September is upon us and the
school year has begun again. As
sessions get underway in schools for me it’s a time of year when lots of
reflection seems to happen.
Despite it being very (very)
many years ago, I still have the feelings of being at school myself and the
sense of “new beginnings” – with new pencil cases and school books. There’s something “in the air” as summer
draws to a close and autumn starts to make its presence felt (“back-endish” as
a friend of mine would say!).
I love September, the
temperature is usually wonderful for lots of long hours of work outside, there
are (hopefully) berries in abundance and nuts and seeds are beginning to be
very apparent. It also feels a wonderful
time to light fires and share stories, to gather natural objects for creating
images and of course to find ways to make use of blackberries and all the other
hedgerow abundance…
Blackberries must be one of
the first ways many people start to forage for wild food (perhaps its also the
only foraging that many people do).
They are a wonderful food – easy to find and as long as you follow a few
simple tips (e.g.: don’t pick from road verges because of traffic fumes /
residue and always pick above “dog-wee” height!) then you can have a wonderful
supply of fruit to cook and create with.
The berries, leaves and canes of brambles make a good natural dye...
Apparently it’s also a cure
for a child with whopping cough if you pass them (several times) through an
arch made where a blackberry shoot has rooted naturally at either end… My wonderful book “Discovering the Folklore
of Plants” (Shire) says the patient should be eating bread and butter whilst
this happens! The bread and butter are then fed to a passing animal or bird and
the cough would disappear… The book
also mentions an old tradition that blackberries should not be picked after 29
September (loads of time to go then), Michaelmas Day, because “the Devil
variously ‘waves his club over them’, ‘spits on them’ or ‘curses them’ "…
Last year the children I
work with were so excited by all the blackberries in the hedgerows around
schools – they used them as paints as well as eating them in various recipes
(and of course tasting them straight from the bush too). They were transfixed and as these were
inner-city children it’s a wonderful reminder that hedgerow foraging is just as
much an option in urban areas.
It was really interesting to
see some of the same children looking for the berries again earlier this summer
– they were confused about why there were none: so it was great to be able to
look at the flowers on the brambles and talk about how these would turn into
the blackberries (with the help of bees too).
The rowans and hawthorns
here are laden with berries at the moment.
Gathering the hedgerow harvest is a wonderful thing and it also provides
an important connection with the past I think. This goes hand in hand with the sense that the nights will soon
start to draw in and a desire to stock the store cupboards (my freezer!) with
foraged goodies.
There are many exciting
mini-beasts to spot - and some stunning
dragonflies on the wing (we would love it if some laid eggs in our pond in the
Discovery Garden at Dunkirk).
There are so many
interesting natural textures to explore and intriguing sights spring up - such
as various fungi, which really intrigue the children.
There is much seed to be
gathered and stored (so making labels and decorating paper bags for this is
very much on the agenda over the next few weeks). We planted lots of wildflower seed this year and that seems to
have done really well (possibly we have the right soil for this in the
Discovery Garden) and we aim to collect as much seed as we can. We’ll also store any beans and peas that
have “gone over” so that we can plant them next year.
The light is also really
special in September, the trees and hedges are laden with leaves still but the
angle of the sunlight drops at certain times of day - so that long shadows are
cast and the sunlight glistens on golden seed-heads and through leaves...
The sounds of the natural
world change so much throughout the year.
In September the birds begin to gather and flock and call in a different way
(although only very recently I watched recently-fledged sparrows being fed in
my garden) and I’m always very aware of the absence of the swifts, who left
much earlier in August.
I adore autumn – but this
part of the summer feels really special; summer is still here but not for too
much longer, you want to grab every moment of being outside, of gathering fruit
and vegetables, of soaking in the heat of the sun… of making paint with
blackberries and watching the house martins swooping overhead…
