A surprise harvest

It's clearing day for the sunflowers. The squirrel has done its best to hurl itself at the one seed head spared by wind and rain but there's a full head of seeds, which I hook over a tree for the birds.

Tough stems cleared and saved for plant supports, I find chard ready for a small harvest. As I weed around it, on a radish gone to seed, there are a few seed pods, like bulbous pottery jars in miniature. Their colour is soft, warm yellow blending to green tips. I use a kitchen scourer for the speckles of earth.

Leggy stems of fennel are ready to trim too, the main seed harvest done. In an unseasonably warm week, it's sprouting again so I harvest a sprig along with a few leaves of chard.

The chard needs bold marks for its rich, glossy, gathered leaves. For the the fennel I do the opposite, light scribbles of line and colour to keep the life in its feathery fronds.

And so, outside comes inside, me as the light goes; garden to supper.

Ballpen, watercolour, fineliner, highlighter and watercolour pencil on handed-down watercolour paper.

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