Gardening as a project

Part of my plan when (indeed, part of my reason for) deciding to go freelance was to set aside at least some time for non-programming tasks; specifically, I hoped to get more involved in gardening, growing my own food and possibly even sustainable permaculture.

So far, the progress of this particular aspect of the plan has been decidedly mixed. As I've already blogged, I've ended up snowed under with paid freelancing work: nothing to complain about, but it's made it harder to carve out the time to get into the garden. And because of Witney Town Council's continued misunderstanding of the importance of food sovereignty, there's simply not enough allotment space within walking or cycling distance, meaning that the list for Witney as a whole is now dominated by applications for our nearest site.

But there's some good news too. I'm starting to ringfence a few hours here and there, free of actual computer work. The "square metre" raised bed we built and trialled last year is once again prepared for this season; there's even some seed sowed already (although nothing has germinated yet, and this cold snap could do for them....) We've also got a separate space to grow tomatoes this time round, to stop them taking over. I'm doing some trials of inedible hardy perennials, as a different way to learn the same skills. And while our own garden is mostly waiting for the season to start, the Cogges Victorian garden team has really kicked off this growing season in good time, giving me opportunities for some separating-and-replanting, and also building heavy-duty wigwams for climbing legumes.

If I were more focussed on treating gardening like "just another freelance project" in order to carve out time for it, then I'd be describing such a project as "having had some early setbacks, but now showing really progress and I feel like we've already paid back a lot of our technical debt in upskilling and knowledge acquisition." But I'm not, because I can't make myself be unemotional about it; so all I can do is pine, pine, pine for those few hours spent outdoors....