I’m part of a local group of keen vegetable gardeners who meet fortnightly throughout the growing  season. Each meetup involves a tour around someone’s garden, and then a cup of tea, while we discuss our gardens and gardening, complain about the weather, and generally catch up with each other.

Our most recent gathering was at a garden just 200 metres down the road from our house. Bev’s been gardening there for over 20 years, and the property is beautifully sheltered by large hedges and mature plantings.

And even though we live only a three minute walk away from one another, our gardens grow remarkably differently.

Bev’s is almost always a week or two ahead of mine. And not just because she plants earlier than I do—her tree and berry crops leaf out, bloom and fruit before mine do. She plants out her tomatoes before I do, her carrots germinate more rapidly and grow more quickly, her peas outstrip mine within weeks of germination, her green beans produce pods a week ahead of mine. The differences are remarkable. 

We are so close to one another, the temperature and rainfall on our two gardens is all but identical. But Bev has created an amazing microclimate for her plants with rich soil and excellent shelter.

Other women in the group have done similar wonders on their properties, creating striking pockets of abundance by carefully manipulating the microclimate in their gardens. In fact, my garden is sometimes behind other group members’ gardens in colder locations.

It’s something to aspire to. Having started with a bare paddock with no topsoil four and a half years ago, we’ve come a long way on our property, but we also have a long way to go. We are incredibly fortunate to have amazing gardeners nearby to inspire us to keep working towards our own pocket of abundance.