A is for August, and Apocalypse

Since I left school and had to work for a living through it, August has never been my favourite month, and I think this year has cemented that feeling. I love the freshness and business of spring, and the explosive joy of early summer, the mellowness of autumn and the hopeful and productive cosiness of winter. August just doesn’t seem to fit anywhere, and usually feels dry, tired, and slightly crinkly round the edges even before this year’s horrid drought.

So dry..

In the garden there’s been an ominous sense of struggle, as though everything is not okay under the surface of the bright zinnias and green veg. Maybe it just me: I think the future is bringing changes, and not for the better if you’re a garden traditionalist. More about that later though. On to the month’s main events.

August highlights

We actually socialised and had some people round for a BBQ. I even managed to take time off from the watering to turn the duvet cover we’d been using as a tablecloth for the outside table into an actual tablecloth.

Charlie helped as much as he could with the watering by grabbing the hose at every opportunity and ensuring it didn’t get used for any illegal watering activities under the hosepipe ban..

Oi! I’ve got my eye on you, don’t you move that hose…

Then by holding down the tablecloth so a draught wouldn’t move it whilst I was pinning it. And with a 4.5 stone dog on it, even in a hurricane it was going nowhere.

Hurricane tablecloth protection dog in action. To the untrained eye it looks a lot like just laying down, but its a subtle skill..

The blackberry harvest was early and small due to the heat and drought. Enough for a pot and a half of jam after it had been refrigerated in what in retrospect was a foolish choice of unlidded container, knocked out of the fridge and broadcast widely across the kitchen floor, then mostly retrieved. I say mostly, as we are still finding the occasional escapee, lurking like little black desiccated brains in the crannies of the kitchen.

There was also a surprise crop of blackcurrants from a self sown seedling bush that’s now part of the veg garden hedge. It originates from the blackcurrant bushes I originally planted nearby but ended up taking out as they didn’t produce well and I never really knew what to do with the fruit anyway.

Blackcurrants are a bit of a faff to pick, top and tail then use. I mixed this year’s crop with some leftover blueberries and grapes I had hanging around, boiled them up and strained them to make a jelly. Jelly is my kind of preserving, much easier than jam as you can sieve out all the bits of stalk, leaf, shrunken hideous mouldy fruits and unfortunate insects that you’ve been too lazy to pick off before cooking.

In the end I was too lazy even to boil it long enough after adding some sugar to make a jelly. It's delicious frozen as sorbet or at fridge temp as a fruity drizzle over yoghurt and crumbled meringue.

I hadn’t thought through what I was wearing and ended up a spattered t-shirt, which gave me an idea for the leftover mush after I strained of the juice, so one forage to retrieve it from the compost bin and a bit of added water later:

Blueberry and blackcurrant dye

The dye turned the jute of the hanger a lovely pinky purple

Charlie’s been brilliant with our visitors this month, even eventually taking himself quietly off to bed on the evening of the BBQ.

He was also the star of the show when Martin The Treeman and his crew came over to truncate our terrifyingly vigorous Bay tree (topping 30ft, shading everything out, and getting perilously close to the overhead power cables) and wrangle a mutant grapevine complete with sadly not quite ripe grapes from the Chusan palm.

They also trimmed the ivy growing up the front of the house- I know this is a controversial choice of home cladding but I happen to love the look of an ivy strewn wall. Our ivy had done the whole wall thing though, got a bit fed up with it, and was heading up to pastures new on the roof via the gutter, so it too had to be tamed somewhat.

They made the awkward and risky job look easy. And cleared up all the mess, for which I was glad as Bay doesn’t compost well, or in fact at all sometimes, being so full of aromatic compounds. We would have had enormous difficulty managing such a massive amount. They shoehorned it all into their van somehow- they take it to a farm where it’s shredded then used as a field mulch to protect sprouting crops- excellent!

Our grape free, proud, and magnificent Chusan Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei). The vanquished Bay (Laurus nobilis) is also just visible on the right.

So, everyone loves Charlie this month! Well, almost. He blotted his copybook shortly afterwards by bringing a HUGE and thankfully dead rat into the house, which he crunched with noisy gusto on the front room carpet waiting for someone to notice him. We weren’t feeling the Charlie love that day!

Sorry, I didn’t get a photo of that to share with you, we were too busy wrestling it off of him and chucking it where he couldn’t get hold of it again.

August first rain, get out and have a sniff!

The soil was crying out for some water

It was the last week in August that brought the first proper rain for more than 8 weeks.

It was a goodly downpour. I was reminded of the novel Dune when Jessica feels her skin relax at the touch of moisture in the air. And there was that wonderful smell of Petrichor- the smell of a parched soil waking up after rain.

Petrichor is made of a variety of scent components but a significant one for us is geosmin- the smell of the soil’s Streptomyces bacteria waking up. Streptomyces are an important bacterial group in the soil web, and present in their trillions in soils rich in organic matter. So the smell of geosmin is that of damp and fertile soil.

