Why do I garden?

I was complaining to a friend that with all this hot and dry weather we have been having that I’m having to water every day. To which they replied ‘Why do you garden then if it’s such a chore’. That made me think! Why do I garden? I garden because the thrill of watching things grow, the excitement of sowing seeds and seeing them germinate, the joy of picking food from the garden to eat that night, the calm of walking round the garden observing the changes and listening to the birds make my life complete. I have always been a nature lover right from childhood when at the age of seven my favourite lesson was the nature walk to observe at first hand the falling leaves in the autumn, the first snowdrops, the berries on the trees and the frost in the winter on the puddles. I was ever the eager child bringing found items to put on the nature table and as I grew older and became involved with our garden at home I began to love the gardening cycle of sowing, planting and harvesting. Because my father was such a gardening guru when it came to vegetables, they have always been my first choice of plants to grow. We grew so many vegetables that on our yearly trek to Cornwall in the summer to visit the grandparents, there would be no room for us kids as the back of the car would be filled with sacks of potatoes, bags of peas, loads of apples and much more. We did the three hundred mile journey perched on top of these delectables, albeit on cushions! No wonder I was always car sick as a child! :-) But being back in Cornwall was fun, and we were there for two or three months, so it was worth it!

I garden so that I can have visions such as these,

and also to have the doubtful pleasures of watering daily in hot weather! Mainly so that my garden doesn’t turn into the Sahara as it is trying to do at the moment! This was the dark, dank and very wet spot in the corner!

So why do you garden?