Sr. Pat's garden

Sr. Pat's garden plot in Midnapore Community Garden.

My “roots” are from a gardening family and from growing up in open spaces I always felt at home in the outdoors. My father was a gardener in his home town of Matlock, UK. Once he was settled well in Calgary and was able to have a small “acreage” home at the edge of the city he resumed his gardening habits…  and it was a large garden. As a family we helped in this garden. 

I grew up with home grown vegetables and helped a little with the harvesting… mostly eating the peas, carrots, radishes and rhubarb as I picked them. I also loved the outdoors as our house was surrounded by wild prairie land, flowers, close to the River, wide open spaces and hills for winter tobogganing and frozen waterways for skating. In the various communities where I lived as a Sister of Charity of St. Louis, if there was some garden space I usually planted a few veggies and flowers as well.

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The most successful garden I worked on was in Penticton, BC  where there was much sunshine and heat, and an early spring helped to produce an abundant crop in a small space. The most difficult place to grow a garden is on a balcony with limited sunshine. Last year’s crop of just radishes, lettuce and tomatoes was a failure - a few lettuce leaves, 5 or 6 radishes and tomatoes that were still very small and green by early September. As well as pesky squirrels that love “digging” in pots and planting their own peanuts!  A shady balcony in my experience will not grow vegetables very well, as it lacks sunshine. So I only plant flowers on my balcony this year.

This spring I rented a plot at the Mid-Sun Garden at the Midnapore community centre. Marvelous!! Small, but with abundant growth which is flourishing and already supplying radishes, onions, lettuce, swiss chard and a few peas (which I eat ). At this location there are also other gardeners to share experiences with, and to get advice and gardening tips. It is a community effort as we share various upkeep tasks in the larger garden space by keeping the weeds at bay,  maintaining the compost piles,  and various other tasks.

I have always experienced gardening as a time to be refreshed by the sights, sounds and smells of nature. It is a contemplative time to just experience the beauty and abundance of God’s Creation, including the small creatures and birds’ songs which are always present. It is a time and place to find rest, relief from stress or worry  and to be refreshed in God’s creative Spirit.

From a scientific view, plants in the garden take in CO2 and release oxygen, improving air quality where I am spending this outdoor time. Then there are the vegetables that are free from toxins and are free from the various plastic packaging,  have not travelled  hundreds of miles before arriving at my door, and are tasty and fresh. Gardening is also a benefit to our stressed environment at this time of increasing climate change on our common home.  

Even if you only have a small space to plant some veggies give it a try and enjoy the benefits of sunshine (and rain storms ), fresh air, bird songs, tasty veggies and some time to relax and to praise God  in the wonders of Creation. As well as the squirrels -  also God’s Creation.

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Written by Sr. Pat Derbyshire, SCSL

Sr. Pat Derbyshire, SCSL