Get Sowing & Get Going

Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
15^th April 2023

Get Sowing

It’s hard to believe Easter is already behind us, especially as the temperatures are making it feel more like February.  I think when the clocks went forward an hour, the calendar went back a month. Although it’s worth remembering that we have become quite accustomed to unseasonably warm spells in spring, and this year temperatures are more or less where they should be typically.

Maybe you used your Easter weekend wisely and managed to get ahead in the garden but if not, it’s a good idea to start going and sowing now.

I spent the weekend preparing my veggie beds and had the huge satisfaction of shuffling seed packets and getting a lot in the ground.  I love the saying, ‘The best way to gamble is with a trowel and a packet of seeds.’ Although I would add, ‘If you don’t get them in the soil, you have already lost.’

I have also sown some ‘duplicates’ in the greenhouse as a back up.  I love Cosmos, especially ‘Purity’ and have sown that in the gaps in the beds but have also sown some to bring on indoors and plant out later.  I’ve done the same with sunflower and sweet pea seeds – some outside, some in old toilet roll tubes (they allow for a deep root system) and as I am still ‘running the gauntlet’ with the wild bunnies, who seem to be ‘running faster’ than me, I’m using more netting to protect young plants outdoors than I usually do.  I don’t like my garden looking like a Tough Mudder course with all the barricades and netting, but I like losing my hard work and easy pickings to rabbits and pigeons even less.

I’ve planted my spuds in old compost bags (stabbed with a few holes) as my brother has had great success with that method for the last few years and have sown cut-and-come-again lettuce, basil and coriander.

If you want to start growing your own but are short of time, confidence or space, I think salad leaves and herbs are the best way to start as even a small amount makes such a difference to dishes.  It’s all very well to start with radish and beetroot which are usually recommended to start with as they’re ‘easy’ to grow, but so many people don’t like either and even if successful, don’t actually eat their ‘rewards.  I don’t see the point in that.

Monty Don planted his lily corms in pots in Gardeners’ World last week, and this is another thing I would recommend whether you are a new gardener or an ‘old hand’, as the sight and smell of the magnificently confident blooms are right at the top of the reward scale.  If they are in pots, you can move them to the best place to appreciate them and rotate with other delicious containerised divas as they take centre stage.

Get Going

It can be a daunting time of year for ‘fledgling gardeners’ as all gardeners are like horses lining up at the start of a race now – full of energy and enthusiasm, chomping at the bit.  The best advice I can give is to choose a few things to focus on and do them well, rather than try to do too much and lose heart and confidence.  There are already far too many overgrown allotments playing havoc with people’s dreams.

I recently read about the ‘quiet quitting’ phenomenon.  Defined as, ‘doing the minimum requirements of one’s job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary’ a Harvard Business Review found that ‘quiet quitting’ is in fact applicable to work, study, relationships and fitness.  Whilst ‘quiet quitting’ isn’t quitting in the true sense of the word – as in handing in your notice – it simply means that people ‘hold back’ and don’t apply themselves fully and one of the main symptoms is thinking, “What’s the point?’ This in turn usually leads to disappointment and feelings of dissatisfaction, which exacerbates the ‘what’s the point?’ and so the unhelpful cycle continues.

One of the most helpful things I have discovered (and accepted) is that most things change once you can see 50 in your rear view mirror.  How you deal with that change is up to you but trust me, change is going to happen.  And the key to a smooth transition is to re-evaluate your reasons for doing what you’re doing (or not doing).

It took me a long time, a traumatic menopause and many inner battles to realise I had to make changes – in all aspects of my life.  One of my much-used quotes from Carl Jung advises that ‘most midlife crises stem from trying to live the second half of our lives in the same way that we lived the first’.  It’s just not possible.

It helps to write a list of what you want to achieve – and is not just pertinent for gardening but also for work, fitness, relationships and wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be long or detailed, just a few bullet-points will help.  My own list for my garden this year simply reads,

• Runner beans
• Cosmos
• Salad leaves
• Herbs
• Compost

I will get other things done but these are my priorities and everything else then feels like a bonus or a reward rather than overwhelm and the urge to ‘quietly quit’.

A while ago, whilst discussing my own struggles regarding motivation with a friend, who is also a hypnotist, I explained that just ‘getting going’ had become such hard work, instead of being natural and ‘easy’ as it had always been.

Nicola introduced me to the word ‘effortful’ and it has become one of my favourite words. We don’t use it enough. Some things are simply effortful – we need to apply effort to do them instead of relying on joy or enthusiasm as organic motivation.

Somewhere along the line, we seem to have come to expect results without applying effort. I suppose a lot of things are now geared to a ‘short attention span’ – like Tik Tok (so I am told) – where attention is attained with little effort.  ‘Instant rewards’ are associated with entitlement rather than effort.  We go for ‘quick and easy’ rather than ‘effortful and enduring’.

I think we have forgotten how helpful and necessary being ‘effortful’ is.  A bit like weight training, it builds up resilience, discipline, and ‘motivational muscle’. The chances are if you are effortful for long enough, the new ‘ways’ will become habits, and you will start benefitting from your ‘effort’ enough for it to become joyful and incite that much-missed enthusiasm – and ironically, without as much effort.  It’s a clever and effective method.

You can read more about Nicola Taylor at www.eclipsesfh.com