Introduction
I have always had an appreciation for nature. At the beginning of lockdown in 2020, having very quickly moved back home from Reading to Yorkshire, I found myself yearning naturally for the great outdoors. For the first 6 months of lockdown, I barely left the house. When we did leave, my family would often make excursions to our local plant nursery, located near our local farm, local farm shop and a very rural stretch of grassy green land and a country road. It was easily travelled on foot, and the garden centre was so big and mostly outside, so we didn’t have to worry about COVID. It was nice to be reacquainted with the flowers and trees.
With myself not being very strong naturally and living with disabilities, I have found heavy labour incredibly difficult in the past. I had preferred to enjoy the produce of other people’s gardening rather than my own, especially my dad who is good at mowing grass and knows how to look after plants. However, with not much to do during lockdown once my dissertation was written and submitted, a whacking 50 foot back garden that we hadn’t paid much attention to since my sister and I were children, and a growing desire to not be limited by my disabilities, I decided to brighten the place up with an assortment of pansies on the request of my mother.
A colourful garden provided a safe escape from my bedroom, where there was no fear of passing on COVID to my vulnerable family. I was able to enjoy my post-dissertation time relaxing on a fold out chair and getting sunburned (an inevitable occurrence thanks to my whiter than white complexion, go raibh maith agat Éire). I had discovered a love for house- plants (especially succulents) during university, and I wanted to continue that with a huge assortment of plants now that I was likely to be living at home for the next few years.
As time went on and lockdowns eased, I was still very anxious about catching COVID and infecting my vulnerable family. My partner and I, instead of going out to busy cities and packed shops, opted for day trips into the lake district. We would drive all the way out to the most remote of Yorkshire moors, walk miles around lakes and forests, feed lots of ducks and have lots of picnics. Despite living in Yorkshire for a decade, I had never been able to experience the natural side of the counties like this. My family, being very poor throughout my childhood, never had a car, and still don’t. We all love walks, especially when there’s a historical ground to learn about, but we had always been limited to what was within walking distance of our house or how far we could afford to go on public transport. My partner driving me to all sorts of natural places was alien, and it still feels alien now. I am constantly grateful to have access to the luxury of driving now.
All these nature excursions made me appreciate my home county more than I ever did before lockdown. Myself, being born and raised in Kent in the south of England, and then raised further in Yorkshire in the north of England, I never felt at home in my tiny village. I unfortunately suffered profuse bullying throughout my entire school career due to my southern accent, which not only left me essentially mute for a time, but which made me long to move to the city-scape south, especially London. I even chose a southern university specifically with the plan to never return to the north and get away from the feeling that I didn’t belong. If it weren’t for the lockdowns, I would have stayed there. I had grand plans at the time.
The Harvest of 2021
I wanted to become more familiar with nature, as there’s only so much walking and research into the science of nature you can do before you are inevitably left with one thing: engaging directly by learning how to grow and care for plants. I started off with repotting some already- grown pansies, learning which pots are best for which types of flowers, and just focused on brightening up the garden. My sister (who is also a writer and trusted proofreader) helped me with the first batch.
Once that was done, I wanted to try growing some easy fruit and vegetables. My parents bought me a greenhouse, in which I started to grow tomatoes, bell peppers, strawberries, white onions, red onions and spring onions. I’m a big fan of onions and my family uses a lot of them, so it made sense to focus on them for the first year. Although they didn’t grow as big as normal onions, I was able to harvest many bitesize ones!
The onions went on to be cooked mostly in a beef and red wine pie, as I substituted my tiny onions for shallots. The spring onions went into various salads. Unfortunately, the tomatoes and bell pepper failed that year, and the strawberry plants grew well, but they didn’t produce any fruit (they’re still alive today!). It has become apparent that I seem to grow vegetables better than fruits, as in subsequent years I struggled to get anything out of the fruit plants. Very sadge rip froot.
The Harvest of 2022
After having a relatively successful harvest in 2021, I went full swing with a healthy assortment of vegetables in 2022. I was tired of being only an onion farmer- this year I was going to have a full and diverse harvest.
Carrots
I was absolutely desperate to grow carrots. I love carrots. They seem like a gardening staple to me. I was very happy when they turned out not just edible, but they looked real fucky too.
I have a soft spot for weirdly shaped fruit and vegetables, I find the regular stuff you would find at a supermarket kind of boring. This carrot however, looks like two thighs and a rather large member. Laughing at this carrot was a highlight of 2022.
Broccoli
Growing the broccoli was an emotional rollercoaster. They were a late addition to my garden, only being planted as a sapling in the summer when the plant nursery was selling their remaining vegetables off for cheap. They started off growing very well… until the cabbage white butterflies came. Me in my happy happy way didn’t think anything of it, and was just glad to see some butterflies so close to the house. I didn’t think that they would lay a fuckton of eggs and allow their caterpillar sprog to decimate my entire crop of broccoli AND cauliflower.
