August in The Wild Bee Garden

Harvests & Heritage Seeds

August has arrived in The Wild Bee Sanctuary. The garden is beginning to reveal the rewards of patience.

Every day there is something new to discover. Leaves unravel, flowers open, fruits begin to ripen and the beds offer little gifts for the kitchen. This is the season of abundance - but also a season for noticing, harvesting, saving and preserving.

MAD APPLE

Our aubergine flowers are finally flowering.They are captivating. I know they are really late, but they had a slow start. However, there will be reward through our patience and I look forward to the many aubergines/eggplants/brinjal/baingan (whatever you want to call them) soon to come. There is something magical about watching a tiny flower become food. That transformation is one of the reasons I love an edible garden so much.

When the aubergine was not being compared to the shape of an egg, the eggplant was sometimes referred to as a "mad apple". This is most likely because it is part of nightshade family which has long been known to include many highly toxic plants such as the well known 'Bella Donna'. People were led to believe that by consuming an eggplant, you would go mad. The tomato and potato are also members of the nightshade family, and were also initially viewed with suspicion when they were introduced to Europe. In Italian, the eggplant is a melanzana, from the Latin mala insana, or "apple of insanity."

A Garden for Bees and Pollinators

Across our crumbling wall of wildflowers, the globe thistles (Echinops ritro) are opening into beautiful blue spheres.

The bees are delighted.

Creating a pollinator-friendly garden does not always require complicated planning. Sometimes it begins with allowing flowers to grow, choosing plants that provide nectar and pollen. When the flowers are buzzing with insects, we create an ever-evolving sanctuary where they can feed and thrive. The whole garden feels alive with purpose.

Harvesting from the August Garden

August is one of my favourite times to wander around the garden. Every day there seems to be something ready to harvest - new leaves unravel, flowers open and fruits ripen. I'm overjoyed as I ponder around the beds, snipping a few bits here and there.

Rather than deciding what I am going to cook first and then buying ingredients, I often begin with what the garden is offering me. 

The garden doesn't simply produce ingredients. It changes the way you eat.

One August harvest included:

• Cavolo nero kale
• Curly kale
• Courgettini
• Thai basil
• Coriander flowers
• Mint flowers

These homegrown ingredients became part of a beautiful Thai meal — a Pad Kra Pao prepared with ingredients picked directly from the garden. From soil to plate.

The Thai basil has particularly delighted me this year. An intensely flavourful herb, but also very sensitive and delicate to the British climate, so seeing it flourish in our London garden feels like a little victory.

Afterwards, we used some of the mint to make a simple digestive tea.

Shades of Green

There are days when the garden feels like an artist's palette.

Like an artist with their oil paints, my colourboard of greens and a pop of red have the potential to turn into endless beautiful creations. Blessed with a fresh and powerful harvest of earthly gifts this weekend, we opted for a delicious homemade pizza for supper.

The Seed of My Ancestors

August also brings me back to one of the most meaningful plants growing in our sanctuary - the Mauritian cucumber.

The seeds came from Mauritius, the island my parents and ancestors are from.

To me, growing this cucumber in British soil is about much more than growing a vegetable. It is about heritage. It's about keeping a connection with the plants, flavours and traditions that travelled through my family.

Sometimes growing an unusual or culturally specific vegetable in the UK can be challenging. The climate is different, and plants that thrive in warmer countries don't always adapt easily to British conditions.

But with guidance from my family in Mauritius, these cucumber plants have been thriving.

Every time I see them growing, I think about how much potential can be contained within a single seed.

Why Seed Saving Matters

Saving seeds from your garden is one of the simplest ways to become more connected to the food you grow.

A seed can carry history.

It can carry flavour, adaptation, resilience and memory.

When we save seeds from plants that have grown successfully in our gardens, we are creating the possibility of growing them again in the seasons ahead.

And when seeds are passed between family and friends, they can become living heirlooms.

My father gave me these Mauritian cucumber seeds to care for. One day, I hope they will continue to be passed from one generation to another.

This is the quiet magic of seed saving.

For anyone growing their own food, learning how to save seeds can be a beautiful step towards a more self-sufficient and sustainable garden.

The perfect opportunity to preserve plants that have personal, cultural or family significance.

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A Garden Is a Relationship

After spending years working abroad, being back home in London has given me the opportunity to settle into a different rhythm with the garden.

There is a gentleness to it.

I no longer feel that I need to rush the seasons.

I can walk through the beds and notice the tiny changes: a new flower opening, a fruit beginning to swell, bees moving between flowers, herbs becoming fragrant in the afternoon sun.

Sometimes a seed from your ancestors grows thousands of miles from where it began.

And sometimes, after all that patience, the garden gives you exactly what you hoped for.

Preserving the Magic

There is so much potential inside a seed.

Given soil, water, sunlight, care and time, it can become a plant, a flower, a fruit, food for a family and nourishment for pollinators.

It can carry a story from one generation to the next.

So this August, as the garden reaches its summer abundance, I am thinking not only about what we can harvest, but what we can preserve.

A seed is never simply a seed.

It can be memory.

It can be nourishment.

It can be heritage.

— Moni Dajee, founder of The Wild Bee Company | artist, apiarist + alchemist