Well, I guess it was bound to happen at some point.

Throughout 2020, Western Australia was one of a vanishingly small number of lucky places on the planet for whom coronavirus was just something that happened ‘out there’ to the rest of the world. Now, with early concerns of community transmission we’re back behind closed doors, many of us donning masks for the first time ever and wondering exactly how long this new lockdown will last.

While I’m cautiously optimistic that the lockdown will be effective and short-lived, many of us are now - for the next week at least - reliving March 2020 with all its attendant boredom, weirdness and stir-crazy tension. And once again I’m reminded of just what our gardens offer us in these unusual and uncertain times; a place to rest, a distraction, a goal, a sense of hope or purpose, exercise, and so much more.

So, if you feel caught off guard, listless, untethered or adrift, here are a few suggestions for how you might lean on your own patch of earth over the next little while. Ways to stay busy, ways to calm down, ways to find happiness in the little things while we wait for certainty and safety to return to us. I hope you find them helpful!

1. Start your day in the garden

Now that a lot of us are working from home you have the perfect excuse to begin your day outside with the birds, bees and other early-morning inhabitants of your garden. Brew yourself a pot of tea, find a little table and chairs or a picnic blanket and set up a picnic spot in your favourite part of the garden. Taking 20 minutes at the start of the day to have a cuppa in nature is one of the best ways I’ve ever found to calm an anxious mind and begin the day in a happy mood.

2. Sow seeds

The weather has been so hot lately that I’ve been hesitant to start raising any seeds for fear that I wouldn’t be able to water them or keep them alive in the midday sun. Now that we’re all guaranteed to be at home for at least a week it’s the perfect time to throw a few seeds into some seed raising mix and give them a light spray 3-4 times a day. Frequent light watering will help to keep the soil moist and your new seedlings healthy - silver linings!

3. Pick some flowers

I always find it hard to justify picking flowers from the garden because I feel like I won’t have enough time to appreciate them before they wilt. But with nowhere to be and not a lot to do for the next five days I think picking flowers is a worthwhile pursuit! Whether you’ve got roses blooming or just a bunch of fragrant basil (I’m a strong believer that we should all start giving each other bouquets of herbs) pick something fresh from your garden and put it somewhere that will make you smile.

4. Make yourself a mid-week lockdown cocktail from the garden

It may not be Wednesday yet, but hump-day during lockdown certainly calls for an extravagant mid-week cocktail from your garden. And there’s no harm in doing some advanced planning! I recommend trying an icy cold gin and tonic with one of the following flavour combos from the summer garden:

• G&T with crushed basil, a slice of cucumber and a squeeze of lime juice

• G&T with iced earl grey tea (steep the teabags with some fresh lemon verbena, kaffir lime or lemon grass, then refrigerate before mixing your cocktail)

• G&T with sliced green chillies, fresh ginger and lemon

Or head here to check out my other cocktail recipes - I especially like the Kombucha Gin Fizz (pictured below).

5. Deadhead spent summer flowers

If you’re keen to keep busy or distract yourself, pop outside and deadhead all the spent summer blooms in your garden. It will keep your mind occupied and you’ll get even more flowers out of your summer garden!

6. Take your exercise outside

Exercising outside our property may now require masks and a 1 hour time limit but we can exercise within our property mask free for as long as we like! For those of us who are lucky enough to have backyards the garden offers so many opportunities for whole-body exercise. You can dig holes, shift mulch and repot plants, or simply take your exercise gear outside and do your workouts in nature.

7. Mulch your garden

Speaking of shifting mulch, now is a great time to order a delivery of mulch and get to work adding an extra layer of goodness to your soil! It will help keep the moisture in the ground over the next few very hot weeks, and it will certainly more than replace your usual exercise regime! If you do decide to do this, drink plenty of water and take a lot of breaks - it’s bloody hot!

8. Reassess your retic

I always avoid fixing my garden reticulation. It’s pretty much bottom on my list of garden priorities. But that’s because I’m never bored ENOUGH for the reticulation to grab my attention. Now, when the only other activities available to me are: sit inside, reply to emails and work, fixing the reticulation suddenly seems strangely appealing!

9. Repot plants

You could also keep yourself occupied by repotting any plants that have outgrown their current pots. Apparently a certain hardware superstore offers a potting mix delivery service, or you can just make your own by using a combination of compost (if you have a compost bin), worm castings (if you have a worm farm) and soil taken out of your garden. Mix it together so it’s well combined and pop it in the new pot along with your plant. (NB: I hope it goes without saying that we shouldn’t be going out to buy anything like potting mix for the next few days! If you can get it delivered that’s great, if not, try one of the other at-home suggestions on this list!)

