My Lockdown Life

Like all of you in early 2020 my family was faced with lockdown, the Covid pandemic made many people feel anxious about life as we knew it.

As I watched the news, I could see rising infection rates and I could hear worry in the voices of people being interviewed or chatting on social media. For the first time in my life I felt worried and out of control.

Like many others, I unplugged myself from the news and social media and chose to remove some of the stress and worry and that allowed me to think about what I needed to do for myself and my family.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and as we continue to return to the “new” normal we can see the joy on people’s faces as they have been able to spend time with others outside of their own homes. The small pleasures of hearing different stories of day to day things, things that happen outside of your house and your “bubble” and you are seeing things differently now.

For us, life before hindsight felt quite different and we needed to find a strategy to cope. I have always been interested in gardening and I am passionate about the environment. I love seeing pollinators and wildlife exploring my garden and get excited about tasting the colourful things I can grow in that space.

Sitting here now, typing this, I can look back at how I coped with lockdown and even in the strangest year of my life to date I can see benefits and gains and I am delighted in the knowledge that it’s great that you can change. The forced lockdown birthed a new way of living for me, that is, once I had got past that initial panic and self-isolation at the very beginning of it.

As that panic began to thaw a little and we became one of those families that found ourselves with one of us living away from home to care for an elderly family member and the two of us remaining had to learn how to work and home school together at home in harmony.

Cut off from our social circles and without regular ‘real life’ contact with family and an ethos of “don’t shop unless you really, really need to” we found ourselves exploring what we could do, with what we had to try and take back some sense of control for our little family of three.

Going out and simply travelling less was saving us money already and I had always planned to grow vegetables “if I could just find the time”. Well suddenly, like many of you, we had a lot more time as the world slowed down.

We looked at the space we had, investigated the materials we might need and the tools that we had and set about planning our raised beds. Using old decking boards, nails, a tape measure, hammer and saws we cut up our bed kits.

In those early hot days of summer with the sun warming our back we felt some comfort and well-being in being busy and productive for ourselves. The sound of the hammer on nails echoing around the houses hid the quiet of the empty park at the back of our house.

Once built and put in place we bought in 3 tonnes of topsoil and filled the beds with a combination of homemade and shop bought compost and managed to grow: runner beans, peas, carrots, beetroot, courgettes, onions, spring onions, potatoes, leeks, broccoli, basil, coriander and sweet corn.

We are still growing leeks, kale, purple sprouting, parsnips and carrots outdoors and our tomatoes and cucumbers are still going indoors.

My garden and the outdoors have been a lifeline for us this year. I usually don’t look forward to winter, especially as we are still living in strange times, but this year winter doesn’t feel quite as bleak because even in the coldest and darkest months of the year I know there is always more to learn, things we can do and Spring is just around the corner.

We are building more beds and will be planting garlic before the end of October. It has been satisfying to see seeds sprouting, hearing the buzz of pollinators and the feeling when you taste a dinner that you picked just a few hours before is incredible.

It really is easy, and you can grow in the smallest of spaces and with very little “know how”, If you are not sure how you can learn as you go with groups like Incredible Edible Carmarthenshire on Facebook.

Even though the growing season is nearing an end, you can start planning and preparing for 2021 and add something to look forward to in the New Year.