“Gardening. Cheaper than therapy – and you get tomatoes.”

The phrase/photoquote is making regular rounds on social media, but it’s not quite (or only one half of) my experience with the garden.

The recent late-spring cold spell, which is seasonal but hadn’t been around strong like that in quite a while, hurt the motivation to work in the garden, if not the plants themselves. (Chilli survived that no problem, the bitter melon outside got killed, for example.) The slugs continue to think that every planting-out I do equals the ringing of a dinner bell for them, be it outside or in pots.

Only hot spells push them back a little, but there are quite enough moist and shady spots for them to get by. And then there’s the next phase of rainy days, and they are out in full force again.

And so, even as I write about the pleasure of, at least a little contribution to, self-providing out of a garden, wonder about the possibility of permacultural ways, work to grow my chilli and some vegetables, there is a lot of frustration. Hence, with all the various work that also, still, needs doing, my recent hiatus from blogging.

If gardening is therapy, the aim of the treatment must have been rage. But fittingly, there may be chilli.

Some of it, at the very least, is surviving and perhaps will be thriving, fortunately. What a pleasure to see chilli get into bloom, all the more so given all the challenges.