Golden August
We’re halfway in August, that last month of summer. A month of golden summer beauty. Golden fields of corn, dried grasses, blooming common tansy and golden sunsets. Let me take you into a story of my golden moments in August…
The roadsides where I run are filled with all those delicate dried grasses and seedpods, softly rustling in the warm summer wind. Their subtle silhouettes are clearly visible against the blue sky.
The golden fields of wheat have been harvested. Straw is collected into big bales and piled up high in the sky, a reminder summer is slowly coming to an end.
On the right picture you can see a tumulus in the middle of a wheat field. It’s a Gallo-Roman burial mound of which we have several in the area where I live. They are quite impressive and I love to see these landmarks that remind us of a long history.
Nature has shifted from growing to ripening now. The colors are waning, from dark green to golden. Flowers are turning into seedpods.
The harvest has begun and clouds of wheat dust are seen in the fields where the farmers are working hard to collect their harvest.
Our vegetable has suffered under the drought and heat waves, but probably that’s also the case in your garden if you live in Europe! Since spring we didn’t had much rain and the soil moisture level has never been so low in our country. Many countries in Europe are moaning right now under the drought and heat waves. It’s really painful to notice these effects of the global warming on nature and how slowly changes are made by people and governments.
I haven’t sown as much as usual because of the lack of rain. But I’m grateful for what is growing right now and the veggies and fruit we can harvest.
Bright calendula flowers and the beautiful seedpods of papaver somniferum are colouring the veggie garden. I always collect the small ones to decorate my packages with. Such a lovely summer thing to do! Now is the time to gather all those beautiful seedpods and nature treasures.
I’ve never had so many cucumbers as this year and they are so tasteful! I just have to harvest them in time before they make too many seeds inside. On the menu for this week is a salad with the fine yellow beans, a typical and delicious summer vegetable.
There are golden tomatoes too! This year I’ve planted six different varieties and they’re so tasteful! I love to eat them when they’re still warm from the sun. That’s one of reasons I love to grow my own tomatoes and hugely enjoy them during summer. I almost never buy them in the grocery store as they are so tasteless and rather want to eat them only fresh from the garden. So they are a real luxury delicacy that can only be eaten during these golden summer months!
Thanks to all the hardworking bees and bumblebees our veggies, fruit and flowers are pollinated!
The flower beds are changing their colors, from white and pink in spring, to warm purple and orange at the end of summer. There are hints of gold creeping into the edges of the garden on these August days. I enjoy watching the subtle changes every day from my studio with view on this part of the garden.
I especially like the rowan tree which have been growing here spontaneously. Blackbirds are checking in regularly now to see if the berries are ripe. I suppose by the end of this month all the berries will be gone!
Apples with pinkish blushes are looking promising but many have already been fallen on the ground. Hopefully there will be some left in September!
Golden fruit from the garden… yellow autumn raspberries and plums. Although most of the plums are infected by the fruit moth so unfortunately there’s not much to harvest this time. Since a couple of years we use an ecological moth trap with pheromones but it doesn’t seem to work until now.
The first handful of blackberries! They are quickly ripening these days and they remind me of autumn being around the corner. Soon I’ll have to preserve them into jam. You can also find them in the hedgerows now if you would like to harvest some for a pie or jam!
In the hedgerows the elderberries are also ripening and almost ready to collect and made into elderberry sirup. It’s really harvesting time, isn’t it?!
‘When summer gathers up her robes of glory, and, like a dream, glides away.’ Sarah Helen Whitman
‘August of another summer, and once again I am drinking the sun’. Mary Oliver, The Pond
At the end of an August day, the last sun rays spread a warm golden glow. A peaceful and perfect end of a summer’s day!
