Effort

“.....all it takes is a few packets of seed and before long you will have your own, fresh home grown produce......”  As If!   Unless you are the gambling type, gardening requires some basic research before you start followed by a lot of practice and good husbandry.  This is generally known as effort and without it, gardening seldom delivers satisfaction. 

Food does not magically appear from a packet of bean seeds. If I dared to shove a few bean seeds directly into the soil instead of starting them off in pots, the slugs and mice would eat them for breakfast and even if a few plants made it above the soil, they would still need seriously engineered support from beans canes and twine to withstand strong wind and the weight of the harvest.  Of course, if the soil is not enriched with organic matter in the first place, there won’t be any beans at all! 

Given my present disability and level of pain, the effort required to do even a fraction of what I used to do in the garden, is multiplied.  I spent years telling Doc I was Superwoman but sadly this was only propaganda and I am definitely in the ‘I can only do what I can’ group of gardeners.  As such, and to my sadness, food production at Springfield will be reduced this coming season.  Traditionally in our garden, the 80/20 rule applies:  80% of the work is generated from 20% of the plot – namely, the fruit and vegetable plot.  Doc is keen to take over some of what I used to do, including the watering and husbandry but he has a lot of other garden maintenance to do.  He is not Superman either.

After much deliberating over the Modified Plan, we have decided that my role will be starting some seeds off and nurturing them into plants.  In a week or two it will be time for me to get going.  Today, Doc brought up some sieved multi-purpose compost in a trug and that will sit in the utility room to warm up.  There is also a large bag of assorted pots, root trainers and trays, plus a couple of unheated propagators and a packet of plant labels.

Tomatoes and Chilli plants will be the first off the starting blocks because they need a long season if they are to bear fruits which ripen.  I have reduced the varieties of tomatoes to a minimum to save work and I shall grow some large tubs of cherry sized Tumbling Tom (yellow and red) and Garden Pearl, together with some Romano Nano which is a meatier plum variety for cooking.  Once I get these up and about and plantlet sized, they will be grown on in the greenhouse.  When the weather turns warm and summery (wishful thinking I know) the tubs can be brought up to the terrace near the house where I can easily tend them.  The terrace is south facing and they should do well there, if not, Doc will take them back to the greenhouse.

After sowing the tomato seeds, it will be time for the Mangetout, sowed in root trainers because they like a long root run. I could start them off in the greenhouse but I find they do better in the kitchen, near the Aga and we usually achieve an earlier crop.  (I have never succeeded with autumn sowings of any of the pea family!)

A few months ago I did not think I could do any gardening at all.  But now I think I can.  My contribution will be very small but hopefully it will be significant and maybe I can gain the same kind of satisfaction all gardeners all share.  Making the effort to grow something, anything, nurtures our souls and I need all the nurturing I can get.