We have exquisite sensitivity to geosmin as a species, significantly more than any other primates. In fact we rank 7th in the top species on Earth that are sensitive to and attracted by it.

H sapiens can detect geosmin at a ridiculously miniscule concentration- as low as 5 parts per trillion, that’s 200,000 times more sensitive than the shark’s fabled ability to detect the scent of blood in water.

I can only think that in our past we must have been shaped by a dry and brutal land. The survivors amongst us had the ability to scent where fertile soil and water would be, and could head unerringly to it.

There’s also science to back our relationship with geosmin.

A 2022 trial of the effects on people of handling soil rich in streptomyces bacteria and emitting geosmin found-

Raised serotonin levels

Reduced inflammation

Activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, otherwise known as the ‘rest and digest’ system- the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system’s ‘fight or flight’ response.

Increased alpha wave brain activity (alert relaxed, low stress brain waves).

So, my interpretation is that geosmin signals to us that we are home. It stimulates hormones that reward us, it tells us it’s time to relax because we’ve arrived, we’re safe, this is where we are meant to be.

Tradescantia cuttings now potted up and basking in the moist breeze

Having a Good apocalypse

I have been influenced by many great people in my life, three of them are also Good.

In his splendid book ‘Grow or Die- the Good guide to survival gardening’ David the Good says of Jerusalem Artichokes ‘These plants are survivors, and if you grow them, you will be too.’ I have them everywhere in the garden now. What was originally a few small tubers have swelled to a majestic herd, enough to give flatulent digestive discomfort to scores of unwary people!

The secret is to introduce JAs slowly so your gut bacteria learn to love them. They are chock-a-block with the prebiotic substance inulin. If you haven’t grown a gut microbiome that can handle and thrive on it then big doses will cause the same sort of chaos as turning up uninvited to a toddler party and giving them all the blue smarties they can eat whilst their parents are distracted by the Iceland nibbles and warm wine being served in tiny plastic cups.

My other two Goods are Tom and Barbara, who’s magnificent pioneering attempts to gain self sufficiency in Surbiton I was exposed to at a young and impressionable age (the series ran on Friday nights between 1975 and 1978 and Felicity Kendall in her jeans and wellies meant my dad never missed an episode).

Legends in the garden

My attitude to the apocalypse is, I think, a bit like Noah’s though. Of course, without the necessary sons to fashion an ark, and indeed no flood to make use of it (quite the opposite, in fact), I’m not talking biblical preparedness. But I’m getting ready bit by bit, when the opportunity arises.

My method is more about getting stocked up with the species of plants that will be useful, and establishing colonies of them, and collecting seed from the plants that do well here in my garden. Also learning how to grow it all, experimenting, and gaining expertise.

It’s low level stuff but I’ve been doing it for a few years now. I think, dear reader, you should consider doing the same, even if it’s keeping a seed collection.

Of course those of you who know where I live can come join when it all kicks off. I’ll be recruiting everyone who lives around our field at the back, my intention is we will farm it and defend it together.

Pat The Farmer (who owns it) will probably have more important demands on his attention than us appropriating his property, and let’s face it, he can’t even get here once he’s got no petrol for his car. If he does get as far as us I’ve got a plan. We’ll call that plan 2.

Plan 2

I don’t smoke myself but I have a stash of Nicotiana tabacum var ‘Golden Virginia’ seed we can grow and use for trade.

Once the vapes and cigarettes run out, nicotine will be a highly tradable commodity. Plan 2 is all about the trading of the tobacco and other preapocalypse essentials for what we can’t grow.

I’ve  also got a stock of yeast for fermenting. By Jimminy if civilization ends then I sure as hell intend to watch that with a glass of something alcoholic in my hand! But we can also turn any produce that won’t store any other way into alcohol. And trade it.

Now all we need is a cockerel and a drake to secure the next generation of birds. Perhaps an Apocalypse BYOB (bird) party? And caffeine for the morning after of course.

Sticky Willy and Silly Bum

Some caffeine will be essential to make the morning after our home made Peapod Burgundy (Tom and Barbara Good, we salute you!) fuelled apocalypse party more bearable, no matter what it tastes like.

I have a tiny tea bush that I’ve nursed through the drought, but it’ll be a while before I’m getting enough leaf from it to keep me from nodding off again by 10am.

We can make ‘coffee’ out of ground roasted Sticky Willy seeds though. I kid you not: Gallium aparine AKA Cleavers, Goosegrass, and yes Sticky Willy can be eaten, made into tea, and the dried  matured seeds can be harvested, not to mention picked off clothing, children, and pets, roasted and ground to provide a caffeinated beverage that doesn’t really taste anything like coffee. We’ll probably get used to it though.

Gallium aparine AKA Sticky Willy. The future of caffeine

Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum) tea is great for indigestion and liver support, which may be necessary if evenings of Peapod Burgundy become a habit. So I’ve  got a couple of plants of that too. Mainly because the name makes me laugh though, truth be told.

See you next month!

Karen X