Working with the garden

Since lockdown I have spent so much time in our garden

It's our first time for growing food plants and its been amazing to watch all the flowers and vegetables grow, flourish and bloom.

This situation has given us the opportunity to slow down, and to connect with and work with the garden on a much deeper level. Growing vegetables for the first time and watching in wonder as every day the plants presented us with something new has been a beautiful experience.

Humans need to know how to grow food. It's bizarre that many of us don't as food is as important as oxygen and water, yet we don't see it as an essential skill.

I decided to grow a lot of our vegetables in amongst wild flowers that we had seeded, to encourage the bees and other insects and to provide an alternative food source for any wild animal who needed to eat. It worked well

We are lucky to have a garden so we can grow straight in the soil, or in containers which is easier in some ways as they can be moved around to catch the sun or shade. Both have been really successful and we've combined that with growing various plants vertically on trellis or tepees, which takes up less space and lessens the risk of them being eaten by the wild animals and contracting various plant diseases due to better ventilation.

The joy I have experienced from picking our first strawberries, to digging up our red potatoes that I grew from an 'eye' in a potato from a local health shop, is immense! The potatoes were like a lucky dip as these beautiful red gems kept appearing in the soil as I dug them out! No shop bought lettuce tastes so good and is so fresh and crispy

Many food plants can be grown in containers indoors or on a window ledge. Some like lettuce actually prefer the cooler more shaded environment. Tomatoes, chillies, peppers, spinach, spring onions, beetroot, curly kale would also do well, in fact sweet pepper plants do so well I have several plants!

If you haven't grown food before I strongly encourage it as to be able to grow food provides a huge sense of self reliability, something that all humans should have.