Lessons from my garden

I'm a novice gardener, having only had a garden for about a year (prior to that I had a porch, so I am more experienced at porching). Today as I was weeding and spreading gravel, I was musing on the lessons I've learned from my garden.

1. You always have to 'suck it and see'. Research and planning increase your chances of success but you won't know if idea is a good one until you act: plant the seed, prune the branch, raise the bed, or lay the gravel. Then, you know.

2. Failure really is an opportunity. I prefer not to kill my plants, as I've usually lavished a certain amount of thought, money and care on them. Once the grief or regret passes, there is a gap in your garden, which means you have to go and buy another plant. Which is seldom a hardship.

3. When you weed does matter. It's never a bad time to weed - any garden always has plenty of weeds. But there are good times to weed: after rain, and before the weed gets too established (or worse, seeds). It's better (easier) to pull some weeds when they're big enough you can rip them out root and all. With other weeds it might be easier, in the long run, to get out there with tweezers. I think a lot of life's little challenges follow broadly similar rules.

4. There are always going to be weeds. If you can't take the weeds, get out of the garden. There's no point getting upset or feeling persecuted. The weeds are not out to get you, they're just living their life with no idea they're in your way. Equally, don't get too sentimental on the 'live and let live' front or weeds are ALL you will have in your garden.

5. How you deal with weeds matters, or at least leads to different outcomes. Some people only pull visible weeds, and leave the roots in place. It's quick and the results look good in the short term. Some people pull out the root and all but are so gimmicky that they only manage a small piece of garden bed and the rest of their garden is a wilderness. Some people weed A little every day, while others prefer to do a huge weeding frenzy every so often. The latter people say to themselves, "I don't have TIME to weed more often, it takes such a long time".

6. Serious gardeners probably don't need gym memeberships. By the time you' e done a couple of hours' weeding, pruning and gravel spreading, your muscles are too tired to go to the gym.

7. Sweating is good for your skin. Who needs a facial? After a hot morning's gardening, my pores are wide open. My skin is never nicer, after a good scrub (to remove salt and dirt) and a moisturizer. I guess that it's a diy mud wrap and salt scrub.

Life is a great teacher if we pay attention. It's like the Buddhist saying: when the student is ready, the teacher will come.

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