A Lend and Tend Valentine’s message because we love gardens and sharing gardens.

Since it’s a day for being slushy, I want to send you all a special Lend and Tend Valentine’s message to tell you all how much I really appreciate your support and encouragement on the garden sharing journey so far.

If you haven’t thought about garden sharing or gardening yet this year, as it’s been frighteningly cold, I don’t blame you for choosing the great indoors. I admit, my last attempt at gardening was meant to be a simple job: burying kitchen scraps to compost but boy, burying that Bokashi-ed kitchen waste; digging into the frozen mud, was well, literally, really hard. I’m sure the worms loved it and my seedlings will be so happy to be in that worm-y churned up rich black soil in my shared garden come springtime and treating the ground this way is so worth it. It means having something to eat fresh from the garden all year round and being able to bring bunches of veg to friends instead of garage flowers. It’s totally possible, I promise.

If you wish you had a garden, you could be gardening in a garden near you this summer.

We’ve more people signing up new gardens each week. Check out our map to see if someone's near you? 

So, despite all of the seasonal and global doom and gloom, I wanted to tell you all how wonderful you are. For saying hello at Q&A panels, for coming to meet me for a chat in a new neighbourhood for showing your support on social media and best of all, if you’ve signed up to either Lend your garden or Tend to someone else’s: Thank you.

Lend and Tend is still very new and I am doing my best to tell the world about you lovely sharers so thata). more people sign up and submit gardens to Lend so there are more available to garden

a). more people sign up and submit gardens to Lend so there are more available to garden

b). so more people sign up to Tend gardens so that those of you who have kindly submit your gardens to be shared can find a garden a Tender and

c). I truly believe that garden sharing is a way to potentially form unlikely friendships, get to know our neighbours, discover more about our communities and lead healthier, calmer and possibly less stressed lives.

Patch-Matching could mean finding new friends, or just a thought, it has been suggested, but playing the Cilla Black of garden sharing may help someone out there find romance, who knows? I’d love to report back on this one year.

I really believe we can potentially form new friendships from garden sharing, help welcome people new into our neighbourhoods or meet people who’ve perhaps been around all along.

The best thing is, there’s the ability to grow our own food and share that too. Share recipes from far and wide or ones passed down through generations, getting some gardening tips too.  Lend and Tend is not just about sharing garden space; getting one if you haven’t got one, or giving one away you can’t use, it’s about sharing a whole lot more.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you and please keep sharing the love, the smiles that gardening brings, let’s lend a hand where we can. Let’s be more tender to each other.

As the saying goes ‘Love thy neighbour’ and let’s share gardens.

Happy Valentines,

Joyce.

XOXOX