"A Blessing in My Vortex”
How a Sunday night, 2kg of tomatoes and a handful of bees restored my faith
It’s 7:34 pm on Sunday night. I wasn’t going to write, but then a lovely subscriber sent me this:
“You are an absolute blessing in my vortex. Grateful. I just thought it proper I informed you.”
How could I not?
Dinner is in the oven. Lamb chops from a local farmer who raises their lambs on chemical-free grass, processes them locally and sells direct to customers like me.
I met them at a coffee morning organised by a charity I work for.
I bought once to show support.
I keep going back because the meat is excellent.
The family is excellent.
Their ethos and care is excellent.
They are custodians of soil.
The lamb chops are resting on a bed of tomatoes. Two kilograms, to be exact — roughly the weight I’m harvesting each day from our 5m by 5m backyard garden.
2kg of Tomatoes
Tiny red ones.
Oval orange ones.
Larger varieties that make me think I once saved seeds from a lunchtime tomato that surprised my tastebuds.
Yellow. Red. Orange.
Some carrots, small and misshapen. I haven’t mastered growing them yet, but they are sweet all the same.
A couple of aubergines. Some okra for good measure.
We’re eating a lot of tomatoes lately. From previous years, I’ve learned the secret: eat them as they grow.
Many jars of sauce and chutney once languished at the back of cupboards, only to be tipped into compost when we moved, and moved, and moved again.
Now I’m saving seeds carefully. A bath of water. Rinse. Drain. Drying on the verandah. Paper bags stored until mid-winter, when the urge to plant rises again.
Gardening Is Not Just About Food
Gardening isn’t just about what we eat.
It’s connection.
To soil. To fresh air. To sunshine.
To ourselves.
Bare feet on cool ground first thing in the morning. Sweet pollen on the nose. Bees busy at work.
The grounding is basic and profound.
You notice things. A subtle shift in leaf colour. A plant needing space. A small tweak here, a gentle pull there.
And you notice the other things.
And Then the Bees Came
The bees are here now.
Blue-banded bees. Honey bees.
Moving with purpose.
The missing link of an unfertilised zucchini.
Pumpkins once languishing in female flowers now swelling into fruit.
Were those bees just waiting for my garden to arrive?
Did they come because we did?
Is there a hive newly formed because we dumped six tonnes of compost onto cardboard over a kikuyu lawn that had existed, unchanged, for decades?
I like to think they came to us.
That the yellow explosions of pumpkin flowers and the tiny white basil blooms invited them. That they built a home nearby because we built one for soil first.
A Backyard Supermarket
Alongside the bees are grasshoppers nibbling aubergine leaves, and busy geckos carrying them away in their mouths.
A small biodiversity hub.
I harvest fruit and vegetables for my family and friends, but we are also creating habitat, a veritable supermarket for the creatures who now call our backyard home.
And that’s not counting the zillions (what comes after a trillion?) of microflora and fauna beneath the soil.
Life layered upon life.
In This Hour of Uncertainty
The sun is slipping behind the hills across the valley.
It’s time to pull out the chops and blend the tomatoes into a sauce so my teenage son cannot detect the vegetables within.
Thank you, Hudson, for your kind words.
In this hour of uncertainty, in moments when darkness feels close, there is enormous comfort in our garden.
A steady, quiet connection to what matters most.
And sometimes, that is enough.
Kylie x
Awwwwww...my eyes are leaking. ❤️