Notes from a beginner gardener
Some of the gear, absolutely no idea
If it wasn’t already clear, I am well and truly in my nana era. I have discovered a love of gardening and there’s no turning back. Seeing Monty Don on the TV schedule and a forecast for buckets of rain now fill me with glee. Granted it’s not so hard to fall for green-fingered pursuits when you’ve moved out of London and have a larger, nicer plot to play with. And let’s face it, a less banging social life to plan planting out around. But it’s not just that - I really do enjoy being in the garden, (gloved) hands in the soil, mind totally focused on the meditative task at hand. A bit like taking a run-down room or wall or piece of furniture and transforming it from before pic to unrecognisable after shot, sprinkling tiny seeds into pots that under your watchful watering-can become beautiful blooms or trees as tall as you is very satisfying.
I’m learning that growing one’s own is a process you can’t rush, and one you need to get ahead of, which we weren’t able to this year, having only moved to our new house in sunny Wiltshire a few months ago, a little after the optimum sowing season. Plus, we’re very lucky to have inherited a garden that’s been well tended and there’s stuff popping up all the time - we want to get a better idea of what’s here and how to keep it alive before potentially ruining or overcrowding it all with giddy, haphazard bulb and seed spraying (hello, it me). We’ve also agreed we won’t throw loads of cash at the outside space until we’ve gotten a bit further along inside the house (and there’s quite a lot of dust and paint and boxes of door handles going on in there). But, I’m still determined to give growing a go, and we've made some good progress! A fair few failures, some successes…
Consider this post an introduction to our first proper garden, my experience of gardening (spoiler: none) and what we’ve done so far, ahead of upcoming monthly installments on what’s new and, hopefully, some useful learnings.
Following in my faux Croc-clad footsteps might not be wise but if you’re also a first time gardener, then I guess you’ve got nothing to lose! Let’s grow / kill stuff together!