"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
I only wish my pea plants were gentle green... they got baked by our southern sun the last two years so I didn't even plant them this year. What an exquisite engraving. I mistook it for a photograph initially.
Posted by: Ruth M. | 13 June 2012 at 04:51 PM
I have been wanting this book for months since I first saw it on Dovegreyreader!
Really must buy it now as it is just what I want to read at the moment!
Thanks for the reminder!
Posted by: LizF | 13 June 2012 at 04:52 PM
I'm loving it!
Posted by: Cornflower | 13 June 2012 at 04:54 PM
I haven't any peas but my sweet peas are certainly gentle green (no flowers yet).
Posted by: Cornflower | 13 June 2012 at 04:56 PM
Isn't it a beautiful book? I love wood engravings & Clare Leighton is one of my favourite artists.
Posted by: Lyn | 17 June 2012 at 03:41 AM