Fruity

This is a normal sized thumb. It's mine, so I'm quite sure about that. But the blackberry? If it was a one-off I'd call it a freak, but the smooth-stem blackberry canes up the top terrace are covered in monster berries this year. Sure, every few days a big wind whips through and snaps them off, or a gang of blackbirds drops in for a feed, or heavy rain is followed by brilliant sunshine and they get mouldy... but these monsters are for real.

You really can't beat the inside of a fruit. I've always been in awe of the passionfruit's inner landscape and also the fig's, but until now I've overlooked the blackberries. I mean how often do you even take a bite of a berry? Usually they go in my mouth whole, get squished by the tongue against the roof of my mouth, and down they go with a rush of tarty acid red. (Yes, red is a taste.) Biting one in half, you get to see the starburst of the core and the nifty way the seeds are glued inside the juice capsules. Genius.

If you can bear the crazy glinting refraction from a windmill, you will save the berries from the birds. They don't like shiny movey things. But in windy Wellington, even windmills get blown away.

On a smaller scale, but equally impressive to me, are the first raspberries. They are also the only raspberries this year, but what a treat to find them hanging tenuously on their stems, wondering if they'd end up on the ground, in a blackbird's beak, or swaddled in yogurt in my breakfast bowl. I think they were happy with their fate.

The strawberry crop has been a bit quieter this year than last. We're still buying punnets at the shop, but we do a taste test every now and then, and the home grown ones are the taste champions. They're very sweet and slightly sour, just like a strawberry should be.

For first timers in the garden this year, the currant bushes out the front were real troopers. The red currants are exquisite. I found myself gazing at them, wishing someone would make red currant glass beads, heaps of them, so I could wear them around my neck and wrist and ankles. Hmmm... Food-inspired jewelery. There's an idea.

Black pearls. Imagine three of them dripping from silver earrings. And a big one on a silver ring.

It's funny that I resisted calling the berries jewels when I started writing this post. It just felt lazy. But that's exactly what they are. Why fight it?