For 7 years I squeezed time into my small courtyard garden when I could, in the lighter evenings and over satisfyingly long weekends, and when it was over I was back at the desk with dirt under my nails and scratches down my arms. Pots crept over more and more paving slabs, plants flourishing and failing as I started to figure out the space.
A few investments appeared along the way: an urban (read tiny) greenhouse, which I carefully fleeced but frequently forgot to water. A water butt my partner and I could comfortably have inhabited (my ability to visualise size, I now know, is very, very poor). My mother made me a windowsill propagator, which starts my planting year off early with tomatoes and chillies. It also cleared pots and seed trays off the top of radiators throughout our flat, reducing my sweeping up of the inevitably knocked, sad mix of snapped seedling and damp soil.
But there was never enough time to do everything I wanted to.
My houseplants looked sad as finger-streaked dust coated their leaves and roots bulged above the soil. Seed packets remained unopened; my potting on was never at the right time and my watering was erratic, to say the least. The privet hedge was trimmed once year if it was lucky, and much to our neighbours dismay the bamboo received even less attention.
Yet despite all this and the residual feeling I should be doing better, I loved being in the garden more than anywhere else. During a bleak February when I’d wake up already disliking the day ahead, I would sow a few seeds before work. The act calmed me, and later sitting at my desk knowing those seeds were sitting in the snug warmth of the propagator working on growing, it made the afternoon so much more bearable.
The stick or twist decision came in summer 2023, and I made the leap from desk to garden full time. I invested in waterproofs and steel-toed boots, books on Latin plant names and online botany courses to try and top up my reluctant GCSE biology. I started volunteering in gardens and nurseries as much as I could, and completed an RHS Level 2 course as my first step to working in horticulture.
And I started writing and taking pictures again. This blog is a record of that, of the little pleasures I’m finding along the way.
Mali Clements
a year in the garden 