Something that has been suggested to me to help to achieve personal ‘self-balance’ is having a garden and doing some gardening. Apparently it’s therapeutic – grass-roots therapy. It will supposedly instil a sense of achievement by nurturing plants from seedlings to full-sized adults – sounds awfully similar to having a baby – but it also has the added benefit of a good physical workout – just like having a baby – as well as providing oneself with some nice organic fresh vegetables to eat or beautiful flowers to aromatise your home (ok, you can’t eat your offspring and as for aromas, I think they won’t be as pleasant emanating from a child!). Anyway, being someone who likes to try new things, I thought I might give it a go (gardening that is), and become the next Alan Titchmarsh or someone equally green-fingered.

However, there is a small problem, which the grass-root therapists neglect to take into account when they are liberally dispensing their enlightening advice….what are you to do if you are not lucky enough to have access to a garden?  I pondered this for a while – a long while – considering my options. I could go with some indoor potted plants or some windowsill boxes where I could start my agricultural practice, but I was discouraged by the fact that a great deal of the time, they would not be very visually appealing while the seeds were sprouting and when I would inevitably eat them (I am more a vegetable than a flower person). Another problem might be the smell since I wanted to do things ‘right’ and use fertiliser or other plant feed to make them grow fuller and faster, substances that are not renowned for their pleasant aromas. And what of pests? I wanted my vegetables to be organic, so that would mean no pesticides – inevitably exposed plants always develop some sort of pestilence issue and not using pesticide in the open seemed like asking for trouble.

After much soul-searching, the answer came from where else but the trusty internet – the portal to universal knowledge, or so they say – grow my vegetables in a grow tent where the environment is perfectly controlled, so that no pests can get to them, their conditions are perfectly maintained and they are not subject to the vagaries of the ever-more unpredictable weather. They also have the advantage of containing any unsightly mess or unsavoury smells within their walls, so they can be kept almost anywhere inside the home.  So there you go – I am now in the process of ordering all of my indoor-farming kit, which includes a grow tent and accessories and the not-to-be-forgotten critical lighting without which this would not work (you don’t say), and I will endeavour to keep you updated on progress….if all goes well, that is!