Summer Hands

I have my summer hands on now. Anyone who doesn't garden in gloves* will know what I mean. A week's worth of spring weeding has left my skin tough and covered in tiny scratches, and a late-night jamming session yesterday** allowed the assorted juices to etch my hands in an entertaining manner, so that I look like a homage to Ray Bradbury's Tattooed Man. These hands don't come clean with anything less than a sandblaster, so that's it until the end of October when the squash are harvested. In high summer I'll add the yellow fingertips of a 60-a-day smoker, from pinching out tomatoes, and I'll wear my stains with pride.

A novel solution to dirty hands

The jam is unseasonal, I know, but our developing soft fruit beds have been so successful that I actually need to allow time to process the stuff. Last year (even with our dreadful summer) I was caught completely by surprise with a heavy non-garden workload and had no option but to freeze it all as it ripened, or give the stuff away. I made a few smallish batches of preserves at the time so we weren't in any danger of running out, and it was only when I tried to do the freezer's annual clean that I realised we had in excess of 10kg of soft fruit in there. So now it's smoothies, and sorbets, and vast quantities of jam; and this summer it will be wine. Oh yes.

In the interests of variety I'm going to spice some of the jam: cloves for the blackberry, dark and mysterious; cinnamon for the raspberry, full and luxurious; and ginger for the rhubarb, beloved of grandmothers since the gods were in short trousers. That just leaves the strawberry, and for the inspiration to add fresh tarragon to it I thank my friend Mrs Gadget. It's not a combination you'd think to try – but let me tell you, the first jar to enter the household lasted 45 minutes. Yes, 45 minutes. People were looking for things to spread it on.

So – to any Ozzies out there, happy jam making. To the rest of you, here's hoping you've not let the weeds get as bad as I have.

*Which I don't, for the record, unless I'm dealing with something that is likely to sting me, bite me, scratch me or make me smell suspicious. The routine wearing of gloves, I've always felt, indicates an unwillingness to touch. And if you don't touch, how can you connect? How can you really understand? Right from the moment we first gain control of our infant limbs we establish the need to literally get to grips with things, and although I draw the line at bunging them in my mouth, I must confess that glove-wearing gardeners make me sneer in a most unattractive manner. It puts me in mind of my father who, having watched a six-year-old Hedgewizard gingerly trying to weed with only fingers and thumbs, pounced on me and rubbed my hands in the soil. 'There,' he said with satisfaction. 'Now you don't have to worry about getting dirty any more.'***

**No, not the cool sort that involves a dimly-lit club, musical instruments and copious amounts of alcohol. The sort with strawberries in. Sorry to disappoint.

***Not a man to build a compost toilet with, believe me.