It's hard to believe Christmas is just around the corner and 2018 will soon be upon us. On reflection, some of my best memories of 2017 relate to my rekindled passion for gardening. 

At the start of the year we moved into a California Bungalow with a backyard the size of a football field. I vowed to make a go of gardening when the time to plant tomatoes came around again.

Once the Winter days grew longer we set about the creating a vegetable patch in an area of almost full sun.  We marked out an area, set a border of heavy sleepers, cleared the patch of weeds and prepared the clay soil with blood and bone, mushroom compost and gypsum.  Once Spring sprung we were ready to plant. 

Tomatoes were given prime position. After much deliberation we selected four varieties, each for their unique colour, size or shape. We filled the remainder of the patch with ordered groupings of zucchini, capsicum, cucumber, basil and a solitary chilli.  

It's fair to say I love my vegetable patch.  I trundle outside to visit it soon after waking and stare at it contently over evening drinks.  I closely monitor the progress of each plant, prune errant leaves with deliberate snips of my secateurs and update my partner on the most minuscule change.  

The garden has been wonderful for my mental and emotional health.  It is an opportunity for me to commune with nature, unplug from devices and ponder all manner of life's quandaries (incidentally are vegetables still vegan when grown using blood and bone?).

Tending the garden has taught me to be more patient, because the plants refuse to be hurried.  I finally have enough basil for several batches of pesto, I am eagerly awaiting zucchini by week end and am hopeful of tomatoes to share with family on Christmas.

As it stands my only plans for 2018 extend to my small patch of soil in the Melbourne suburbs.