Earth Pirating in a Pandemic

When the world did a spin on its axis in April we were bundled out of college of a Tuesday after hurriedly planting potatoes and told to ‘STAY AT HOME’ I was initially delighted. There would be more time to walk the dog and catch up on my studies. Then I became irate, after all our hard work who would water all the precious plants in the polytunnel at college? Then I got activated ‘I’ll water the fecking plants AND walk the dog everywhere’ and began to thoroughly enjoy the stillness and quietness as the traffic stopped and lockdown began.

I spent my time furtively watering, harvesting and distributing the abundance of vegetables from our collective college efforts to a variety of people. From meeting a friend surreptitiously in the park at dusk (pssst…I have the carrots you planted, meet me in 10 minutes) to leaving fresh salads in bags on door knobs, I was sneaking in and out, over a wall, lugging the hairy beast (MacDuff the Scottie #macduffthetough) plus vegetables with me at dawn and dusk.

300 annual flower plants due to be sold at our end of term plant fair were stealthily procured thanks to an unnamed classmate (she’d murder me if I was to brag of her personal stealth skills) and we set up a give-away station outside the front door of the Temperance Hall (it was built originally to encourage the fishermen to come to prayer meetings and to imbibe tea and biscuits rather than ale and wild women) We did three sessions of these plant give-aways and popped each one up on the day on the local Kinsale Facebook Notice Board. This is generally a hive of in-house joviality, photos and occasional massive spats over rubbish, parking or dog poop so it was a good distraction for everyone. The plants were gone within an hour each day and I started getting pleas from people who were cocooning or couldn’t get there in time so had to juggle some extra plants for them on the side.  

Stealth gardening became my life and I was kindly given an old French bicycle which had a very lovely basket so I was able to leave the dog to snooze and fly down the hill to college at speed to get the watering and harvesting done. The bike had very squeaky brakes however and I was always teetering between wanting to go fast/stay alive/not wake the neighborhood up. I may have been heard but I was definitely not seen. The only person I would ever meet on my planty rounds would be Donie. Reformed wild fella who is at least 80 years of age and walks 10kms a day with his sturdy stick and says Fuck more than any human I ever met. Ever. So we’d meet and greet and he’d say Fuck a good few times and then I’d go on my planty way. The Lone Arranger so to speak.

If there is one way to stay sane in a pandemic it is to stealth garden. I strongly advise it. Builds muscle, increases blood flow, keeps one preoccupied with plants and food and there is always abundance. Just remember to keep your bicycle oiled and your chin up.

Maybe start with microgreens in this weather. I’m not a huge fan but here is a wee video I made on them here