Banks Peninsula
It is one of those days where it should be warm outside, but it’s not. It was hot yesterday, with a strong nor’west wind.
Clare Goodwin embraces a bit of chaos.
Then came the southerly – rain and cold wind. It always works like that, but somehow you get used to the idea of being warm, and you sow seeds, water and plan to do the same the next day. Well, that’s how I do it anyway.
I’m a random gardener. I’ve realised now that no-one would ever ask me to be part of a garden tour. I can never remember when to plant out pumpkins. I forget if I actually sowed those coriander seeds last week or if I just thought about it.
I lose my tools. I have potato plants that got frosted when I planted them too early (they came away again).
I think I’ve planned my garden, but it never works like on paper. The bed I allocated for ku¯mara is way too small. I was going to clear out the salad bed and sow it afresh, but there are still lettuces there and the celery I have let go to seed hasn’t finished doing its thing.
I try and garden by the moon, but I’m not consistent.
It’s all a mess and all mixed up with an odd pumpkin plant in the onion bed and some hopeful brassicas planted in the spinach bed, because I ran out room for them. That’s just how it is.
Some things work and some things don’t. My tunnelhouse is more organised, but I still can’t bring myself to weed out all of the self-sown plants and the rainbow chard which is fine outside but does extra well in there.
I have given up trying to grow things neatly.
It is not in my nature and I have finally accepted it.
I spent five years at The Biological Husbandry Unit in Lincoln, learning organic horticulture and starting up a small business with a fellow student where we sold vegetables to people around the university and at the crown research institutes out there.
We also had a stall at a couple of markets. We did well and grew lots of vegetables successfully and tidily. I loved it.
Liz Willis and I worked hard, and had the 50m beds of onions mostly free of weeds. I thought I could replicate this model on our own land, but I soon found out I wasn’t good at it.
I felt like a failure for a while – other peoples’ garden are so organised! But there are lots of ways to garden and it is important to be happy with what you are doing. I like seeing the bees enjoying the flowers on the overgrown brassica plants. There are flowers everywhere and there is always something to eat. It can be exciting too, when you are not quite sure what you have sown where and find remnants of some dill that you had left to go to seed a couple of seasons ago.
A photography tutor once told me that film (yes, it was that long ago) was the cheapest part of the process and you might as well take a chance and capture that moment even though conditions aren’t perfect. You might end up with something good. So it is with gardening.
Take a chance if you have the space.
Try throwing in those seeds that expired some time ago. Plant out that unknown seedling in a space in the corner of the spinach bed (but keep an eye on it if you suspect it might be a weed). Let your favourite lettuces go to seed and leave some to germinate where they fall. Leave that pumpkin that has grown in the compost. Try growing bananas even though the books say they won’t grow in your area. You never know.
The best gardens, I think, are the ones where you can see the love that has gone into them.
Experience and years of trying different things make a garden look settled and peaceful.
I guess people end up growing what they like and what they are good at.
That can eventually mean beautiful rows of carrots or a heavenly mess of flowers and pak choi.
We are all different. And that’s a good thing indeed.
Some people don’t even like gardening! Luckily for us, we do.