My dad and I spent ages removing the caterpillars to a degree of success, but every few hours when we came back, it was like they never left. In the end, I was able to harvest two full heads of broccoli.
I didn’t learn until after I harvested them that broccoli flower! I think I caught mine in the nick of time as when they start to flower, they become inedible.
Cauliflower
The cauliflowers suffered much the same fate as the broccoli, but I was able to get one good head out of four. The cauliflower went on to be cooked in my partner’s homemade chicken madras that he made for me.
Brussel Sprouts
I am so sad that I do not have a picture of all my brussel sprouts, because they did really well! I harvested them on Boxing Day so that we could eat them with our Christmas dinner, and because of all the rushing around to prepare the meal, I completely forgot to take any pictures :(.
The brussels were a mixture of tiny and medium sized sprouts, but they were utterly delicious. They were also easy to look after and gave us many sprouts, enough for everyone to get a few mouthfuls at dinner.
Tomatoes
As we’ve established, I don’t have much success with growing fruit, aside from the cucumber. However, I persevered this year with two tomato plants, as my mum really wanted some tomatoes. Although the tomatoes still weren’t the most successful, I did get a few tiny ones! I managed to harvest enough this year for my family to eat one each, and they were really good. Success!
Garlic
I planted my garlic as the very last thing in November 2022, and I am hoping to harvest around 8 full heads in the summer of 2023. They’re growing very well, and very tall.
Unfortunately I have had to place some thin white mesh over the bucket that I am growing them in, as our local cats will not stop shitting in it. As you can imagine when you first plant garlic, you don’t get a stem for a few weeks. To our local cats this just looks like a nice clean bucket of soil to release their turds. I lost one garlic growth due to these cats using it as their cat litter tray, since cats scratch the soil to cover up their poo and someone scratched one of the bulbs free of its placement. It never grew greenery so I’m assuming it was too traumatised by the event to carry on living.
I reckon it was this one. His name’s Shadow. He doesn’t really have a home per-se so our village looks after him. He’s very fat now because everyone feeds him.
Herbs
Before this year, I had never been interested in herbs. I was never one to properly consider what herbs to use in a dish, it was more of a case of ‘this dish is vaguely Italian, therefore I should use the Italian mixed herbs from Tesco’.
Now, they are my favourite things to grow. These, aside from garlic, are the only plants I have successfully grown from seeds so far. The basil plants grew the best, so well in fact that one pot was big enough to take on a group holiday to Norfolk with my friends and supply enough leaves for various strawberry cocktails.
Ignore the dandelion weed growing in the thyme lol I thought it was part of the plant.
Cucumber
My cucumber was my pride and joy this year. It didn’t seem to be growing amazingly at the beginning of the season, but it successfully produced 3 fully grown and delicious cucumbers! I remember running into the living room brandishing a cucumber and demanding everyone look at the literal fruits of my labour.
One cucumber was turned into a salad for when my extended family came to visit, and the other two became homemade rosemary and sage pickles. I will definitely be growing more cucumbers this year!
Spring Onions
The ever reliable spring onion reminds me why I became the onion farmer. Spring onions never miss.
2022’s spring onions turned out more ‘normal’ than 2021’s, which I was a little disappointed about. I do love weird looking things, and this year’s spring onions were straighter than myself when around my grandparents. Apparently a thin spring onion is actually called a scallion, while the bulbous variation that I got in 2021 is a true spring onion. I got the saplings from the same producer both years, so I do not know why I got scallions this year. Nevertheless, they were plentiful and delicious. I used most of them as garnish on Japanese rice.
And finally, I would like to press F for the herbs and vegetables that did not survive to harvest, these being my red onions, sweetcorn, strawberries, chilli peppers, runner beans, lettuce, mint and coriander. RIP my mouldy, slüg eaten loves.
Embracing nature
Over the last year or so, I’ve come to realise that my semi-rural village in Yorkshire where I grew up is a much better place to live than the concrete jungle of London. Having spent exactly half my life living in both places, Yorkshire is just… better. In an odd way, it feels friendlier and more authentic, which is a very strange perspective for me to have since throughout my childhood I was bullied for not being Yorkshire and always felt like an outsider. Perhaps it comes from leaving school and people becoming more mature as they get older, as I incredibly rarely get negative comments about my voice these days. Or maybe I just don’t care anymore and I live where I want to live.
