Novice, such unexpected joy

[bookh]

We live on DH family farm. I am not exaggerating when I say our house is in a field.

I previously worked 15 plus hours a day as a criminal solicitor, and rarely set foot in the garden. I would let sheep in to eat the grass, and occasionally buy plants at the garden centre which the sheep ate.

Last year I was at home with my one year old and we went to work on it. Cutting grass weekly, play area made. I then weeded miles of borders, overgrown taller than me, leaving anything I thought might be a plant.

Then I had another baby and did nothing over winter. This year I wood chipped the old borders and weeded daily. Then I started on the forty million pots, planters, old sinks, baths and buckets.

I take kids weekly to the local garden centre and buy only from the search and rescue, spending pennies. Dd and I grew sunflowers, and some veg from seed.

Today Dd was playing, baby was sleeping. I looked around and it is beautiful. Don't get me wrong I have no idea what I'm doing but it's tidy, colourful and looks like a cottage garden. Poppies and Daisy's have come up, a few things have not survived but most of it is lovely.

The best bit, I feel calm and recharged out there. Dd and I love pottering about, she is chief water girl and snail mover.

I never imagined my mental health would be helped so much by gardening. It's just amazing. It was such a huge task but now it's five minutes a day max.

Silly thread really but wanted to share the overall unexpected benefits.

How uplifting! I totally get it although I am not green fingered, I love gardens!

Oh @hamstersarse slugs and snails here! I'm just googling the same. They have started in the sunflowers overnight. I'm just reading egg shells in pots, which is annoying as I made quiche yesterday or coffee?

It’s raining here....so I’m on high alert slug watch 👀

I believe coffee is a successful elimination method....along with beer. Or salt 🤢

We have a very overgrown pond and get lots of frogs every year. We have no slugs and few snails so I assume that the frogs eat them. When I'm weeding there are often frogs jumping around under the shrubs. Sadly my neighbour does not love the frogs as her cat sometimes catches them and takes them into her house ..

@Albien

Gardening is great. The problem is that it’s largely for the rich. You have to own a house to begin with, and it has to have a garden. I was 35 before I had my own garden. Yes I know there are allotments but many areas have waiting lists of 10-20 years, there just aren’t enough plots for people who want them.

This is so painfully true we live in a flat, I got window boxes this year but that's all we can have really, the communal garden has historically been a bit of a no go for planting some stuff (it's landscaped and there's a gardener but where's the fun in that?)

Local allotment closed its waiting list (nearly 10 years) and won't reopen it for a few years at least, I can't even say for sure that we'll be living here come the end of the tenancy and prices are going up so we might have to leave the area so joining lists is a bit pointless. I miss the garden I grew up with but I absolutely love where we live.

Gardening is one of the greatest joys of everyday life

I’m never happier than when pottering in the garden. I went through a very traumatic, complicated bereavement a few years ago - I was living in a flat at the time, with no outside space, but when I first started to emerge from my grief, one of the first feelings I had was an overwhelming need to be outside, digging the soil and growing things. We did move soon after, to the house that gave me my first garden. It is such a joy.

@Albien @olderthanyouthink this is true but don't give up. I am moving house now and about to get my own garden for the first time at the ripe old age of 48! I absolutely cannot wait. I have been doing pots up to now and briefly had a garden for around 6 months last year which I loved and I can't wait to get back to it!