"We have our first dish of peas. The aisles of pea plants grow tall and the green walls are full of bulging pods. Annie says she will pick the peas for dinner, but we rush to the garden to do it ourselves, excited at the start of yet another harvest. Compared with the gathering of strawberries, pea-picking is intricate, but undramatic. There is no sudden glow of crimson, no soft warmth of fruit. It is a world of shapes, pea being distinguishable from leaf only by reason of its bulk and form. We pick by feeling rather than by sight. The pea plant is a gentle green, deep and soft against the pale colour of the lettuces that shelter from the sun in the shade of the pea rows. Our baskets full of hard, ratttling pods, we pull lettuces for salad. It is good to feed oneself from one's own earth."
Extract and engraving from the June chapter of Four Hedges
