Finding the Time to Garden

Being the mother of a three-year-old and a full-time career woman presents one big challenge for the gardener in me. When do I find the time to do any gardening?

Mornings are a blur of activity. Get up, get dressed, make breakfast, take Maja to pre-school and rush off to work. Upon my return home (some nine-and-a-half hours later!) dinner and bedtime stories take priority. Best case scenario, I get out into the garden by 10:30pm.

As a result, I've been forced to adapt. My new best friend and favourite garden tool is my flashlight. Every night, with flashlight in hand, I tour my garden to check on its progress. There's much reaching and squinting to get a better view of the night garden. And there's not much choice but to focus on individual plants rather than the garden as a whole. Inspecting the garden is relaxing as can be. But under the cover of night, I find it even more so.

Tonight, I ventured past looking at the garden with my flashlight to working in the garden with my flashlight.

Thanks to a neighbour's planned construction of a garage, there's a massive, gaping hole in our backyard fence. The area has been closed off with orange construction fencing as a temporary security measure. Now I'm hoping to transform this monstrosity into a wall of blooms.


I dug a trench through the gravel along the length of the construction fencing and planted dozens of sweet peas and morning glories. I sprinkled a light layer of soil over the seeds and then gave them a good soaking with the watering can. The soil here is poor to say the least so I don't know if the climbers will succeed, but the columbines seem to like it so I've got my fingers crossed.

So it seems that finding the time to garden is indeed possible. I just have to make sure my batteries are charged.