It's that time of the year where I find myself creeping out the back door in the wee hours of the morning, dressing gown adorned, basket in hand, to rifle through this patch in search of plump, ruby red jewels. It's raspberry season. Daily, if not twice daily, harvests are required to keep up with the sheer volume of ever ripening berries our canes are currently producing to ensure they are destined for our bellies and not the birds.
I love this time of year, not only for these delicacies, but the mindful minutes I spend hunting through foliage and dodging burrs all whilst the ground under foot is still damp with morning dew. It is a peaceful time of day when the kids have yet to venture outside, the chooks aren't begging to be released and the neighbours are yet to stir. The sky is full of bird song, mini beasts are a scuttling throughout the patch and I can simply let my senses awaken for the day as I freshly pluck my breakfast topping to accompany the rhubarb stewed up over the weekend.
The simple act of opening our fridge at present fills me with love and appreciation, not only for our garden but for my talented husband too, as half eaten jars of mulberry jam, lemon & lime marmelade, fire cider and sauerkraut stand pride of place on the top shelves. He is the preserver and baker in our family. Or as my daughter attests, 'the number one cooker'. Food is our love language and has connected us from the moment we began dating some 14 years ago. In our twenties we haunted the cities trendiest establishments, dined at Michelin starred restaurants in New York, attended a cooking class in Phuket and were always planning culinary adventures in search of cuisines, meals and dishes to share. All whilst I concurrently ran a bustling cafe and restaurant myself. But these sorts of food experiences feel like a lifetime ago now. Our idea of good eating has shifted over the years to an appreciation of simplicity and quality produce. The best meals come straight from our garden and are handmade from scratch in our kitchen. They taste better than any hatted dish I can recall travelling half way across the world for. You cannot replicate the taste of a just pulled baby carrot still etched with dirt through its indentures or the burst of a sun-ripened cherry tomato exploding in our mouth straight off the vine.
Every time my kids discover some newly ripended edible in the garden and begin gorging themselves in a pleasure filled frenzy, the words of childrens author, Alison Lester, dance through my head in delight. "May you my babies, eat from the garden." These are peak mother joy moments for me, when the full spectrum of seed selecting, planting, protecting, watering, weeding and patience culminate in my children's nourishment and elation. Amplified futher by the transformation of our seasonal reapings into chutneys, spreads, jams and pickles that keep the flavour party going long after harvest.
I relish the tradtional role reversals we have growin into regarding our relationship with food. Whilst a proud and radical homemaker, I am more akin to the stereotypical 'Nonno' persona, tending to my garden and crops daily with affection and offering up the yields to 'Nonna' (my husband) to create magical concuctions bound for our larder. But this isn't men or womens work. We haven't begrudingly divied up chores. Instead we've leapt into tasks that our hearts call us toward and it just serendipitously happens to be two different parts of the same process, born of a love we carry deep within our bellies. We simply love food and time is intentionally carved out so we can all be involved in the process.
What we can't grow ourselves (or fail to because backyard farming is ever humbling), we supplement with weekly trips to our local farmgate, bulk food store and ethical butcher. Involving our kids in this routine, both at home and in our community, forms a huge part of a holistic food education and was a defining factor in choosing to homeschool. I remember googling which local schools had the best kitchen garden progamme when my daughter was teeny-tiny, as that was all that really mattered to me from a traditional schooling standpoint. Eventually I reasoned that a kitchen garden programme most likely made up a fraction of a primary school students experience. She could enjoy the interweaving of nature, food, science, health, wellbeing and community, daily in and around our home. It became clear that school would only hinder our family culture, not nurture it. Fast forward many years and I now delight in our chats at the farmgate each Saturday morning, pointing out what new produce has come into season and what we could make with it, before darting off to the bulkfood store where she writes numerical codes on brown paper bags, seeks out ingredients from our shopping list and entertains the shopkeeper and other patrons with her insightful musings and occasional (okay, often) songs that roll off her tounge adlib about anything and everything she encounters.
So much learning happens on a Saturday morning spent grocery shopping with a 5 year old. Real life, tangible skills that she then takes home and reconciles with our way of living, such as shredding paper bags for compost and decanting wholefoods into mismatched glass jars. Saturday afternoons we are back in the garden - planting, tidying, mulching, netting, playing, splashing, jumping, riding, drawing, painting, dancing, reading, all the wonderful splendours that befit our slow, family life at home. I revel in watching my gumboot clad son inspect fallen fruit below the orchard canopy, monster truck in hand. He turns them over, carefully inspecting each one, his criteria unbeknowst to me and his motives just as mysterious. I don't dare interrupt or probe him of his intentions, I simply hang back and watch my little naturalist at work. His attention is laser focused in nature, observing quietly the goings on of his beloved chickens, the curling and unfurling of slaters, the feeling and scents of flowers, leaves and herbs all enchant him in a way that is magical to witness. Being so young when we moved here, his bond to this land is entwined with his maturation. He knows this garden more intimately than any of us do. He longs to be let out in the morning to roam unaccompanied while the rest of the house is going about our usual breakfast routine and he is the hardest to convince it's time to head inside for a shower at the end of the day. I couldn't imagine him having limited time outdoors as a school would dictate. I know in my heart he belongs here, at home, in his own wildspace equally full of familiarity and wonder.
Each of our connections to this small allotment have steadily cemented. We are no longer seedlings finding our feet in foreign soil, our roots have fastened and continue to spread, anchoring us to this place where we know we can bloom.
Yesterday I replanted two raised beds with lettuce, rocket, spinach, celery, kale and more parsley (because a girl can never have too much parsley) and still on my to-do list is netting the peach and plum trees, a good clean out of the chicken coop and the never-ending (but thankfully much loved) task of weeding. The Summer seedlings which survived the snails have now settled in well and I eagerly await the first zucchini, tomato and a ginormous pumpkin or ten come the warmer months ahead. This is only our second summer here and my knowledge of our gardens temprement has grown tenfold over the last 18 months. In the meantime there are masses of raspberries to devour and pavlovas to bake to showcase them. As Spring turns to Summer, Beltane to Litha, there is no place we'd rather spend our days than here.