Life in the garden with Dan Masoliver
'Prepare to fail and start small.'
This Q&A is part of a previously-paywalled series now available to all subscribers of this newsletter. To support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber here.
Whenever I’m trying to figure out how to do something in my humble garden, an inevitable process ensues: I Google it with my grubby fingers and find a dozen grainy YouTube videos that I have neither the time nor patience to watch. I then click through a half dozen articles that are either too in-depth or intended for gardeners with much more land and expertise than I am working with.
Frustrated, I usually end up sending a garbled voice note to one of the keen gardeners in my life. (Shout out to my mother in law, Gill, and my friend, Philippa, for always answering.) Indeed, gardening media can be both isolating and overwhelming for a novice gardener. Which is why I was so delighted to discover
last year, a newsletter written by former lifestyle journalist-turned-garden-writer, Dan MasoliverLike me, Dan also had an existential professional crisis during the pandemic. He thought he was ready to leave journalism behind to pull weeds and landscape people’s back gardens. But instead, he managed to find a way to combine his love of writing with a life in the garden. Now, in addition to writing his Substack, he has a column in Garden Answers and edits the show guides for the Royal Horticulture Society, the UK’s premier gardening charity.
Dan isn’t some garden guru or expert; in fact he rejects those labels and will tell you he only started gardening about seven years ago. Rather than telling his readers what to do, his writing encourages that mix of instinct, repetition, observation, and improvisation that gardening — and indeed life — naturally asks of us. He also connects the humble act growing of plants in pots and plots and beds to the larger themes of the climate emergency, the precarious food system, and the impact that growing things has on our mental and physical health.
I’ve been meaning to interview someone about gardening in this newsletter for some time. Building my modest garden — about 15 or so containers and a raised bed — has been a real bright spot in my life in the past few years. I’ve noticed how the act of tending to it is a natural companion to the themes and questions I explore in this newsletter. It turns out, one of the most obvious answers to the question What do we do now that we’re here? is to simply start a garden. Right now, the start of spring, is a great time to do so.
Rosie: Can you start by describing how you approach writing about gardening? What gap did you want The Earthworm to fill when you started writing it?
Dan: There’s a lot of people out there who know a lot about horticulture. Those people tend to be writing about the things they’re an expert in rather than what I was more interested in: The actual experience of being a gardener. Not just how to do it better, but what do I gain from it, learn from it, what are the challenges that I face and the joys that I experience.
R: During the pandemic, like many people, I got interested in gardening. I also stepped away from a ten year journalism career that had been defined by a very linear way of thinking: What’s next, what’s bigger, what’s better, where’s the next impressive story or byline or milestone coming from? And through gardening I started to realize that mindset is antithetical to life itself. It’s just not how the natural world works. And it turns out, we are of the natural world.
D: I couldn’t agree more and I think a lot of people who get into gardening will have that epiphany at some point. A plant will draw all its nutrients from the soil, it will grow and live a full and happy life, and then however it meets its end — natural or predatory — it will eventually sink back into the soil where tiny unsung heroes will break it down and release all those nutrients back into the soil for subsequent generations of plants to feed from and grow and start that process all over again.
Having an insight like that does slow you down, it does put things into perspective, it’s also kind of humbling as well. It’s that reminder in a very positive way of how small we are, how insignificant we are, and that eventually such will be our fate also.
R: I think it also makes some of capitalism’s allure a little less compelling. Because this idea that you can always be better or consume more with no externalities, never dealing with the waste, or pausing to rest, isn’t realistic. It honestly starts to look quite dumb.
D: I struggle with this in gardening because you need to be really patient. I’ve been used to my entire life having whatever I want at the touch of a button in 24 hours max. Having to wait for the seed that I’ve sown to germinate in a few weeks, to then grow (if it even does), then wait to see if it eventually flowers or bears fruit. Or wait for a shrub I’ve bought from the garden center to grow to its full size, five meters in five, 10 or even 20 years. You have to be so patient and wait for these things.
I think it has encouraged me to slow down and be more patient and accept that good things (or bad things) will come further down the line. I’ve also learnt to value certain “commodities” a lot more, for example food, knowing how long it takes to grow, and all the time, effort and often luck that goes into that process.
R: Food shortages have been in the news in the UK due to a confluence of factors including supply chain issues, energy costs, the war in Ukraine, Brexit etc. I’ve found the coverage of this conflicting. The government’s environment minister was deservedly mocked for telling British people that they should eat root vegetables instead of lettuce and tomatoes in February. On the one hand, she sounded patronizing and was shifting the blame to individuals for structural supply chain issues. But on the other hand… isn’t she kind of right?
D: There are so many interconnected strands here. The first thing I want to say is I think the tone of the recent conversation has been to almost blame consumers: “it’s your fault there’s no salad on the shelves because you shouldn’t be wanting salad at this time of year anyway”. And actually the only one’s to blame are the supermarkets, and even further back, the government.
R: Can I just say: One of the things that drives me nuts is walking into Tesco, seeing a tiny packet of green beans flown in from Kenya, and then it’s right next to some carrots or parsnips grown in the UK, and seeing those two things presented as completely the same. Even if they just somehow differentiated between what's in season and grown in the UK versus what has to be flown in — I think that would be huge.
D: Most consumers buy most of their fruit and veg from supermarkets. And if supermarkets aren’t offering local seasonal produce, then people won’t have access to buy it. So it’s not the case that supermarkets are simply responding to consumer demand to have tomatoes, cucumber, and lettuce all year round. If you don’t give them an alternative, they can’t make a real choice. They’re buying that year round because that’s what you’re giving them year round
If we want to make sure there’s always food on our supermarket shelves that is affordable we need to invest in the growing infrastructure — the farms and market gardens, and ideally organic. And in order for that to happen, supermarkets need to be willing to pay higher prices or there needs to be assistance from the government to encourage farmers to be able to grow and to allow us as consumers to buy this stuff at an affordable cost.
