Harvesting

Everything feels out of sync this year, but perhaps it is not the case. Last year I was dealing with the plums and getting mock nicotine stained five finger-piglets in early September, so I am only a week out.
Even the new fruit trees planted this February are bearing a few fruit; damsons, morello cherries and medlars have displayed a few teasing examples of future hoped for gluts. The wonderful purplish red plums that I cannot identify are as gloriously roundly buttocky as a ripe coco de mer and entirely delicious. There are bowls of blackberries sitting in the scullery waiting to be made into a fool. There are lists of agreed sausage ingredients so that the relevant herbs and other makings can be gathered in time for the mid-week sausage-making game. I have hunted down the luscious tomato and chilli chutney recipe as the tomatoes are starting to ripen en masse. I have pulled up mega swede before the worms create holes to slide through and ruin its flesh.
The last of the hay is now being baled and late evenings spent hauling them off the trailer adds to the dust and grime sweatiness of a long day harvesting; every crease itches with it - the inside of your elbows, behind your knees, where chin meets neck. The baler is throwing bizarre pillow sized little hay packages every now and then, perfect for guinea pig owners, jauntily knotted with pink twine, the only thing missing is the writing on the side.
The onions now sway in plaited lengths from the cartshed beams, there is an enormous amount of weeding to be done in the veg beds, but all in all, it's time to start planning the autumn round.