Lend and Tend was founded to help people in communities get together and we’re going to need each other more than ever in the next few months. I’d like to encourage users that garden sharing can continue, just as long as it is possible to practice safe social- distancing.

Keep Calm and Garden-Share from a safe social-distance

We’re still going to be able to mutually benefit from the joys that garden-sharing can bring. However, we must all take extra precautions at the moment as the current uncertain situation unfolds.

Always follow the advice of GOV.UK and NHS. If you display any symptoms of the COVID-19 virus stay at home and self-isolate for at least 14 days or until symptoms have passed. Regularly wash those green fingers and hands and practice safe social-distancing to help prevent the spread of the virus.

I’d like to encourage users that garden sharing can continue, just as long as it is possible to practice safe social- distancing.

For example; garden-sharing could continue if the garden is accessible via a garden gate, but garden-sharing is not recommend if access to the garden is gained by entering via going through the garden Lender’s home, making it impossible to practice safe social-distancing.

To echo advice from The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners :

Any Lend and Tend gardener or garden owner who is self isolating because they or a household member is ill with corona-virus, should not be garden-sharing at the garden site.

Otherwise:

Keep hand sanitiser in your own personal garden kit and or shed and wash your hands regularly
Use hand sanitiser before opening and closing any gate locks
Do not wash your hands in water troughs
Observe “Social Distancing” with each other of 2-3 metres
Do not share tools
Minimise the contact with each other, for example no handshakes
If you have livestock on the site and the social restrictions become more severe, take a photograph on your phone of your livestock, based on what is happening in other countries you may have to print off a government form to leave the house but if challenged it would be good to be able to show a photograph of where you are going.

How is Lend and Tend able to help in this situation?

Food Shortages

Recent reports of panic buying, has heightened our awareness of our fragile food chains, the positives are: more people realise that home-grown food raised in our communities is not just a jolly past-time but a practical, healthy and low cost way to sustain ourselves.

With so much unused gardening space available, now couldn’t be a better time than ever to start a habit of a lifetime to lead healthier self-sustaining lives. My dream of a better future would be one where communities grow abundant produce to swap and share in our neighbourhoods.

Mental Health

There are countless benefits to being in, looking out at a garden and gardening. The ever prominent benefit to tending to plants and spending time outside is the huge benefit it is to our mental health. Particularly important for maintaining ourselves in these uncertain times; the natural mindfulness that gardening provokes, engages us with the natural world and is an activity that can help lift our spirits in difficult times.

Human contact and vulnerable people

It’s not just the elder members of our communities that need our contact, we are going to be spending a lot of time distancing ourselves from one another in the immediate future. As long it is possible to practice social distancing safely, a friendly hello and a brief chat, albeit from a window 2+ metres away could be all it takes to brighten someone’s day, especially when that someone might not be able to access services to enable them to get outside and have the usual contact with society that they’d be used to.

Tending to a garden, firstly making arrangements via a phone call before you begin garden-sharing, could be just the tonic to lift, both garden Tender and Lender’s spirits in a time when we’re going to need to show each other all the compassion and kindness we have to give, more than ever.

Thank you for joining in with the garden-sharing mission so far, until this very strange time is over, look after yourselves and each other.

If you have any questions about garden-sharing or want an update of garden-sharing activity in your area, please feel free to get in touch via social media @LendandTend across all platforms, or by emailing lendandtend@gmail.com Also, if you or someone you know is an NHS nurse who needs some garden help, please get in touch and I will prioritise getting you #PatchMatched.