seeds of spring

It is officially spring here now, which means it’s time to start planting my garden again!

Over the last 18 months I’ve had to relearn Tasmanian seasons, soils and planting calendars - it shouldn’t have surprised me that crops I had great success with in London were not as good here but, equally, things that failed miserably in London grow beautifully here! In London with only a little garden, I found I didn’t have to be as methodical or organised. Here, I have to study the sun, prepare soil and get things in the ground within a certain window of time if they’re going to reach their full potential.

Growing things has become a great passion of mine. Books take years to come to fruition, but gardening can give you gratifying results from your efforts in mere months. Though, of course, you have to play the long game with gardening as well. The very act reminds me that if I plant seeds and tend them with care, the end result can be something to be very proud of.

But equally, sometimes things won’t go to plan, despite all your careful planning and reading and tending. Perhaps the weather will be bad or the caterpillars will swarm in biblical proportions over your kale and cabbages, and there won’t be much you can do about it but learn from it and try again.

When I was a child I never used to understand why my parents were such keen gardeners but I do now. It’s meditative, it’s physical (so important when you spend so much time in your head and/or sitting down), it’s rewarding, and you’re creating something beautiful.

Most of all, gardening has taught me so much about life. That it’s better when you work in harmony with nature. That you can plan and invest time, money and energy in having a garden that makes you proud and happy, and should luck be on your side, fantastic. But ultimately, you have to relinquish control and let things be what they are.

When the Stay At Home order was in full force here in March, April and May, it was deeply comforting to be able to walk a few metres outside to my garden and pick vegetables for our meals rather than have to face the supermarket. COVID or no COVID, there’s nothing better than creating a meal where all the ingredients have been grown by your own hand.

I am looking forward to an abundant spring, summer and autumn, regardless of what’s going on outside of my own backyard!

dig for victory! [video]

Following on from last week, I've now finished this week's MAKE FILMS assignment. Here is a little video about one of my favourite things to do....gardening. Specifically, growing vegetables and fruit - and then cooking and eating what I grow! 

I'm really lucky to have a garden (a rarity in London) so I don't take it for granted and am grateful for every bean, potato, tomato and stalk of rhubarb my little patch has produced so far.

Learning to garden has been very much a trial and error thing for me - sometimes I have successes, but more often than not things don't go according to plan! 

The greatest lesson gardening has taught me - which I try to apply to life in general - is that you have to let go of the things you can't control. You might take every precaution necessary to protect your plants from squirrels, slugs and birds, but then there might be a drought, or a storm, or you'll pick something or dig something up too early, and all your work is down the drain. You can't take these things personally, but merely chalk it up to experience, process the lessons for next time, and move on. 

It's also one of the most absorbing, calming, lose-yourself-in-the-moment tasks I can think of. Time stops for a while and you find yourself talking to your basil plants or watching in fascination as bees, pollen drunk, float from flower to flower. 

I'm always learning, trying to go with the flow of nature and the seasons, and every now and then there's a delicious triumph. 

Happiness comes with a bit of dirt under the nails, I think. 

PS: Turn the sound on for music - and spray bottle sound effects! Music is 'Take Me Higher' by Jahzzar - http://betterwithmusic.com/

the writer's garden

"The soil is warming. We gardeners grow ever more watchful, sniffing the air as excitedly as beagles, peering into the vegetation to detect those first thrilling signs of life. Is that a distance haze of green? Wait: did you hear birdsong? At long long last, after months of enforced dormancy, we tell ourselves it might be time to begin." - Charlotte Mendelson, "Rhapsody in Green"

The last weekend in March, I planted early potatoes. A week later, the rhubarb we'd given up for dead did a Jesus and came back to life, the blueberry bush began sprouting green leaves and the cherry tree exploded in pink blossoms.

Tom and I went out for a run and came back to a generous bag of horse manure on the front step, gift of our mechanic, also a keen gardener who told me rhubarb loves horse manure and he had a reliable local source.

My packets of seeds have been out on the bench for the last few weekends, waiting for the right, ripe moment to sow as April marches into May.

As Charlotte Mendelson writes in her lovely book of essays, this is such a nice time of year to be a gardener - a time where hope triumphs over experience, where we sow and are thrilled by the potential, like applying for a job we really want - you send your CV off, put the seed in the ground, and for a while, anything can happen. It's a lovely feeling.

Today I planted french beans and courgettes (zucchini), and there is a tomato plant on my kitchen windowsill. The cherry blossoms are falling and fading, to make way for the green leaves and fruit. The potatoes are thriving. The rhubarb is Trump-like in its determination to beat all the odds and completely take over. 

I love my garden. I hope it will be an abundant year, in every sense.