Star Wars and the onion harvest

The garden is heading into summer and is starting to produce harvest upon harvest. With the Egyptian pink and white garlic dried and stored, the red and brown onions were then ready for harvesting.  Ilze and the boys came for breakfast on Sunday morning and we had a chance to catch up while the boys were drawing their favourite characters from Star Wars. They explained the intricate relationships of the characters on their pages excitedly and I just nodded away and agreed as if I knew exactly what they were talking about. Luckily my ignorance of Star Wars was eclipsed by their excitement and apparently went by unnoticed.

After breakfast and lots of Star Wars drawings, everybody got involved in harvesting onions. Five year old Samuel was pulling out onions as I loosened them. Some of the onions were so big that they shook him around when he shook off the soil.

He was determined to get all the onions harvested and sorted into the different heaps according to their colour. I realised that he was really enjoying the garden when he came to me where I was fixing an irrigation pipe and asked “what are we doing next”.

Heinrich who joined us after breakfast was left in charge of Jasper while Ilze and Oscar were carrying the onions to where Keith was packing them in neat rows. The harvesting was soon accomplished and we could marvel at the rows of brown and red onions curing next to the shed in readiness for storing.

Next were the apricots, and the five Wolff’s and Keith, got stuck into the harvesting of the ripe fruit. Alas, the bulk was lost to fruit-fly infestation in spite of the use of eco-friendly bait stations.

The irrigation system showed its age when a pipe burst due to sun fatigue in the bean-bed earlier in the morning. I replaced the pipe, forced to crawl through the tunnels formed by the climbing frames for the runner beans. It had to happen in the most awkward bed to work in, but I managed to replace the pipe without destroying the reed structures in the bean bed.

Harvesting was followed by homemade lemonade and lunch on the lawn. The atmosphere on the property on Sunday morning was alive with the activities of fixing, harvesting, exploring and discovery. The boys added a different energy to the garden, the energy of exploration and discovery by very active little boys. The garden comes alive with the energy of the young boys running and laughing and it all seems so right.