Growing up on a hectare of land in town, I have plenty of fond memories of my beloved grandmother pottering around the garden pruning roses, watering hydrangeas, dead-heading flowers, and planting new ones.Â
My brother and I were the second generation of children to grow up on the property, with my mother and her brother and sister being the first. When they were younger, my mother and her siblings would watch their mother and father cultivating a garden that was harvested throughout the year, but by the time my brother and I arrived, the garden only produced strawberries, lemons, pineapples, grapes, and an abundance of blooms.
To give you an idea about just how big the space was, my childhood garden was divided into 5 tiers, each with something to explore.Â
At the very top there was a compost patch, an acacia tree, and a whole lot of grass. This part of the garden was exposed to the elements and as such was a lot drier than the rest of the garden. On the second level of tiers, there was the lemon tree and strawberry patch, along with agapanthus, petunias, jasmine creepers, and Barberton Daisies. There was also the most beautiful rose bush, a Dorothy Perkins to be precise.Â
The final tier was the biggest in the backyard, and it had a humongous Jacaranda tree covering a sprawling emerald green lawn. In October the tree would be full of purple blooms that would cascade gently down onto the green carpet. It was on that lawn that I was first stung by a bee, while walking barefoot on the fallen flowers.Â
If the back garden was a treasure trove, the front was a display of superior garden design.Â
The front garden was much smaller than the back. There was a single front lawn with two massive syringa trees. Right at the fence was the bluest agapanthus, to the one side of the lawn was the thickest sea of hydrangeas and white hibiscus bushes, and to the other side was a border of aloes. Closest to the house sat two yesterday, today and tomorrow bushes, that combined with the scent from the syringa tree flowers would herald the arrival of the new spring season. To this day, the yesterday, today and tomorrow flowers are my favourite. I find them so relaxing and they always remind me of my childhood.Â
And then there were the roses.Â
My gran loved her roses and cared for them with such dedication that they were always a talking point. She had white roses, peach ones, pink ones and red ones, and she even had a couple in pots on the stoep.Â
That garden, her garden, was my favourite place.Â
It is where I played and let my imagination run wild, while perched up in some tree, and it was my solace in the years following the death of my father, when as a child I often retreated from the world.
I often dream of this heavenly place, and it is sad that when my family eventually sold the property, after owning it for almost 50 years, the land was torn apart for a gated community development.Â
Rediscovering a First Love
I don’t think I am alone in my desire to create a beautiful space in which to escape when reality gets to be a bit too much.Â
And I think for many people, 2020 was the year that changed all of our realities, most times for the worst. So many plans and day dreams of the future were brought to a sudden halt and the direction moved from fanciful ideas to, in my case at least, how to become less reliant on shops and more in touch with nature.Â
In 2020, my love for the garden was suddenly replanted from my childhood memories of this oasis of greenery into my current garden, which is far smaller but always changing and evolving to include new elements with the ultimate goal of maximising the space and adding interesting new things to look at and to eat.Â
Although I learned so much from my grandmother, I had to teach myself most things through practice and through the knowledge shared by others online. My primary attention was on creating a vegetable garden, and learning how to grow food.
I started out with just a 2 meter by 2 meter square of land and in that first year I grew tomatoes, paprika and green peppers. They tasted delicious and I was quite chuffed with myself. I also grew some beans and some lettuce.Â
In the following year, the garden was expanded a little, and marrows, broccoli, and cauliflower were added in the winter months. That summer saw the addition of butternut, wild rocket, and cucumbers.Â
I stuck to only growing what we actually eat, and what I actually know how to cook with! With the sheer variety of interesting looking things to grow, I had to be realistic with my space. Lord knows, if I had a farm or a homestead I would be growing all the things!
In 2021, following the death of my grandmother, in my mourning and awe I turned my attention to the rest of the garden and started drawing up plans and slowly adding interesting plants, some grown from seed and others bought. My goal has always been to cultivate a place of beauty and peace, and also a place where I can experiment and learn.
No garden is ever complete and no gardener ever knows it all, and as someone who likes to be in control and in the know, this has been a much needed learning curve.Â
I am going back to basics, maybe you should join me.
When you are tending to a garden, whether it is just a couple of pots on your stoep or balcony, or a much bigger area, the simple act of making sure that the plants are taken care of and growing as they should forces you to be fully focused on what is right in front of you.
In this day and age, where everything is pulling your attention and leaving you feeling stressed out and anxious, that act of caring for what is right in front of you can be incredibly calming.
Our society, despite offering a standard of living far higher than that of any other generation, is churning out a lot of depressed and anxious people.
Having a garden can be the most important medicine for such ailments. Growing things can give you a sense of accomplishment and putting your hands and feet into the soil has been proven to release the happy stuff in your brain.
Growing at least some of your own food can also be an experience, especially when you proudly harvest your first crop (even if it is a single tomato) and realise that home grown has the most intense taste.
I believe my sudden desire to garden comes from both the way I was raised as well as this inner need to return to a simpler way of living. Growing your own food might be anything but simple, what with having to learn how to do something that has been so far removed from our modern way of living, but when you start getting into it, the feeling is almost primal.
Our ancestors grew their own food, and the emergence of super markets is not all that old.
Sure, shops might have been there, but not in the way we experience them today. In a way, this should give us hope. It means we are still able to turn back the clock in a small way, by growing a vegetable garden that can be used to supplement the home or just be used for fresh snacking.
By growing some food, you can also teach your children more about where their food comes from and how they can become self-reliant in their future lives.
In this blog, I hope to share with you my hopes, my failures and a little inspiration to encourage you to grab a packet of seeds, get some soil on your hands, and look at life, and food, in a different light. I warn you though, this path to gardening is addictive, but the rewards are well worth cultivating a green fingered lifestyle.
