A Seasonal Celebration of the Land, Garden & Nature

Hedgerow Fruits. Seasonal Shift. Tomatoes & Chillies. Earth. Softening. Apples & Pears. Equinox. Cobnuts. Golden Hues. Spiderwebs.  Wasps. Asters & Grasses

Issue 29 September 2020

Gleaning of The Harvest

I love the sound of this Old English word - gleaning.  The dictionary meaning of glean is " to obtain (information) from various sources, often with difficultly."

The historical meaning of gleaning however is somewhat less known. Gleaning was the process of gathering leftover grain from the fields after the harvest. 

On most farms it was customary for locals to be allowed onto the farmer's fields to collect the crops left behind after harvesting. It seems this ancient right was very much at the farmer's discretion and gleaning was usually strictly governed, with a set of well understood local rules. On some farms one sheaf was left in a field to indicate that gleaning had not yet begun and church bells were rung to signal the start and the end of the glean. 

Gleaning was extremely important in rural societies, it was even considered sacred - in the Bible God explicitly orders owners to give the poor a chance to glean in their fields. Often enough grain could be collected during the glean to keep a family of four through the winter. The whole family joined in to help ensure food supplies and for children, gleaning of the harvest fields was a highlight. 

When the signal was given that gleaning could commence, the locals would put on their 'earbags', a square piece of material with a tie at each corner used to fasten around the waist, a bit like an apron with a massive collecting pocket at the front. The earbags were used to collect the short and broken off ears and when full they were tied up into bundles to be carried home, with the children chanting:

"Wheat, wheat,  harvest home, see what great bundles we bring home."

The ancient rights of gleaning and gathering (in late summer, small game, nuts, fruit and fuel could be gathered from common ground) were lost in the UK following Enclosure. Landowners applied to enclose common land for their own private use effectively removing rural people from the land that had supported them for centuries. 

This would have radically changed the lives of rural families. A rural labourer could not longer glean to provide for his family, nor gather and forage, he couldn't graze his animals or farm strips of common land. There was no minimum wage, it became much more difficult to survive and many were thrown into destitution or even the workhouse. This change meant locals lost their ties to the land. With this loss went a wealth of folklore, tradition, culture and rituals of a land-based life. 

Today the ancient process of gleaning is being revived by charities like Foodcycle. Volunteers collect leftover crops from farmers’ fields after commercial harvests and together with misshapen fruits and veg rejected by supermarkets; these are sent to charities and food projects.

A perfect example of an ancient rural tradition being applied to today's world - in this case using the fundamental idea that one creature’s waste is another creature’s food. 

https://www.foodcycle.org.uk/

I'll be back next week with more September highlights but in the meantime I'd love to hear what you spot and/or photograph.

If you have any questions you can reach me via my website www.plotgardendesign.co.uk follow/like PLOT Garden Design on social media to receive my seasonal updates and photos.

Keep well, breathe and remember to look outside and notice the details.