I've spent so much time in the garden this spring that I've almost forgotten about the house – and I couldn't be happier with the trade-off
By June, the garden has become my entire personality
Screen printer Hannah Carvell is one of Ideal Home's new Open House contributors, sharing her thoughts on colourful home design for a creative family to live in. See the rest of her articles here.
Every year it happens. The first few warm days arrive, the evenings stretch a little longer, and suddenly I lose all interest in being indoors.
The house, which has occupied my attention for months through winter in the quest to make it the perfect cosy nest and pretty for Christmas, gets abandoned as I head outside armed with seed packets, a watering can and increasingly ambitious gardening plans.
By March, my greenhouse is crowded with trays of seedlings. By May, I'm checking on them several times a day, willing them to grow. And by June, the garden has become my entire personality. It's my happy place where I let my mind wander as I am going to sleep at night.
Meanwhile, inside the house, things begin to slide. There are always muddy boots by the back door, the ants have started to wander in and a thin layer of pollen finds its way onto every surface. The vacuum cleaner sits neglected in the cupboard while wheelbarrows, seed trays and endless bags of compost seem to multiply overnight.
If someone drops by, I usher them straight into the garden and hope they didn't notice the state of the kitchen. The funny thing is that I don't feel remotely guilty about it.
For most of the year, our homes demand a lot of attention. We paint walls, rearrange furniture, organise cupboards and decorate in December, convince ourselves that a perfectly styled room will somehow make life run more smoothly.
Yet, for a few precious months each year, the garden takes over and I think that's exactly how it should be.
As a screen printer, I'm used to working with colour, pattern and composition, so perhaps it's inevitable that I approach gardening in much the same way.
I grow vegetables, but if I'm honest, flowers often steal the show I got the dahlia bug a few years back and this year I am growing cosmos and zinnias from seed as well. Each spring I find myself ordering more seed packets than I have space for. Cosmos, zinnias, snapdragons, sweet peas and dahlias all make their way onto the list.
Every year I promise to be more restrained, and every year I fail spectacularly, the temptation and hope in these little packets at a fraction of the cost of a trip to the garden centre for more established plants. There's something incredibly optimistic about growing flowers from seed.
A tiny paper packet doesn't look like much when it arrives in the post. Yet within a few months it can transform a corner of the garden into something overflowing with colour and life. It feels like a small act of faith and the ultimate dopamine fix when it works.
Vegetables offer a different kind of satisfaction. The first salad leaves of the season. A handful of runner beans. Courgettes appearing seemingly overnight.
Even the crops that don't quite go to plan teach you something for next year. I have many fails don’t get me wrong – the sweet corns that were just a nest of earwigs and my cucumbers last year tasted like battery acid which I have since found out happens if you mix varieties in the pollination stages.
Of course, gardening also has a remarkable ability to humble you. Slugs don't care how carefully you've planned your borders (neither does the cat). Late frosts arrive uninvited. Seedlings that looked perfectly healthy one day can suddenly collapse the next.
Nature has a way of reminding us that we're not entirely in control. Perhaps that's part of the appeal. So much of modern life feels fast, immediate and relentlessly productive. Gardening operates on a completely different timetable.
Seeds germinate when they're ready. Plants flower in their own time. You can't rush a tomato plant no matter how often you check on it. Trust me, I've tried, but when something works and I am snipping armfuls if cut flowers come September the satisfaction can’t be matched, pure joy.
The garden also changes the rhythm of everyday life. Instead of spending an evening scrolling through my phone, I find myself wandering outside to see what's flowering and give my beds a water. I'll deadhead a few blooms, pull up a handful of weeds and somehow an hour disappears.
Small jobs become rituals; I am strangely addicted to pulling up bindweed, getting a big handful of those tell tale white roots out feels like a victory. Popping out the let my chickens out and water the seedlings before breakfast. Picking sweet peas after work. Harvesting herbs while making dinner.
These moments are rarely dramatic, but they add up to something important. They encourage me to notice the seasons passing, harvest time at the end of summer means huge pans of tomato sauce being made (all going well) and apple crumbles with every meal.
At this time of year, the house becomes less of a project and more of a backdrop. The slightly dusty shelves can wait. The pile of paperwork on the dining table isn't going anywhere. Even the weeds growing between the patio slabs feel more urgent than reorganising a cupboard.
Winter will come soon enough, bringing with it all the indoor jobs I've been happily ignoring. There will be time for decorating, decluttering and tackling the endless list of things that need sorting out.
For now, though, my attention belongs elsewhere. To seedlings unfurling their first leaves. To flowers beginning to bloom. To vegetables slowly filling out their beds. To evenings spent outdoors cobbling together new raised beds from old piles of wood from the shed long after I should have gone inside.
The house may be looking a little neglected, but the garden is thriving. And honestly, I'm perfectly happy with that trade-off.
