The September Garden

“It was September, and there was a crackly feeling to the air.”

There’s a nip in the air when I go for an early morning wander around the garden. Spiders’ webs glisten on the hedge; a faint smell of woodsmoke in the air; the borders are a riot of golds, oranges and deep, deep purples; and of course there is foraging to be done. Somewhere nearby lustrous bunches of elderberries hang just within reach. I love them even more than the blackberries and gather them in my basket, carrying them home to make elderberry tincture, surely the easiest of all my elderberry concoctions. I have my eye on a bumper crop of sloes but should wait until the frost has touched them. It’s a race between me and the birds. If I get too impatient, I’ll gather them anyway and pop them in the freezer.