Growth Spurt
For the love of tomatoes
I never thought I’d be excited by tomatoes. The colour of them, the feel of the furry stems, how many small but beautiful white flowers there are. Oh, and the scent! Fresh, zingy and earthy. I absolutely love it and wish it was a perfume, because I might buy that.
This humble, taken for granted common plant that performs magic right before our eyes has captured my unbeknownst green heart, and opened me up to a new passion, a new connection that I didn’t know I had in me.
My first tomato plant came to me via my mum a few years ago. It was already well nurtured and pre-planted up in a nice pot ready for me to tend and watch the magic happen. And boy did it happen. I wasn’t sure I could keep it alive, never mind look after it enough for it to produce tomatoes. But it did. It survived me, and it bloomed again and again. Punnet after punnet of small, beautiful, oddly shaped cherry tomatoes came forth. Bursting with flavour, hilarity (there were of course a few penis shaped ones) and pure joy. Instead of the burden I had always assumed ‘growing things’ would be, it became a mindful daily practice; going outside, checking on the plant and watering it, picking tomatoes and trimming the leaves. It only took a few minutes each day, it was only one tomato plant after all, but it allowed me to take time out from a busy mind, and simply marvel at the awesome power of nature right there in my backyard. I felt like a child again. Watching the leaves change and turn into flowers, and the flowers start to shrivel and transform into lumpy spherical green fruit. Staying green for what seemed like forever and then all of a sudden with a bit more sun, flushing yellow, orange and then finally red. Juicy, ripe, alive and ready. I not only felt a renewed sense of wonder at the natural world but also a new connection with it. I’d become a part of that tomato plants life. It probably would have survived without me, but I helped it thrive.
Later that year I broke my leg and spent the whole of Nov, Dec and Jan indoors recovering. In theory spending winter indoors sounds nice, but for me it was quite the opposite. I have a deep love for winter and would normally be out walking and wild swimming all year round. While I do love being cosy and the Hygge vibe, I found it very challenging having my normal outdoor activities suddenly stopped. What it did instead was free me of my roles, my identities and to some extent my responsibilities. It allowed me to slow down and reflect, making space for new things, like what my values were, what was important to me and a fresh lesson in patience. And quite unintentionally my re-entry into the world, my life, synced up as the seasons started to shift, winter into spring, and at the end of Feb I started to emerge along with the snow drops.
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To my surprise as I headed into March, a deep need to grow things had been unearthed from my hibernation. It was like an ache inside me, a longing that had grown in the space created and it could no longer be ignored. I was on a mission to have a herb garden, just a small one I thought, some thyme, fennel, rosemary, hardy plants that could manage on their own. Well, that turned into a small trug on legs, and 3 separate pots with mint, lemon balm and lavender. And that was that. I was hooked. I had fed the timid neglected embers and a bonfire had roared into life. Before I knew what was happening, I had bought a smallish pop-up greenhouse, was growing basil, sorrel, cauliflowers and Kohl rabi (I didn’t even know what they were, I just thought they looked cool) from seed, had filled my small unpleasant garden with pots and tubs and bags of soil. Potting grit drying out on the concrete floor, compost bits everywhere, random spoons and even a pair of tweezers (for seeding) were lying around. I had created a beautiful mess, 6 massive cauliflower plants; leaves like elephant ears creating a jungle, sweet peas staked high, 4 tubs of purple Kohl Rabi, tomatoes blooming and countless other pots. I had no idea what I was doing and I loved every minute of it. No plan, just grow and tend as I go, learning ‘on the job’ as they say. I made so many mistakes, but they didn’t matter, it didn’t dimmish the act, the process, the reward. In fact, that made it even more special and fulfilling. My cauliflowers and sweet peas got eaten by cabbage white butterflies. Some may have been upset with that, but I was so chuffed I’d gotten them all to grow and flower and the peas actually formed too, and I got a garden full of white butterflies. I have since learnt about ‘netting’ and such, and in hindsight cauliflowers are notoriously hard to grow, an ambitious first growing attempt on my part, but I tried it and was rewarded for my efforts. I have so much left to learn, to see and experience, and it makes me feel excited and hopeful. Something I try and cultivate in the rest of my life too.
This year has been a little bit different, as I’m sure every year onwards will be. Selling our house and relocating, along with moving our creative business, Hammer and Quill, has been the main focus and stunted my botanical endeavours somewhat. But the need is firmly there. I’ve been itching to get seeding and will be trying my hand at courgettes and pumpkins once we have moved. We’ve had so many set backs with the move, and as I’m writing this, we had planned to have been in the new house for over a month already, yet we are still waiting. In a state of limbo, lives packed up and on hold with our stomachs turning, hearts in our mouths, minds on full speed. So close… so close.
But I have been busy managing the pots, tidying them up, tending and planting up some new tomatoes, chili, peppers, garlic, chives and strawberries. Getting things ready for the new garden. The new garden is an actual garden too, blissfully private, with a bit of grass, beds and areas for my pots and a new large veg trug. I’m bursting to get there and marvel in it, to get my bare feet in the grass and get compost everywhere!
I haven’t grown anything from seed yet as I didn’t want to have to move a load of seed trays and risk their delicate little lives. This is my first year growing strawberries, they were two small plants from my brother from last year that managed to survive the winter, just one or two leaves hanging on. Once potted up together in a larger pot about a month ago they have been flourishing and I am now the proud parent of my first ever strawberry!
Whatever happens to the strawberries, the tomatoes and whether or not I can actually grow a pumpkin, I’m here for it all. Here to try, feed my curiously, my connections and get dirt firmly under my finger nails.
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