Collecting sprees..

These days I feel a bit like Little Red Riding Hood walking about in the garden with a basked to fill with goodies..

Reflections in a window:
The first tomatoes are brought indoors to redden a bit faster on a tray. I had some on my breakfast sandwich this morning. Needless to say - the homegrown stuff taste very special! Yesterday I harvested and boiled the first beet roots. And had them with crumbled goat cheese and fresh thyme. Mmm mm...(Photo and recipe from Mimmi´s mat)

However, the days are now focused on plums. Last years crop was scarce but this year! The branches are almost cracking under the burden! I have two kinds - the green ons and some lovely ones with pink cheeks..

This is a plum water color I just love made by Sara Midda.

The Complete book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour (ill. above) follows me where ever I go in this world.
The Swedish version and the English below.
It was given to me when I lived in Zimbabwe by a dear friend. And have I been using it as a garden bible ever since! Seymour has a number of tips on plums among a million of other useful information for the keen gardener: on how to prune, to make marmelade, plum jam, about pollination, and so on..
John nowadays feels like an old friend of the family!
The guru of self sufficiency.
I recently found out that he died at the age of 90 in 2004 and this is the obituary of his interesting life in the Guardian:
" ...at the age of 20, he moved to South Africa, where he managed a sheep farm, worked in a copper mine and joined the government veterinary service.He spent much time with Bushmen, whose assured hunter-gatherer lifestyle in a semi-desert environment profoundly influenced his thinking; he said that they took from nature only as much as they needed for survival. He came to realise that much of human knowledge and culture is an ancient inheritance, and not primarily the product of urban progress."
Full text here.

unThese plumes above looks like soft maiden´s blushy cheeks!

A great illustration from Seymour´s book on what to do in the garden this time of year.
Well. Hmm--
I haven´ t made even fragments of what he suggests for the garden in September. But I know he will smile in his heaven at this. The books are undemandingly written with so much humor that it will be oozing down to generations poking in their soils long after he is gone..