Gardening and women's rights?

[SuperLoudPoppingAction]

There are three things keeping me relatively sane at the moment. One being discussion with like-minded women who are passionate about women's rights, another being (surprisingly, as I am dysphraxic and a bit crap at it) swimming.
The most reliable, though, is being out in my garden. I love being in nature generally. If I had more energy I'd like to go on walks more, but I've been fairly knackered lately.

The cyclical nature of planting, growing, harvesting etc feels very significant to me.
Also, the fact that I can make mistakes and that everything will still basically be ok is so lovely. It's an antidote to anxiety that I feel with loads of other stuff.

I've had such lovely conversations with women about gardening. One woman gave me some of her tiny gooseberries from her allotment and I made chutney with them. Another woman told me that parsley only thrives in a household run by a woman.

Alice Walker talks a lot about gardening. alicewalkersgarden.com/2010/10/in-search-of-our-mothers-garden/
Susan Brownmiller [[http://www.nycitywoman.com/the-feminist-gardener/]]
I love this as well. www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/03/margery_fish_s_we_made_a_garden_is_a_feminist_manifesto_disguised_as_a_gardening.html
"a harmonious, informal, frothing sort of a garden, its borders filled with “green” flowers, its shady corners crammed with hellebores, primroses, epimediums, and, most important of all, her beloved snowdrops."

I keep thinking about how important it is to experience a Space of One's Own. Even if it's a terrarium with a couple of air plants in it (like in my last house, where the garden was not private enough for me to enjoy it).

It's not going to revolutionise gender politics in itself, but is nurturing a connection to nature something that anyone else connects with feminist politics?

@ErrolTheDragon

Found a selection on amazon,

I'm not nearly articulate enough to explain why I love gardening. I love being outside and I think I particularly enjoy it as a solitary activity. There's always something to do and it's great for pottering. I think I also like the idea of it being a bit of a legacy IYSWIM? Something tangible that I have created and nurtured and shaped.

It's a dreich day here this morning and it's forecast to rain, which is good because it means that I won't need to get the hose out. The next task on my lengthy to-do list is to install a downpipe diverter and waterbutt.

We have an allotment in a polytunnel. It makes a massive difference to what we can grow here at the Scottish West coast. It's a former commercial nursery and when they went bankrupt some local people rented the polytunnels (dp and I were not involved at that time) and started to put beds in and improve soil, repair tunnels, there is also a fruit tunnel with netting rather than polythene. Everybody who joins need to agree to follow organic principles and to contribute to upkeep. We have workdays when we fix tunnels and the watering system trying to use as much of the stuff that is lying around the site.
It's a great bunch of people, all ages and backgrounds, help each other out when someone is away, share seeds and plants, there is always soup and cakes during workdays.
We have 12 beds (1.30 x 2.5 m each) and three fruit tunnel beds. dp does all the planning because he likes making a plan and he is good at it but we aren't strictly sticking to plans, any interesting volunteer plant can stay. We try growing things that you can't find here in rural Scotland besides standard vegetables, like Kohlrabi or scorzonera or unusual winter squash, also drying beans like orca beans. One bed has perennials in it, asparagus and rhubarb and now some globe artichokes.
It's amazing what a difference the tunnel makes here, we even managed to have an aubergine glut last year.
I love it, I grew up with a grandmother who grew her own vegetables (out of necessity rather than choice I think) and we had orchard and fruit bushes. I like being able to grow my own food. I still try in my garden as well. I have lots of herbs there, some fruit bushes and salady things but it's right by the coast and just a bit too windswept for growing food easily.

Igneococcus that sounds AMAZING! Wow what a great idea, it must be such a lovely community as well.

Great thread

Love gardening. Came late to it, in my mid thirties when I first owned a house as opposed to a flat. Turns out I'm a natural. Well, I think I am when outside still gardening at 10pm with a bottle of wine

As an aside, I did pick up this book from a charity shop and it still makes me laugh (re. title and author name)

www.amazon.co.uk/More-Front-Gardens-Gay-Search/dp/0563371137?tag=mumsnetforum-21

for nice hands after gardening I use body lotion to wash.
works a treat.

tip from my lovely late fil who was a builder and used up mil's best lotions this way

Bluerunning that’s a tip and a half. So what do you do, just use it like soap? Put it on the nail brush?

exactly that badger it gets the grey out of the small creases on the hands.
I follow that with normal soap for hygiene reasons.

Lovely thread, but I can't believe nobody's mentioned "the secret garden".
We only have a tiny courtyard atm, but moving in a couple of months and then we'll have a real garden!
I had a tiny garden at my last house but had some nice plants in the beds. If my tenants ever want to leave I'm going to go round and move all my nice plants, like the roses and the dwarf cherry tree.

Great tip about hand lotion - I'm going to try that this weekend. Now that my bluebells have finished I want to dig them out and move them. I also have loads of black mondo grass that needs to be split as it's busy colonising various flowerbeds.

@bluerunningshoes I tried your hand lotion tip and I am a firm convert! Especially good for the grimy nails I acquired grubbing weeds out while I watered tonight.

I have just been out in the dusk, sat with a glass of wine watching the bats. Such a sense of peace. Returning to the original point of the thread, I did get to wondering how many women throughout the years had had a similar sense of satisfaction after a long hot day, just maybe a few minutes to themselves in the cool of the evening to do what needed to be done in the kitchen garden.

I feel like it’s a really basic, fundamental link to women who have found different types of freedom in their gardens over the years. I live in a house built in 1890 with a big garden, and I’m sure they would have grown vegetables amongst their flowers; a proper cottage garden with cabbages amongst the roses. That’s what I’m going for. A mass of flowers and lovely scented things along with veg planted underneath and in the middle of it.

I wonder if gardens/allotments were ever a real lifeline to very poor women? I think maybe if your husband didn’t earn, or drank the money, perhaps it was absolutely essential to grow those spuds to feed your kids, with a few scraggy chickens for eggs and eventually the pot.

Sorry this has turned into a bit of a ramble

I feel like it’s a really basic, fundamental link to women who have found different types of freedom in their gardens over the years. I live in a house built in 1890 with a big garden, and I’m sure they would have grown vegetables amongst their flowers; a proper cottage garden with cabbages amongst the roses. That’s what I’m going for. A mass of flowers and lovely scented things along with veg planted underneath and in the middle of it.

That sounds absolutely lovely. And I agree about the connection to women past.