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.

September has always been the start of the year for me. I put that down to my agricultural roots and the fact that I have spent a lifetime in and around schools. There is something about a new academic diary decorated with snaps from the summer holidays, a blank page and a headful of plans, a ploughed field ready to be seeded and a bag of bulbs for planting that warms my heart. Don’t get me wrong; it’s bittersweet too - shutting the door on the summer and looking forward to the autumn, reflecting on the plans you made that never came to anything, longing for the lazy days and recognising that another year has gone by. Somehow, that’s easier in September than in the cold, dark days of January.

I assumed that my love of Autumn would wane as I aged and that Spring would seize its place. You know the idea? I’ve made it through another Winter. And yet, now that I’ve reached the age of wisdom (perhaps), I’m still an Autumn girl at heart - embracing the bittersweet, the yin and yang of the sadness of endings and hope of new beginnings.

There is SO much I love about September: the harvesting and preserving for the pantry, the beautiful colours, the slow slide into the darker days, the candles, the smells. the cold, misty mornings and the hot, sunny afternoons when you can fool yourself - just for a moment - that summer is still here and the beginning of preparing not only for the winter but for next year’s harvest.

If August is all about visits to sunflower fields, then September’s treat must be to an apple orchard. Some gardens have had their apple harvest on display for a while. Some orchards open their doors and their presses to anyone wanting to come along and get their homegrown apples pressed into juice and bottled. Just bring along your apples and containers and they will do all the work for you. I have plenty of recipes involving apples but now that the crab apples ripen a little earlier every year, I hope to be making crab apple jelly by the end of the month.

I was late ordering my bulbs this year and only got round to it just before the August bank holiday but a whole heap of narcissi, tulips and alliums will be on my doorstep in the middle of the month. Whilst I usually manage to get most in at peak planting time, I am often tardy with the tulips. I always mean to get them into the ground in November but sometimes I’m out in the garden popping them in on Christmas Eve. Tulips need a cold winter to grow long stems - important if you intend to cut them. The milder winters have been kind to my disorganisation, with that much-needed cold snap happening in January rather than earlier, allowing me to plant easily into soft soil when it should be rock hard and frozen. I tend to grow tulips in trenches for cutting or crammed together in pots where they do not flop in that ugly way that they can in the garden. They look marvellous and have none of the issues when they have gone over, because you can just stash the pot out of sight round the back of the shed until they have died back. Above all gardening is an act of hope. I love the fact that when the earth seems dead, things are happening under the ground, out of sight and the delayed gratification of waiting until Spring to reap the rewards of a few hours spent on my slightly arthritic knees planting bulbs and the strategic work of keeping the squirrels at bay.

Mabon, the Autumn Equinox when day and night are in balance is more sombre than the spring solstice, which was all about inspiration, new life and creativity. This one is a celebration of the fruit harvest. Although there is an air of plenty, generosity and expansion in the air, there is also a wistfulness. Nature is a great teacher, gently encouraging us to identify, gather and celebrate the harvest in our own lives and to recognise the beauty of letting go. Decluttering actual items is no bad way either to celebrate. Gather what you need for winter and get rid of what you don’t. Light the firepit, cook a simple supper and draw your loved ones near to say goodbye to Summer. Then embrace the charm of approaching Winter - cosy sweaters, candles, soup, evening walks tramping through leaves. There’s plenty to look forward to.