Seasons of happiness

Saturday morning was spent preparing the empty beds in the herb and vegetable gardens for sowing. With Fungai’s garden office resembling a seed shop, where I was sorting the seeds into groups for planting, I felt like a child again. The excitement of planting feels like the first time I could sow my own.

My Mom had her standard choice of vegetables and flowers for our garden when I was growing up. I can still see the beds of zinnias, marigolds, carnations, stocks and snapdragons. She harvested her own seeds and had a constant supply of them.  Every year, we introduced something new into the garden.

I was allowed to choose the seeds and that was the most exciting part for me as a child. That bed of seeds became my treasure. I would literally will those seeds to come up, watching them every day.

From the first leaves to the last blooms, those flowers became a big part of my life. Spending time with my Mom doing the thing she loved most, created a lot of happy memories. When your parents are happy and relaxed you feel safe and happy. It is a feeling as a child that you want to treasure forever.

Being in a garden, for me, is about being happy and at peace. It allows me to create and play and leaves me with a sense of excitement to see what Mother Nature is going to do with all my plans and designs.

Standing in front of the table covered in groups of seeds, I could already see each bed filled with my choice of herbs, vegetables and salads.

With the garden at different stages of planting, growing, and producing, Saturday was spent harvesting, pruning and planting.

Imagine tomatoes

This year, I have planted my tomatoes in seeding trays to be sure of the colours that I am going to plant into the garden. Last year, I made a chequer-board frame with reeds. I placed it in the designated vegetable bed and proceeded to sow the different colours in different squares as formed by the reeds. I used our own home-made compost in the bed. I did not factor in the possibility of tomato seeds that might be dormant in the compost.

Imagine rhubarb and sage

Needless to say that although I planned to have a black and green tomato bed, and transplanted the seedlings according to the planned colour scheme, when the tomatoes ripened, I found that I had red, orange, yellow, pink, green and black tomatoes. I could imagine Mother Nature having a good chuckle at my surprised face.

I could harvest oranges, lemons, potatoes, carrots, grenadillas, Swiss chard, cabbage and spinach making for a colourful display from which to select ingredients for meals.

The garden can be exhausting. But, it provides us with seasons of happiness, giving back abundantly according to what we have put into it during the year.