Here's why gardening might be the biggest scam of the 21st century

Gardening is a scam.

It’s caught me hook, line and sinker, but you can learn from my foolishness.

I treasure childhood memories of “helping” my dad, grandfather and uncles in their veggie patches.

It could just be that I was very small, but I remember bean trellises high overhead, corn you could get lost in and miles and miles of potatoes (I think Dad said something like, “Never should have planted those bloody things here in the first place.”)

I remember hauls from the veggie patch that fed the family all summer, autumn, and into the start of winter.

Either the green thumb is only passed along the Y-chromosome, or my childhood memories are bulldust.

As an enthusiastic – if inconsistent – gardener for most of my adult life, there’s always either too much or not enough.

In 2023 I was borderline hysterical as I pushed armloads of tomatoes onto everyone I had any kind of tangential relationship with.

Colleagues? Tomatoes. Friends? Tomatoes. People at the gym? Tomatoes.

Our household had eaten tomato salads and tomato sandwiches for months. I’d made massive jars of sauce that would last us at least the next year.

The tomatoes kept coming.

“Tomatoes,” I thought to myself in my hubris, “are easy”.

Alas.

This year our harvest so far consists of two undersized toms, with another two on the bushes that refuse to flower.

Cucumbers seem to follow a similar feast-or-famine pattern. This year we have them in abundance. None of us particularly like cucumbers.

Herbs all bolt at the same time. So does the rocket and the lettuce.

Faithful silverbeet is about the only thing that provides a consistent supply without threatening to engulf the entire patch, but you have to battle the slugs and caterpillars for every good leaf.

Husband dearest was delighted when I first cleared out the wasteland beside our place to put in the veggie patch.

“We’ll save so much money on groceries,” he said excitedly.

After spending in the vicinity of $5000 on tip fees, beds, dirt, compost, tools, seedlings, seeds, fertiliser and a worm farm I reckon all told we saved about $1000 on produce, pickles and sauces over a year or so.

I’m not sure if I’m doing it wrong, or if a veggie patch is more of a long-term, low-yield investment than the instant returns we initially envisaged.

I’ve also heard it’s good for you, but I never bought that idea.

Listening to all the gardening men in the family complain incessantly about their backs and their knees made it difficult to believe in gardening as a physical panacea.

This was not, however, particularly comforting when I had to spend a day laying on the floor after a particularly vigorous weeding session.

If I’m being brutally honest, I can only list a few benefits I’ve gotten from gardening.

An increased interest in what’s going on outside – what the weather’s doing, what kinds of birds and bugs are about, what’s growing well and why.

Something to think and talk about that’s not politics, celebrity culture, sport, gossip or self-improvement (I love thinking and talking about all of these things, but it’s nice to branch out).

A reason to potter about outside instead of scrolling on the sofa.

A steady supply of gifts for loved ones – here, take a couple of tomatoes, no really, take more, for the love of God please take more.

An odd little sense of satisfaction when something grows well. Not much beats the smile of a kid when you give them a fresh strawberry.

Now, does anyone want some cucumbers?