Greenbackyard

My first assignment

How fantastic to stroll down to the letterbox yesterday and find my first beekeeping assignment, returned, and marked. I got most of my questions right! But more gratifying were the multiple hand written comments from my teacher, and the encouragement. I was delighted that someone really took the time to go through my assignment. I’m going to write to my teacher and ask him the multiple questions I have about bees, since he seems so engaged. Yay!

A garden bench and a cup of tea

I’ve only just started rebuilding this old, run down garden and already it’s time to take a break. I think it’s imperative to have a cup of tea and a good sit down and a bit of a think about what comes next. In fact, as I’ve been working a bit of a space has opened up by the garden gate. That’s where my awesome garden trolley does it’s turning circle, where I can dump straw, where I can leave my tools. It’s such a useful space I think I’ll keep it and add a bench to sit on. Then I’ll make a cup of tea, and stare at the garden in progress.

The other two thirds of my garden shall stay, for now, in a forlorn, weed choked state. By getting a garden seat, and creating a space just for sitting, watching and dreaming I think I’m paying respect to the principle of considered organic design. A chair in this case isn’t a final cherry on the cake, it’s not the ornament that celebrates a finished project.
It’s about building a spot to reflect as you go.
Very often in my profesional life as a web designer, my team and I don’t get this luxury. Because of time commitments we bang out designs to a brief as fast as we can. It’s often the client that does the reflecting, gets back to us and asks us to make changes.
I believe that gardens can teach us so much, and perhaps one fertile area I could reflect on might be how organic design might influence collaborative design for the better.

An Epicurun garden

Marble bust of Epicurus.

There once was a fellow called Epicurus. He was a Greek philosopher. He had a simple recipe for happiness. These days if you were to say that someone is living “the Epicurian” ideal, the implication would be that they are a debauched, avaricious existence devoted to pure pleasure. Oddly, this has nothing to do with what he said (or rather it’s an interpretation of what he said.) Other interpretations reveal a simpler, neater value system.

According to his surviving writings, the way to be happy is to do these things:

* Own a garden
* Be self-sufficient, in that you don’t depend on someone else for your livelihood
* Live modestly
* Eat fresh food, preferably home grown
* Have good friends with whom you can have long conversations
* Drink modestly
* Don’t be afraid of death

In fact Epicurus was supposed to have founded a school around his own garden, that was open to all sorts, including women and slaves, (exceedingly rare in those days.) Apparently, he was quite fond of a ‘pot’ of fresh cheese, a ripe tomato and a hunk of bread for dinner, and some friends to share it with.

All this got me thinking about planting an Epicurun Garden. Imagine this with me… White gravel paths, tomato plants of all sorts up trellis’s and sprawled over whitewashed walls. The drift of basil on the wind, thyme underfoot, the faint hum of bees working nearby. I have baked a loaf of bread, and made a little tub of cheese from locally sourced organic milk, and there’s one of my honey varieties open on nearby rustic table. Friends are due for lunch, and they are bringing a bottle of olive oil and a chilled glass of something delicious. That right there, that sounds quite heavenly wouldn’t you agree? Think old Epicurus would agree…

One last thing I think has to be said, and that is Epicurus really was very cool, you should read more about Epicurus here. Apparently he coined this phrase, which was later adopted by the humanists as a common tombstone epitaph:

“I was not; I was; I am not, and I’m fine with that.”