Gardening; why it’s good to care
6 May 2020
Like so many, we at Planted have been busy growing flowers, plants, herbs and vegetables in almost any space we can find over the past weeks.
As the UK’s decision to go into lockdown coincided with the start of the nation’s growing season we decided “panic planting” was a far more constructive use of our time than stockpiling toilet roll.
Thankfully, the decision is already starting to pay off. Not in any literal, commercial sense, but in the reassuring, comforting knowledge we are looking after and nurturing something which will, in every sense, one day bear fruit.
Our windowsills are chocked full of tomato plants while the small summer house normally used to store our daughter’s toys protects the young cucumber plants from the chill and gives the sunflowers a welcome boost of warmth.
As the last few cold nights of Spring linger, we watch weather forecasts closely and avoid leaving the more tender young plants out to suffer the inevitable pain. When it’s warm we water. When the slugs attack the young spinach and beetroot, we move swiftly and decisively to protect.
Once you factor in the cost of compost, pots, canes, slug repellent (organic and non-toxic) and feeds, “growing your own” probably doesn’t add up in a financial sense – without a garden the size of a football field to scale up production anyway – but the simple pleasure derived from planting, watering, nurturing and caring for something is hard to overstate. Gardening, in whatever form, is beautiful blend of creativity, caring, hard graft and luck.
Taking time to look after each individual plant or flower, potting on when necessary and watering judiciously, also calms frayed nerves, adds scent to the air and makes once barren spaces sing with colour, fragrance and life. Inside the house is green and alive while outside there is growth, hope and energy. The buzz of a bumble bee or evening song of a blackbird are simple, divine pleasures so often lost in the hectic hubbub of our lives.
We’ve chosen this year to only plant flowers or sow seeds which will attract and feed pollinators. We’ve fixed four hexagonal bee houses (purchased online at www.greengardener.co.uk) on a south-west facing wall and an insect hotel on another. Day by day, the tubes fill up with dried soil and other earthy matter as the solitary little bees claim their own individual patch. The constant hum provides reassurance life is being supported.
Meanwhile, swathes of the lawn are being allowed to grow wild. Life above and beneath the ground will be healthier and happier as a result while the increased insect life will provide a rich, sustainable food source for the bird around us. Each system supports and feeds another.
Right now, the daffodils and bluebells have just died back, allowing space on stage for the alliums, foxgloves and Erysimum while the parsley, thyme, mint and rosemary in the old Belfast sink by the back kitchen door is basking in the late Spring warmth.
The Cornflowers, Michaelmas Daisies, Rudbekia, Echinacea, Verbena and Lavender are growing on strong will have to wait until the headier, hotter summer days to display in full glory. There time, no doubt, will come.
It is beautiful, simple and joyous to behold. A kind of ordered chaos, controlling in a way, but mostly just about caring.
This weekend the courgettes plants will be gathered into the kitchen, the runner bean canes wrapped in tea-towel blankets and the raised beds covered in old carpet elevated on frames to protect the tender produce beneath. There is a chill northerly wind coming and the young, vulnerable seedlings need protecting.
In many ways, gardening is not worth it. But in so many others it is. Besides, at times such as these, it really is good to care.
Written by Sam Peters, Founding Partner at Planted
