Second spring. Greens again. Nasturtium

Travel

7 Sep

Just as the peak of summer is reached there comes a plateau of plenty and poise. There’s a slight increase in moisture as temperatures fall and nights lengthen. Green growth is summoned once again. It surprises me every year. I am accustomed to climates where summer simply falls away and cold pulls everything down, back to earth. But here there is this Second Spring. The animals have new grass to graze. If we are milking there would be a short flush of spring-like milk. The nettles send out fresh growth so we could be eating those spring dishes again like nettle ravioli. Sometimes my shell beans ripen a new flush of bean pods. Warmth still permeates the soil so my new seeding of arugula and mustard germinates overnight.

I fork over the beds in the garden that contained dried pea haulms, Rattlesnake green beans on tripods, the spent fava stalks. Once refreshed with a layer of compost I seed arugula, red mustard, mizuna and radishes. These will go into the winter, hopefully offer a harvest before freezing, and come into spring with a new flush of growth. Equally up for this treatment are Persian cress, land cress, perpetual chard, claytonia, mâche, and beets. And scallions, cilantro, chervil and parsley (though these need to be started earlier in August).

The garden beds are laced with wandering nasturtium vines at this time of year. Their umbrella leaves and scarlet flowers smell at once deliciously peppery and fruity. And taste so. The leaves make an excellent spicy salad addition or wrap. Moving them aside to expose free areas of soil I expose their dangling seed pods. Clusters of three ridged, immature seeds are suspended from curlicue stalks.

I gather a jar full, layer them with sea salt and let them ferment, pressing them down in the emergent brine. They become a slightly spicy caper-like pickle. Alternatively they could be put into a vinegar-based pickling liquid.

This poise before the fall, this fruition, a peaking of ripeness, the gathering in and clearing the remains of summer is bittersweet. The fullness withering. The juices concentrate, beginning their transformation via fermentation (in the wine cellar, the pickling crock, the compost bin). It feels timely, necessary, a relief — yet somehow disappointing. Like the end of the school play: a production finished, the sets broken down, the audience gone home. A fresh fuzz of green across the pastures and my brassica seeds popping up in the morning dew gives hope for renewal.