The spirituality of caring for plants is something I love about gardening. It’s not just the eating and the prettiness of plants (although the eating is very, very important to me), it’s about the nurturing, the growth, the progress and the activeness. Gardening is the circle of life. I work my job and earn money, I buy the seeds and saplings from my local independent garden centres, I plant the plants in my garden, I nurture and care for them, I harvest them, I cook them and eat them, I put the waste back into the soil and the cycle starts again the next year. It feels good to be self-sufficient in a world where everything is available, even if it’s on a small and personal scale.
Plans for 2023
The plan for my 2023 harvest is just about to start, now that spring has finally sprung in the UK. We’ve had some really strange weather over the last few weeks, having had huge snowfall when the daffodils were supposed to be sprouting, but now it really does feel like spring is here.
Unfortunately due to the bad weather we had this winter, my greenhouse got completely destroyed. It did me 2 years, and considering it has had to survive the Yorkshire rain, wind and one pooey cat insisting on sleeping on top of it, it did me a great service. You will be missed, greenhouse #1.
I will be buying a new greenhouse in around April, and as much as I would love a glass greenhouse, they are much too expensive for me right now. Plastic it will have to be, and I’m hoping to find a way to recycle the destroyed greenhouse.
My dad has put together a vegetable patch frame for me, which I am planning on growing my bigger and non-cat-toxic fruits and vegetables like carrots and cucumbers.
I am also taking a further leap into plant growing by attempting to grow some plants from seeds. I have not done this before, as I have preferred to grow plants from saplings, but I think year 3 of gardening is a good time to start trying the harder things. I’m planning on growing red spring onions, tomatoes, pansies and lavender from seeds this year. Wish me luck!
I will be refilling all our flower pots across the garden, and I have been very pleasantly surprised about how many of last year’s pansies have grown back! I’m going to give all the pots a bit more time to rejuvenate, and then replace any that did not make it through the winter.
Since my family are so cat orientated and we have started looking after our community cats more, I looked into some cat friendly plants to encourage them to play around those, rather than taking a dump in my vegetable patches. I recently planted some cat grass for my cats indoors, but right now only one tuxedo is paying attention to it right now. Hopefully the other tuxedo will pay attention to it soon. I’ve also planted some catnip for the outdoor cats, which should start sprouting soon.
Don't mind the black abyss that's just where I live.
My herb garden got a good head start this year, as I now only grow the herbs from seeds. I’ve planted them all indoors this year to start them off, and they will slowly put up home outside when the weather gets warmer. I have planted a more diverse selection of herbs this year, including:
Basil (green and red)
Rosemary
Thyme (without the weed in it this time)
Dill
Chives
Oregano
Tarragon
Mint
Coriander (or Cilantro if you’re American)
Parsley
Sage
Although not really herbs, I also started growing cress and mustard on my windowsill during the winter. The cress went down very well, and I used it in several egg mayonnaise sandwiches.
I’m very happy that my Parsley has survived throughout the winter, so I don’t need to replant that. I have also cut down my Sage, another perennial herb, and I am hoping that grows back without me needing to replant seeds too. While my Parsley is still growing strong, I have been drying bunches of the herb in my bedroom with a herb rack that I crafted out of twine and a stick from my mum’s Rowan tree. It hangs above my succulent garden <3.
Oh, and before we finish off, I wanted to talk a little bit about my succulent garden! My love for house plants developed in my first year of university, and two of these original plants have survived up to today, and have gifted me many, many baby succulents that I have given to friends and family. Over the last 6 years, my house plant collection has grown from 2 or 3 plants on my windowsill, to a full-on indoor garden that has taken over the top of my chest of drawers and my wardrobe. I am absolutely in love with it and it brings me so much joy. I even purchased a charming indoor water fountain for the centre of it which runs on very little electricity. I would like to purchase at some point a solar powered portable charger so that I can make my indoor garden even greener.
I may write a separate blog post all about my indoor plants, as there’s so much I want to talk about. Stay tuned for that!
~~~
If you’ve reached this far, thank you so much for reading my blog post on gardening! It’s a very different style of writing to what I prefer, as this is a non-academic piece of writing. As much as I love discussing class divide, movements of communities online and crediting guides for online artists. I wanted this time to go for a more light-hearted vibe, and I hope it has resonated with you. It brings me great joy to share my love for plants and gardening with you!
I have many more written pieces both on my blog and on my DeviantART page. You can access a page of all my written work, including MMD essays, academic essays, poems, articles and more here: https://www.rhiannonford.com/authors-portfolio.
Special thanks to my sister and fellow literature academic Tishtashtosh for proofreading my essay.
Finally, if you enjoy my written work, please consider sending me a donation on my Buy Me A Coffee or my Kofi! All donations are put towards funding my education, right now that is my masters degree in Early Modern and Renaissance Literature, which I start in September this year. Help me fund my future so that I can become a professional essay writer!
Buy Me A Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Chestnutscoop
Comments