This morning was a gloriously sunny extravaganza of bird song, honeybee buzz, flower smiles and earth songs as I headed, basket over arm and sharp knife in hand, down the garden to harvest fresh — organic of course — vegetables for the soup pot.

Carefully navigating sprawling nastu­rtiums, which are determined to take over the path, and then stopping to admire a yellow and brown striped gazania as it gazed at the laden orange tree in awe, it struck me anew just how blessed I am to live as I do in the midst of nature — not nature left to run completely wild, but nature given a gentle, helping hand, to flourish and bloom in a chemical-free setting.

My current garden — gardens being more appropriate as the land is divided into four distinct areas spread over three large terraces — has now been just over five years in the making and, luckily, it has always, to the best of my knowledge, been worked organically when worked at all.

The slightly acidic soil is amazingly rich and fertile. In fact, the first time I set foot on the place I was astonished by how springy the soil was and, as a result of careful management, continues to be.

This careful management consists of endless feeding and nurturing of the soil, crop rotation, companion planting and working with nature rather than against it.

Don’t be afraid of weeds. They are an excellent indicator of soil health and tell an experienced gardener all about soil nutrients and minerals

Weeds, and there are many, have a major role to play. The weeds — these are simply plants growing where a gardener prefers them not to grow — are an excellent indicator of soil health. Healthy weeds that grow rapidly unless temperatures are absolutely sky high, tell an experienced gardener all about soil nutrients and minerals. They suck these up from the soil into their stems and leaves and then, if the weeds are perennials, store in their roots for the winter months, drawing them back up again when the plants wake up and regrow. Weeds do not steal all of the nutrients and minerals out of the soil and away from cultivated plants; they merely bring them up, get them together for you, the gardener, to take full advantage of by either adding weeds, before they reach the seeding stage, to the compost heap/bin, by cutting them up small and using them as a mulch around, but not touching, other plants or by brewing them up in a nutritious compost tea to feed to other plants.

Weeds are, or should be, an integral part of every garden as — and this is wonderful — a large percentage of general garden bugs much prefer to eat weeds than your carefully nurtured plants. No, I do not know its exact reason — it just is.

The soup ingredient hunt leads me to a garden bed planted with mustard mizuna, cabbages, three kinds of winter kale, Swiss chard/leaf beet, a range of winter lettuce, some broccoli and, somewhere beneath the grow-at-the-speed-of-light weeds, a couple of rows of carrots. After cutting a handful of attractively toothed mustard mizuna leaves and exactly 24 leaves of green, yellow and red Swiss chard/leaf beat, I stroll, on disturbing a shrill blackbird foraging for earthworms in the process.

The next stop is the turnip bed where, I note, I have yet again sown the seeds too close as the growing turnips are shoulder to shoulder and fighting for room. I pull out half a dozen, one each from overcrowded clumps, freeing up a little space for their now former companions and, as I don’t need the leaves this time, I cut them off and toss them on to the adjacent compost heap from where, making me jump, a pretty little chestnut-coloured bird, with a fantail, furiously scolds me in whistling tones.

The radish beds, one of China rose, the other black Spanish, are bursting with nicely spaced out, by now extra-large, surprisingly pungent roots and just four of these, two of each variety, are added to my basket along with three, very large, outer leaves of savoy cabbage that are finally beginning to make hearts.

Luminous white, pale pink and vibrant cerise cosmos sway in the breeze as I cut a handful of garlic greens, a couple of large borage leaves, three springs of rosemary and a handful of fragrant coriander, and my mouth begins to water!

Orange and yellow and bronze tagetes flourish amongst a bed of rose cuttings, taken last September and growing very well, assisted by the tagetes as these keep aphids at bay.

I had hoped for parsnips this winter but they have, once more, failed to germinate and I wonder what on earth I am doing wrong or if, truth be told, parsnips simply do not like me!

Broad beans and peas are doing well, although the resident pair of collared doves have been snacking on pea shoots despite the improvised bird scarers (scarecrows) — tin lids, foil cartons and various dangly bits of shiny stuff that I recently strung around. The solution being…I shall plant some more peas and net them.

Last into the now heaped basket are a dozen new potatoes from a rough potato plant that grew on one of the four compost heaps on this particular terrace and a handful of highly aromatic mint.

I know before even beginning to make it, this garden soup is going to achieve top score!

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened.

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 26th, 2020