Memory lane. Twelve months have passed and the world has changed. My life has changed. When I started volunteering in the Food Garden of the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) on Thursday 2^nd May, I believed that if I enjoyed the experience then I would continue volunteering each Thursday for a very long time; that it would be my choice if I didn’t continue.  But choice was taken away when the Corona virus changed the way we lived. Volunteering stopped, then later visitor entry was stopped leaving the small staff to battle on valiantly.

The day I started last year, N also started and since then we have been part of a wonderful team seeding, planting, pruning, digging, recreating pathways, moving compost and much more. You can read the blog post I created for that first day here. Afterwards I realised that the inclusion of photographs would make a positive difference and from then on, when I recorded my experience of each day, the blog posts were illustrated with descriptive photos.

I cannot overstate the value of volunteering in the Food Garden.

I receive so much more back than the one day a week that I have given. There is the new knowledge and constant opportunity to learn, the comradery with like-minded fellow volunteers, the chance for silence and a state of almost meditation while gardening, the easy direction from the Food Garden Co-ordinator, the fresh air, getting my hands dirty (and more), getting physical exercise from bending and squatting and digging and carrying and from all manner of other tasks, knowing I am part of a team who helps grow produce that is then given to charities for people who are needy, the inspiration to record the experience, the chance to write and inspire others, and from being in a place of infinite and forever changing beauty. Yes. I am profoundly grateful and look forward to the day when the virus no longer impacts the world and I can return.