that unless it is a photograph, it can all be recycled or removed. This garage a representation of how I am soon to set a match to my own life. I envision myself standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at my top floor flat, windows obscured by wisteria, holding just one lone suitcase with the rest to be removed by the clearance company. Let it burn. I hear someone say deep within. Let it burn and move on. A simple life awaits me.
So here in the workshop, I sit on a wooden stool, clear a small space amongst the tools and the fishing reels and set to work. Cutting lengths of twine, selecting the best leaves, working hard not to bundle them too tight. Carefully I add my final loop at the end and hang her up to dry.
I look at her as she lightly bobs in her new resting place. I thank her for what she is providing; the start of a new life, the memories of Dad and I tending the garden together, and I wait.
A week later she has dried almost perfectly, ready to be crushed and added to jars. My test subject, not yet edible, but a pioneer of herbs to come.
And so my apothecary of teas begins.
In the coming week oregano, thyme, lavender, they will all be dried and harvested for the winter months. Lavender for sleep and soap, and tea. Camomile to be planted, after the weeds have all been uprooted.
I moan about this heat, but the warmth of the sun and the abundance of the Earth are a gift. A gift to learn the ropes from Dad and to forge a new future ahead.
The medicine is here in this garden.
For me and for Dad.
Together we are gardeners.
I am writing this essay as part of the 24 essays club (this is number 10) with the wonderful
you can read more about the essay club below.
Nothing like having your own herb garden, thankfully, although our mint does go through its winter stage, I still manage to gather enough leaves for mint sauce or a salad. The only herbs I lose for awhile are Tarragon and Chives. Hope your dad is feeling ok today. 🤗