When you have been growing your own food for a few years, it’s easy to forget what it felt like when you started out first. I am talking about that sweaty, daunted, vaguely frightened feeling – afraid to start, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to look foolish if it goes wrong. I am reminded of something that a friend once told me when I asked her why she didn’t grow her own food. She said her Dad gave her a beautiful flowering orchid once as a present, and instead of feeling gratitude she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, knowing that it would only be a matter of days before she would kill it. The feeling in her stomach, she said, was ‘preemptive guilt’ that she couldn’t keep this beautiful living thing alive. Little wonder then that so many people who would like to grow their own food don’t ever start.
So, here’s a confession. In my first few years of GIYing I was completely and utterly useless at it. Voracious reading on the subject left me feeling none the wiser. A veg growing guide might, for example, tell you that you start growing garlic by sticking a clove in the soil – I would immediately wonder, “which end do you stick in the soil?” and riddled with indecision, I would be reluctant to even try. The first time I sowed carrots, I ended up weeding the little seedlings away, because I had no idea which were the weeds and which were the carrot seedlings.
Most people start their GIY journey by buying a book – usually some sort of a vegetable growing guide that has an A-Z listing of all the vegetables one can grow. This seems sensible and I’m all for people buying books (particularly if it’s our one!) but I always think that starting with a comprehensive guide to growing is like using the Kama Sutra to learn the basics of sex. What one really needs of course, is to keep it simple, start small and focus on vegetables that are easy to grow (like herbs and salad greens for example). A couple of early quick wins will give you the confidence to keep going.
Incidentally, I wince whenever I hear the phrase “green fingers” – the idea that you are either born with an ability to grow things, or not, is deeply unhelpful. In reality, growing things is a skill and like any skill it takes time to master. All of us have to go through that phase where we are novices and we have to accept the fact that we will most likely kill a lot of plants while we wait for our ability to catch up with our enthusiasm. Once we’ve accepted that fact, it somehow doesn’t seem so scary. Let’s be honest, in the grand scheme of things, a couple of plants sacrificed for the greater good is not such a big deal. Don’t let yourself get derailed by occasional mishaps. Get back on the horse and try again. The most important thing is that we show up each spring ready to try another season.