R: So that’s the policy and government part, which is a crucial part of the story and can’t be left out. But on the individual level, I think it’s important to say that the things that we need to start doing for the planet for the future aren’t necessarily sacrifices or compromises. They are good for us as well. It’s not to say that you can never eat something out of season ever again. But I think you gain something when you start thinking: What should I be eating based on where I live and what time of year it is? There is something really nourishing about that.
D: If you can only eat strawberries or tomatoes within a six week window, it’s annoying. But it’s also incredible when you finally get one and it’s delicious. And it just so happens that if you eat something at the time that nature wants you to have it, it tastes better. It’s got all the right inputs that it needs and it’s giving you the most delicious possible version of its fruits.
If we’re willing to take a bit of a hit in terms of how often we eat stuff like tomatoes, cucumbers, certain salads, aubergines, strawberries etc, then so much opens up to us. Swedes and turnips and others have practically been lost to us. We might think they’re not as tasty, but it’s more that we’ve culturally forgotten how to cook what would naturally grow in this country at times of year when other things won’t. There are dozens and dozens of things: leafy greens that you can harvest all the way through winter that we can enjoy. Eating in that way doesn’t have to mean that you’re limiting your diet or restricting yourself. It’s actually really exciting when the first turnip is ready to be harvested.
R: Right, and there’s also so much we’re not eating, missing out on.
D: There’s an overwhelming, unfathomable world of flavors and possibilities out there. In the supermarket, it’s not just that it’s the same ingredients or the same items year round – it’s the same version of those same items. Every aubergine I buy from January to December looks the same, tastes the same, and probably is literally the same in terms of its cultivar. There are 10,000 varieties of tomatoes known to us. How many of these are we eating in the supermarket? Four? 10? It’s so much more interesting and exciting if you’re able to break free from the constraints and limitations of the supermarket.
R: Or even just occasionally venture out of those constraints. Replace one of your weekly supermarket shops with a trip to the farmers market to see what’s there. Get a CSA or farm box once a month to start to learn what’s in season. It’s not all or nothing. There are so many ways this can be creative and frugal and actually save you money, too.
D: That’s really important to say. I am vegetarian and I love aubergines, and as much as I’d love to, I’m not only going to eat aubergines when they are in season. It’s just not realistic.
R: There’s often this critique of: “Oh you’re spending so much time and effort to just grow lettuce and chard in your silly little raised bed. This will never feed the world, so what’s the point?” But I would argue that the act of me growing some vegetables, herbs, and flowers changes my actions elsewhere in my life and makes me think about the world and the seasons in a much more sustainable way. It’s not just about the calories I can grow.
D: Horticulture and conservation – and actually agriculture, too – are often thought of as different conversations, but I think it’s all the same thing. It’s all to do with our relationship to the earth, the soil, the natural world. Do we want to make decisions to enhance it or do we want to do things that are just about convenience or aesthetics that will cause harm. But that doesn’t mean I sacrifice anything — turns out making your garden full of flowering plants is exactly what wildlife wants! And having an abundant space full of fruit and veg is also what wildlife wants — as long as I’m not spraying everything with pesticides.
It is possible to have a space which does everything we want it to do, but also is just basically good for the planet, too.
R: You mentioned in our email correspondence that “hobby” is a word you don’t use for gardening. Can you explain why?
D: I think of a hobby as something frivolous that someone enjoys in their spare time. I think gardening can be more than that. Is taking steps to protect and provide for wildlife a hobby? Is taking steps to look after your own physical and mental health a hobby? Gardening does all of these things and more. For that reason, it shouldn’t just be something which is only accessible to people who own a plot of land with a garden on it — that typical image of middle class boomers in their big sunny gardens.
R: So on that note, what is your advice for newbie gardeners, or people who have that inkling to start somewhere.
D: The two most important lessons I’ve learned the hard way are: Prepare to fail and start small. A lot of people get into gardening with a lot of good intentions and enthusiasm but very quickly get overwhelmed. There’s a lot of names, terminology, things growing in different places and at different times needing different amounts of water. You will get things wrong and that’s okay. The amazing thing about gardening is that even a Monty Don figure, a gardening guru, gets things wrong all the time. Failure is part of the process.
If you’ve got a little garden in which you can grow, don't try and turn it into an allotment overnight. You’re going to learn too many hard lessons too fast. Starting small, try a few different things that are going to give you results at different times of the year.
Here are a few more tips Dan and I discussed.
Join a community garden group or “friends of” volunteer communities that tend to different parks, gardens, and wildlands. It’s a great (and free) way to learn from knowledgeable gardeners and engage with the natural world.
Tiny balconies or paved outdoor spaces can easily be turned into amazing container gardens that you can pack up with you if you rent or move frequently.
Join seed swap groups, look for gardening freebies on Facebook marketplace or Buy Nothing groups, ask your gardener friends for plant cuttings, rescue plastic pots or plant pots from garage sales, dumpsters/skips, your neighbor’s front garden etc. There is a ceaseless amount of free gardening stuff you can inherit or source if you poke around a bit.
Just sow some wildflower seeds! Great for pollinators, you don’t need high quality soil, you will delight in seeing all the bees come summer.
You can subscribe to The Earthworm newsletter here.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post, it helps a surprising amount if you share it with a friend or post it on social media using the button below. Also! Tell me what seeds you’re sowing in the comments below.