10. Use the Pomodoro method to get your work done

At this point it’s a well established fact that (for 99% of the population) working from home SUCKS. I actually find this deeply reassuring as I spent the better part of the last decade assuming that my constant distraction while working from home was simply due to a crappy work ethic. Apparently it’s not just me - it’s hard to remain focused when we’re out of our offices! If you struggle to remain on-task, you might find the Pomodoro method helpful. Basically, using a timer, you work for 25 minute increments separated by 5 minute breaks. So even if you’re doing a task you really hate you know you only have to endure it for another 25 minutes at the most. How does your garden factor into this suggestion? Research shows that having even brief periods of mental relaxation in nature can help improve people’s focus and problem-solving abilities! So spend those 5 minute breaks in the garden (just don’t accidentally end up turning the 5 minute break into 5 hours of gardening like I almost always do…or, you know, do EXACTLY THAT!).

11. Practice mindfulness in the garden

If you’re feeling totally stressed by this return to lockdown, I understand. To say I was a bag of nerves in March last year is a massive understatement. I found one thing that really helped was to do guided mindfulness meditations in the garden (I used Sam Harris’ app Waking Up, and currently use the app 10% Happier, which also has lots of great guided meditations). The lovely thing about doing a mindfulness meditation in nature is there is so much to direct your attention to in your surroundings - the sound of a bee buzzing to a nearby flower, the wind in the trees, a bird calling out from a branch above you - it’s a great way of getting out of unpleasant thought patterns and reengaging with the natural world.

12. Get to know the animals in your garden

With more time to spend outdoors this week, you can really get to know the different animals in your garden. There are probably way more than you realise! If you life in Perth, this website is a fantastic resource to help you identify the birds that visit your garden. Pay attention to the different insects too - I can’t be certain, but I think I might have spotted a blue banded native bee the other day, so I intend to look much more carefully in future! Notice what the birds, insects and other invertebrates are eating, where they rest, where they go to drink - the more you learn about them the better you’ll be at making your garden the perfect home for them.

13. Water your garden!

It’s a very hot week to be isolating at home! I hope everyone is finding innovative ways to stay cool! Luckily, for our more heat-sensitive plants, we’ll be around to take care of them all week! So make sure to spend a little extra time tending to and watering your plants this week - it will help them flourish while the weather sizzles and it’s a great way to keep yourself busy in the late afternoons/early mornings too!

14. Take cuttings of your favourite plants

Just like sowing seeds, now is a good time to take cuttings of any plants you might like to propagate. Either pop the cuttings in a jar of water and watch for when they start to send out roots, or plant them in some good quality seed raising or potting mix and ensure the soil stays nice and moist until the plant takes root.

15. Make iced tea from your herb garden

This is my most recent obsession. Take 2 English breakfast teabags and brew them in 2-3 cups of boiling water with a handful of fresh lemon verbena leaves. Pop this in the fridge overnight and enjoy the next morning with breakfast when it’s icy cold. So good!! Now I want to try it with every single herb in my herb garden (especially the Moroccan mint). It makes a delicious and fragrant summer alternative to hot tea, and is a great way to enjoy the fruits of your herb garden. And without an early morning work commute you’ll hopefully have a little extra time to really enjoy it.

16. Make pesto!

Has anyone else got too much basil at the moment? If your plants have grown a little wild and huge, try this recipe to make a few jars of the most delicious pesto. It’s the easiest mid-week meal and is a fantastic way to preserve one of summer’s most delicious herbs. Pesto is such a versatile dish and can take many forms so if you don’t have basil in the garden try using Kale or rocket (arugula) instead. If you don’t have pine nuts try walnuts or almonds! Just use plenty of garlic, lots of salt and pepper and plenty of strong parmesan or pecorino cheese and it will be delicious no matter what!

17. End your day in the garden

Restaurants and bars are off the cards for a little while but, honestly, nothing is nicer on a warm summer night than eating dinner in the garden. You started your day in the garden, so why not spend the evening out there too? You could even eat that homegrown pesto you’ve just made! Light a few candles, throw down a picnic blanket or find a little table, and end your day in the peace and solitude of your own little patch of earth. Whether our lockdown lasts for just one week or for many, it will no doubt eventually end and our busy, noisy lives will resume. And that will be a very good thing. But while we wait for that day to arrive there are many ways to find a little bit of peace and happiness, courtesy of our infinitely generous, always waiting, always growing gardens.

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