Gardening & Rabbits

"Never give up."

It's one of those quotes you hear a lot in yoga circles. At least, I do. Somewhere along the way it settled into my brain as a personal mantra.

But every now and then... I do give up.

Call it weakness if you like, but sometimes it's simply common sense to stop doing something that mainly produces frustration, disappointment and a vocabulary your neighbours probably shouldn't hear.

Like... vegetable gardening.

Yes, really.

My Green Paradise

Ever since moving to the countryside, I've dreamed of having a large kitchen garden—a lush green paradise overflowing with tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, herbs, and enough vegetables to feed the entire family, the neighbours, and anyone who happened to ring the doorbell.

This was long before prepping became fashionable.

These days, people would probably call it prepping: becoming more self-sufficient and preparing for uncertain times, whether that's rising food prices, inflation, supply shortages or simply wanting to rely a little less on the supermarket. Growing your own vegetables fits perfectly into that idea. In my case, however, it wasn't about preparing for the end of the world—it was simply because I thought harvesting my own fresh vegetables would be wonderful. As it turned out, that was considerably easier to imagine than to achieve.

Reality, however, had other plans.

There were years when absolutely everything was devoured by slugs. Every. Single. Thing.

I actually enjoy sowing seeds in the greenhouse. There is something magical about watching the first tiny green shoots appear. Before long they grow into enthusiastic teenage plants that seem to shout:

"Let me outside! I'm ready for the world!"

Unfortunately, the local slug population is always ready too.

I've tried everything.

Slug pellets (don't judge me), beer traps, crushed eggshells, glass around the beds...

Messy. Ugly. Mostly ineffective.

The slugs thanked me for the refreshments and carried on eating.

Then came the opposite problem.

A wonderfully dry summer.

No slug apocalypse!

Victory!

Except now the vegetable garden had become a full-time job involving endless watering. Apparently vegetables expect room service.

And then there was the Great Mystery of the Missing Vegetables.

Something kept nibbling my crops. Tomatoes, lettuce, pumpkins... everything had one suspicious bite taken out of it.

Until my neighbour casually asked,

"Have you seen that adorable little rabbit hopping around?"

Aha.

That One Rabbit!

Case solved.

Dear Rabbit, you're welcome to one lettuce.

Or perhaps a pumpkin.

But could you please stop taking exactly one bite from every single vegetable?

Thank you.

Even when the weather behaves, there's still weeding, watering, feeding, tying up plants, battling mildew, chasing insects and wondering whether that tiny spot on a tomato is perfectly normal or the beginning of complete disaster.

Fancy a weekend away?

Your vegetable garden certainly doesn't.

By the time you return, the weeds have staged a successful coup and you're no longer entirely sure where the vegetable beds are.

Of course, there are plenty of products that promise to solve all these problems.

Most of them come with ingredients I wouldn't particularly like anywhere near my dinner.

At that point the supermarket vegetables, sitting there in their plastic packaging looking almost suspiciously perfect—as though they've had an AI beauty filter applied—suddenly don't seem quite so bad.

After many years of enthusiastic attempts, tiny successes and spectacular failures, I've discovered one thing I'm genuinely good at.

Reading books about vegetable gardening.

I absolutely love them.

The photographs are beautiful.

The advice is inspiring.

The harvests are magnificent.

And, most importantly, no slugs have ever eaten a page.

I happily review gardening books for Boekrecensiesblog and afterwards pass them on to friends who actually know what they're doing in the vegetable garden.

In return, they generously reward me with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and courgettes from their incredibly successful gardens.

Everybody wins.

They get the books; I get the vegetables.

It's the perfect circular green economy.

So yes... I've given up trying to become the world's greatest vegetable gardener.

But I certainly haven't given up enjoying wonderful books about gardening.

And unlike my lettuce...

Those never disappear overnight.

Marga van der Vet