April has come and gone, and I’ve been away from the computer for much of it. There was a sunny stretch, warm and inviting, and a cold stretch that had us worrying about the plants. We’re now into a grey and windy May that nominally gets to the lofty heights of double-digit daytime temps, but feels much colder (and uninspiring). It reminds me of the spring where we had the haar for weeks on end and everything was shrouded in fog; when only the leafy plants thrived and we didn’t get a single courgette. I very much hope we’re not in for a repeat of that.
The seedlings have grown, and most of them have been sent on their journey. We’re dealing with a few stragglers this week, but soon they’ll all be gone and the tunnel will be ready for plantings. Over the next couple of weeks we’re installing a bunch of pop-up gardens, where we install a veg bed full of plants in people’s own spaces, with support throughout the growing season. This is our second year doing this, and reading the applications is always a privilege. This year we have 10 spots on the programme and I’m excited to see the difference that having a garden will make to our participants’ lives. I’m contributing the plants and I’ll help set up some of the gardens, but like everything at our community garden it’s very much a team effort. We’ve just found out that we’ve received funding for a related project, too: windowsill gardens for participants who have health issues or other reasons that prevent them from growing food. They’ll receive microgreen growing kits, and we’re also working on a recipe booklet.
They might seem like small things, these programmes, but they’re not. One of my favourite days of the year is plant collection day, when people queue down the lane to pick up the plants we’ve grown for them, and while they wait they tell us their stories. That they’re new to growing or new to the area; that they’ve never managed to keep plants alive; that they want to eat better and feed their kids better; that they’ve had a tough time recently and that the plants are a lifeline to get them through the next few months. And there are the returners, too - people who come back year after year, more confident each time. They tell us about their favourite courgettes and their recipes for beans and peas; about their newfound interest in kale; about how they’re building yet another bed because they’ve realised that growing food is something that brings them joy and purpose and, in some inexplicable way, makes them whole. And I join those conversations, and share my stories: about how growing food gives me purpose and joy; about how contributing to our household economy through the food I grow is an excellent way to counteract those feelings of uselessness and lazyness and being a burden that, I’m sure, are familiar to many disabled people; about how all kales are great but some kales are event greater (Red Russian, without a doubt the best kale); about how growing food is an always thing, not just a spring thing, and how even if you’re feeling behind you’re not really behind, because there’s always something to do; about how growing food makes my hearth sing and lifts my soul.
My favourite parts of growing food are these early stages: the sowing and the seedlings. I love watching them grow, and I love seeing their proper leaves unfurl and develop. I love how resilient they are, dealing with temperature fluctuations and those long grey windy days. I love how eager they are and how a whole tray bursts into life one day after seemingly doing nothing for days. I feel seen by that - I’m the same. Like the seeds, I hibernate and rest and wait my turn, and then something happens - some shift, some slight change in ambience, some idea that I just can’t let go of - and I spring into action too. I often tell myself to ‘be more cat’ - to rest extensively without any guilt and to channel the confidence that all cats seem to have - but really, I should tell myself to be more like the seeds.