The time of the year when tomatoes start popping out everywhere. I am expecting the slugs and snails to have some share of it too. The pests are taking over this year.
On the other hand, peas are doing better than ever. I spend my evenings walking down to the garden and picking a few pocketfulls of pods to pop open and enjoy in my walk to the fields.
Letting the chickens and the alpacas in to forage, the local birds and rabbits, us… and the self-invited slugs and blackfly, has made no difference. There is not enough veg-eaters to keep down the plentiful jungle I have growing down the path. I have named it The Hand of Nature, as it seems to be reaching out from underneath the ground to take over the spaces around, spraying clovers, radishes and rocket, nasturtiums, camomiles, mints, lettuces and even spinach!
It is wilder than planned, however I don’t complain. It makes me think about my dad’s old fields back in Spain, dusty and arid, the dry grass that pierces the skin when touched, the water driven in the caces taking turns by the farmers to distrubute the fluid of life, the fight against the fires… It makes me think of the underrated, belittled surface water here, and the impact it makes in the landscape. How invisible a privilege becomes when it has always been there, right in front of you.
How invisible a privilege becomes when it has always been right in front of you.
Kestle Alpacas 