High summer at Glastonbury Healing Gardens

Good things to come!

I set out for the Healing Gardens under a changing sky, indigo clouds with a cool feel to the day. The sound of tall grasses swooshing in the wind accompanied me as I descended the grass pathway to the growing area.

I paused to greet the chickens who clucked and clamoured as I approached their enclosure. And passed young fruit trees carrying their tender offspring: cherries and apples for later in the season.

A little further along, tiny translucent berries ripening steadily illustrated this moment in time - the sweet spot between summer solstice and lammas.


 
 
As I browsed the produce in the planted beds, I noticed that many wild insects were sharing this special place with me. Certain species clearly having an affinity for certain plants: ladybirds on the sage and mint, bees all over the borage and earwigs crawling under the kale.

Exuberance and colour

A delightful sense of harmony spread through me and I thought about how, when we garden with sensitivity and care, nature blesses us with the gifts of her diversity.

The clouds looked as though they might burst at any moment, so I detached myself from my musings and got busy with the day's harvest. Juliet had asked me to pick up some chard and I was interested in salad ingredients for myself.


There was a choice of chard; red, yellow and white stemmed varieties growing comfortably alongside each other. Two types of kale, several lettuce varieties, landcress, rocket, flat leaf parsley and bronze fennel.

I was excited to see so many edible flowers; surely the essence of summer - each a miniature mandala - balance, beauty and perfection on a small scale.  I made my selection with a happy heart.

A nest of onions begging to be picked!

In contrast to the delicate blooms and leaves in the salad beds, heavy, brooding artichokes, robust broad beans like giant's fingers and families of earthy onions asserted a vigorous presence nearby.

I admired a row of strange alien shaped allium heads that rose high into the skyline.



 
Turning to leave, I noted a bed of chard stalks, left on the earth, laid out to decompose and nurture the soil.

The poetry of dead forms

A transparent reminder of the cycle of life, the quiet efficiency of nature endlessly recycling and wasting nothing and the poignancy of death and changing forms.
  
Each time I visit the gardens I feel grateful not only for the wonderful food that nourishes my body, but also for the gentle teachings that I receive wordlessly from the plants and other living creatures.

Healing Gardens indeed.


 
Glastonbury Healing Gardens Co-operative is a year round expanding community project, currently open to new members.

Website: www.GlastonburyHealingGardens.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Glastonbury-Healing-Gardens-Cooperative

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