Not if to garden, but when to garden, that is the question!

While visiting my parents this weekend, my mother and I got into our usual conversation about the garden. Often it begins with me wandering around seeing what plants I’d like to steal, and commenting on how good the zucchinis/orange tree/nasturtiums etc are going.

My mum’s reply is always the same “there’s never enough time - I can’t wait until I’m retired so I can spend all day out in the garden…”. Now, compared to mine, my mum’s garden is fantastic - multiple permaculture mandala gardens, a chicken dome, fruit trees, not to mention the ornamental gardens and forest that sprawl over their six and a half acre property; however, I can relate to her frustrations.

I have all these ideas and dreams of how I’d like the garden to be - especially when I have a ‘proper’ garden - you know, in the actual ground and all that - but that the reality never quite meshes with the fantasy. In some cases this is a lovely thing, like the addition of random plants that I find/borrow around the place ( I find it nearly impossible to leave a nursery without a new plant - I’m sure many of you can relate!), but often, it is a source of frustration.

For example, this weekend I intended to plant out the poor tomato plants that have been languishing in too-small pots for too long - but given that I had my cello lesson on Saturday, a visit to the gym, went to my parent’s till Sunday, and another visit to the gym, I have run out of time/opportunity. Now, I had set aside time Sunday afternoon to do my gardening - but of course it has been raining and blowing a gale! Rain, of course, is a wonderful thing, but it has nevertheless left me heaving a sigh of resignation that ‘there’s a job to be put off to another day!’

But, honestly, isn’t this how so much of our life goes? So many things to accomplish, so little time to get it all done! I guess the best we can do is just do what we can, when we can, and not let that stop us from dreaming of what could be, if we only found the time.