Grow, harvest, share… That’s my therapy

I grew up with a vegetable garden: harvesting potatoes, onions, squash, pumpkin, cabbage, beans and peas was second nature. There were no shops or cafés at the forestry station where my parents lived, only indigenous forest. The pig in its sty, the chickens in the yard, the cow with her calf, the vegetables in the garden, the crops from the old fruit trees – all a legacy from the digging days – were woven into our lives.

It was at my mother’s knee that I learnt about planting, growing and harvesting vegetables. I still remember, as if it were yesterday, us girls seated with Mother around the kitchen table. Shelling peas for the evening meal, it would be one pea in the bowl and two in the mouth… until Mom would say: “Less eating! I want something in the bowl to cook tonight.”

Another great