Week 24
Tomato season?
Hello, how has your week been? Here it is sodden roses and first freckles, a glorious moon and the wrapping up of GCSEs! Whoop!
This is our weekly community post in which I tell you a thing (or things) that I have spotted this week that felt particular to this week in the year, and you tell me yours, and together we chart the seasons in their minutiae, week by week.
I have a few this week. Let’s go:
Tomato season?
I once interviewed a gardener for a garden magazine who said ‘If I haven’t got my first ripe tomato by the first week of June, I consider that I have failed’. Oof. Mate. Even in the moment, I knew that this would ring in my ears every June after, and so it has…but…BUT look at me now! It is indeed the *second* week of June but still, my first two tomatoes have ripened and been popped into my mouth. They are ‘Sungold’, and are indeed ripe, they are meant to be orange, ok… They were so sweet and tart with that ‘tomato leaf’ tang that only homegrown, just-picked tomatoes have. They taste like summers past - ‘Ah I remember you…’.
Does that mean it’s tomato season? I don’t think it really is quite yet, but as I am off to Spain in a couple of days I may be about to leapfrog into it…
Sweet pea jug
Also, last week’s single sweetpea has turned into a whole little jug
Major lunar standstill!
AND…I cannot let this moment pass without mentioning the major lunar standstill. I wont go into it now - if you have been reading your Almanac 2025 you will know all about it (and quite frankly it’s a bit involved) - but suffice to say the full moon was at its lowest point in its 18.6 year cycle last night. Impressive…when you could finally see it. This (very unspectacular) pic was taken when I looked out at 2.30am, a time when the full moon is usually arcing almost above me. A very odd business. Cosmic stuff, right there.
Some housekeeping: I do try to keep these posts up every week of the year because that is the whole gist of the thing but I am on holiday for a few days this week and so next week there will be no post. Please do make full use of the chat function to make up for it - everyone subscribed (it’s free) has access and can start their own chats. Don’t be shy. Same goes for Sunday morning’s show-and-tell. I am leaving the whole ship in your collective capable hands.
And just before I hand over to you I have an exciting announcement…the cover reveal for The Almanac 2026! Isn’t she a beauty! By wondrous artist Sam Cannon, who I have had my eye on for literal years, waiting for the right topic to come around.
Every year my almanac has a theme and the theme for 2026 is ‘the forests and the trees’. We will spend next year wandering the woodland paths together, with forest folktales and songs - Robin Hood and fairy trees and woodland trysts abound - a woodland skill to master each month, foraged recipes from Liz Knight, the Ogham tree calendar with Louise Press and a new revitalised sky at night section from Hannahbella Nel complete with star maps, plus all of your usual moon phases, sunrises, tides and more.
It is out August 28th and you can pre-order it via the links here or via your local bookshop.
And I would *love* to know what you think of the cover.
Now, to usual business - what have you noticed/done/eaten etc…this week that felt particularly ‘this week of the year’? Leave your comments below.
Pegging out washing, hearing a steady hum from diligent bees enjoying the profusion of blossom on our raspberry canes.
What a gorgeous cover Lia! We’ve had a couple of evening wanders on the moors, glad to see skylarks and curlews overhead. And an unexpected moorland cow that sniffed my leg and startled me into an ankle deep bog.