Gardening- it’s in my DNA

I never used to be much of an outdoors person.

I’m a writer by nature and I used to happily while away the hours in my bedroom, picking at the keys of my typewriter, spending time with the characters in my head.

It wasn’t long, though, before the outdoors eventually called me.

At the back of my home of Wandle Cottage, there are two garden bins about a foot or so tall. One has three or four calendulas in it. One of which has already popped its head out while others are just forming buds, which will bloom in a couple of weeks.

The next bin has been filled with bountiful red luscious tomatoes to cut up and serve on toast. Next to the bin lies a sack full of soil where 5 spuds are buried. I’m looking forward to when they come up from the ground, look upon this great and beautiful world and give out a plentiful harvest

Gardening isn’t just always actually planting or maintaining the plants,  it’s also about imagining and preparing for what you’re going to put into the garden. I’m thinking or putting bright orange French Marigolds in with my tomatoes. Why, you may ask? Marigolds are particularly good companion growers with tomatoes, deterring pests and attracting pollinators.

I also want to add, to the one with the calendula’s, beans and lettuce to the first bin. I don’t want any wasted space, and I want vegetables to grow over the edges.

For many gardeners, Spring is like a birthday is for a child, they can’t wait for it to come around. They cross off the weeks and, finally, the days until they arrive. The gardener will purchase a few more flowers and put them in the garden. If there’s no room, you’re sure to find some if you look hard enough!

For many gardeners, Spring is like a birthday is for a child, they can’t wait for it to come around.

In the venerable Yates gardening guide, it states, “Spring is the busiest season for a gardener.”

It does seem a bit strange that I turned from a boy who didn’t like being outside much, to being someone who tries to spend as much time as he can ‘working the land’ (or the bins, in my case).

But it isn’t so unexpected after all.

I come from a line of gardeners. My great-grandfather (my grandfather’s dad) was a gardener himself. I was told that after his passing, my uncle (who was still young at the time) began maintaining his gardens, much to the annoyance of my great-grandmother for whatever reason. I never met her, but I was told she was quite a difficult woman.

My uncle saw it as his responsibility to preserve the  gardens the way my great-grandfather had done in life.

My great-grandfather on my mother’s side  is 90 and serves as an inspiration for my green thumb.

He and my great-grandmother (86) own a yard that is much bigger than ours and the biggest yard in the 20-mile radius that isn’t a farm. It still looks nice today, but I saw photos of what it used to be, and it was a garden lover’s dream.

There was a weeping willow on the property as well as sticks of corn that my great-grandfather took to growing up along the fence, secluding them from the outside world and into a world of their own.

There were beautiful purples and yellow flowers. It looked like the secret garden, I’m telling you.

While much of his great, illustrious garden is gone, there’s still plenty of flowers – marigolds being my great-grandfather’s favourite, as well as mine.

Like me, he grows tomatoes and exclaims “MOMENTOUS NEWS!” at the table when we’re all seated for family lunch, as he gives us an update on their progress.

As I write,  a memory emerges of  him taking me out into the garden and letting me wash a carrot straight from the ground in some rain water. I believe it was the first time I’d eaten a freshly grown carrot, and I loved it.

I remember my mother telling me how (in pre-deodorant days), my great-grandmother used to get annoyed ironing my great-grandfather’s shirts because he‘d change them several times a day after getting sweaty from spending the day outside.

His ritual was garden, a quick wash-over, a change of shirt, and back to the garden.

I’m looking forward to getting stuck in my garden again. Looking back, it is no mystery that I love being outdoors and gardening.

It’s in my DNA.