Promising

I'm an optimistic type. Not quietly optimistic. More waving the arms around and making wild promises kind of optimistic. Which is probably why gardening is so up my street. All I see when I look at the garden these days are promises of great good things to come.

Here's what I've been promised this week:

A peach. One day, probably in February, I'll come home from a meeting in town and pluck a sweet little peach as I climb up to the house. Juice will drip onto my cardie, and I'll spit the skin into the flower border for compost.

A tumble of bleeding berries on a massive pavlova. Last year we harvested just a handful of these monsterberries. This year there are hundreds of flowers and berries-to-be on the bush. There is also the promise of battle with the blackbirds. This year I will win!

A garlicky, greener than green fava bean hummus with grilled flatbread. If you think broad beans are disgusting, give them another chance as fabulous fava beans.

A big buttery pile of yellow beans with a barbequed lamb chop and warm potato salad. Hurry up beans, you're making me hungry.

New potatoes, ham and tomatoes for brunch on Christmas day. The Christmas morning spud dig is my favourite family tradition.

Enough figs for a festival! Yes, there are more than 60 figlets on the tree this year. Yes, of course I've been counting. Considering they have been nurtured from a razed stump, the figs are my symbol of optimism.

Fruit salads? Smoothies? Cocktails? There's enough fruit promise for all three. The tiny heirloom strawberries which I've grown mainly to keep the weeds in check, have decided to get serious about flowering and fruiting this year. The citrus trees must have known what I was thinking. I had just decided to send them off to new homes when they all burst into flower and smiled so sweetly I just had to keep them. And what's with this mountain pawpaw? Knee high two years ago, it's taller than the house now, and loaded.

So many promises, and I believe them all, as only an ardent optimist could. I'm particularly excited about the fig festival!