I hate gardening
so why do I do it?
Early on in life I was shackled to a push mower to cut the small area of grass behind the house. I hated that. A bit later on a small electric mower replaced the cylinder one and made life slightly easier but I still hated mowing the lawn. Later on in life me and a mate started a garden design and upkeep business, many of the jobs we got involved mowing or strimming, I hated that too. Sitting on a beach, laughing with friends watching the sunset reflect off the sea is probably, in my opinion, the most refined of all human activities. Cutting grass is the opposite, hot, sweaty, noisy and simply ridiculous. Sheep are good at it and, as far as one can tell, seem to enjoy the experience, I do not.
I moved on to run a farm and a market garden. Realisations can be sudden or slow, this one was slow and came about after having spent some considerable time working alongside other people. They would plant or sow stuff and 90% or more of the plants would pop up, with me it was more like 30% and my plants always seemed a bit depressed or whatever it is that plants feel. I don’t know what colour my thumbs are, metaphorically speaking, but it’s not green. That said I have wondered whether the others might have been getting to the seeds before me and take all the good ones but that’s probably just the dark side of my soul whispering.
Then there’s all the garden politics that I can’t get my head around. Why are so many people so fixated about tomatoes? Seriously, what’s that about? If you haven’t got tomatoes the size of footballs then people look down their noses at you. It doesn’t matter that their huge tomatoes have as much flavour as a billiard ball, it’s the size which counts, I don’t even like tomatoes. Nor beetroot if it comes to that, they just taste like a rusty nail as far as I’m concerned.
Nature is a major tourist attraction, people flood out of the cities and pay good money just to have a look at it. That’s fine for them, my veg gardens have been visited by boar, deer, a donkey some sheep, a presumably very lost, Vietnamese pot-bellied pig and a massive infestation of voles. 2 years ago our crops were virtually all destroyed by a massive hailstorm. This year I got slugs, in my gardens that is, not personally, it’s been a specially wet spring so far. Not had slug problems here before so feeling very happy about it. Don’t talk to me about Nature. Yet here I am again out in the gardens either preparing them or sowing and planting and enjoying it about as much as I enjoy beetroot soup. Why the hell do I keep doing it? I would rather be forging or building my next vardo but the compulsion to have another go at fiddling around with plants that really don’t seem to like me seems impossible to deny.
To put the tin hat on it I often get unhelpful comments from visitors like “what? You’re into Permaculture and hate gardening? How is that even possible?” These days explaining, again and again, that Permaculture isn’t about gardening tires me out. Other people point out that I should associate myself with someone who has green thumbs but watching them succeed is just frankly depressing, even if their tomatoes taste like billiard balls.
One positive thing in all this is the pleasure evident on the faces of market gardeners who drop by, it’s called shadenfreude apparently. The malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else's misfortune.
There’s an old saying but I can’t remember what it is so can’t use it here which is a shame. It had to do with continually doing something when you should actually just stop. I went to redesign a farm for a couple in their late 50’s who were running goats and making cheese and yoghurt. Everything seemed more or less OK and just needed some tweaks to make the whole thing more productive with less labour. Then the bloke turned up on his little tractor, never in my life have I met someone who suffered so badly from hayfever. He was wearing one of those belts people have to support their backs, he needed it because he spent so much time sneezing. His face was bloated and blotchy and conversation was difficult punctuated as it was by him doubling up with his hands on his thighs and sneezing like a machine gun.
It was obvious that tweaking the farm was secondary to finding a solution for him that didn’t involve serious medication. In the end we decided that she would take over running the farm and he would stay as much as possible in the clean room and make cheese. The only problem was that she didn’t really want to run the farm and he didn’t like making cheese. Life eh?
Having sowed loads of plants this spring I’ve got a picture in my mind of what the market gardens will look like in a couple of months, except they won’t. Something’s going to happen, that’s for sure. The potatoes, peas and a few other things are showing early promise but will they make it to the finishing line? A meteor strike? Total social collapse forcing hungry city dwellers to come a pillage the gardens? Someone in the bar was worried about wildfires, the bloke in the corner said “that’ll be OK no? The potatoes will be ready cooked.” I laughed so much I broke a rib hahaha.
I suppose I keep on going because, well for one, I sell fruit and veg but probably the most important reason is wanting to be part of the elite. No, not the rich and famous, I’m talking about the minority elite who keep us all alive, without whom we’d all soon be put to bed with the help of a shovel. Food producers, that’s who.
Sowing seeds is so tedious! Luckily I have always had someone else alongside who enjoys it