- Hello and a very warm welcome back to the garden
and to our very cluttered and messy solar tunnel.
And a new growing season is fast approaching,
so I really need to prioritise clearing up
and getting this all ready for a load of seed propagation.
Now, something I feel every gardener experiences
is feeling overwhelmed.
And before, I would quite often feel overwhelmed
if I had a big task, like sorting this out,
but last year, I learned the hard way,
where I had way too much going on
and it really made me think
about how to best deal and cope with overwhelm.
So in this video, I'm gonna give you a load of ideas
so you can prevent feeling overwhelmed this green season
and focus on the fun and the joy
of being able to grow your own food.
It's really convenient
that I can film this video under cover,
because constant showers today.
But here's just an example of a job that needs to be done.
These served us well but the wind has pushed on the trellis
and kind of caused these (posts) to snap,
but they're over 20 years old
so they've kind of rotted anyway,
so this is a job that needs to be done.
But overwhelm happens when loads and loads
and loads of jobs keep building up,
so you've got to keep chipping away.
But sometimes you don't know where to start
when you feel overwhelmed,
so something that works for me really well
is to do some kind of grounding exercise
where I don't really have to think, just do.
And this usually involves something that's pretty passive
and for me that's a bit of tidying or some weeding.
So today, we're tidying up the solar tunnel.
I can really ground myself but, at the same time,
even though I'm not thinking much, I'm getting a lot done.
(soft cheerful music)
Very often, it's just a case of taking a breath
and just focusing on one thing,
regardless of how many other tasks you have to do.
Forget about those, just focus on one simple thing,
and soon you might find yourself getting a bit
of a productive chain reaction.
The important thing we must remember about overwhelm
is that there's a lot of different ways of dealing with it
and some are more effective for people than others.
So hopefully this video will at least give you one way,
and I'm gonna highlight around five,
but hopefully this will give you one way
to prevent, or at least cope with, feeling overwhelmed.
And the first strategy, which I absolutely love,
is called the kind of "picking the low-hanging fruit",
so the easy, quick wins.
And this is really important
because it's about tricking the brain.
Usually if you look in the garden,
you'd find that you'll have a lot more bitty jobs
than large jobs, so the bitty jobs are a pain
but they don't take long to do,
so focus on doing those first.
Set a time for about five minutes and just go for it.
Five minutes isn't long.
You've just really got to focus
on trying to push through that initial resistance.
And then once you've picked all those low-hanging fruits,
suddenly it seems like you've got most things under control
and then you can focus on those bigger tasks.
Another strategy, which is my personal favourite
and what works for me and may seem a bit counterintuitive
to the previous one of picking all the low-hanging fruit,
is trying to target the bigger tasks first,
but by turning the bigger tasks into lots of small tasks.
So this is really what I mean
about different strategies working for different people.
Usually if I see a big task, I will feel overwhelmed
'cause I know it's gonna take a lot of time
and I've gotta find the time,
rather than itty, bitty tasks,
which might take about five minutes.
So the way of dealing, or the way that I deal,
with a big task is splitting it
into lots of small, really easy, attainable tasks.
So say if it's clearing the solar tunnel,
I will write down a list of goals, so a to-do list.
So the first one is sort out the trays here, that's one.
Next one, take down the structure.
Next one, maybe put compost over the other raised beds
and then clear the potting area.
So I can turn this into a list of about eight tasks,
rather than just one, which is clear the solar tunnel.
And what this does is you keep that to-do list close by,
you start crossing off those little tasks,
and you trick your brain into feeling
that you're being a lot more productive,
rather than waiting right at the end to cross off one task.
And I think that that is, for me anyway,
a brain hack that works really effectively.
The third strategy that works really well,
especially if you're in an allotment
or quite a suburban or urban area,
is to try and garden with somebody else.
I can't stress how much easier it is
to focus and tackle jobs
when there is another pair of hands helping you.
So, for example, in the family garden, it's me and Dad
and when we're working in the garden together,
everything goes twice as fast, or perhaps even faster,
because we're all very much motivated to do something,
but if one of us isn't feeling motivated,
we can pick the other one up and that is such a help.
Now, if you don't already have someone to garden with,
try and find someone in your area.
So you can ask your local gardening club
or just see if there's a local gardener nearby
and turn it into a bit of a social event,
where simply maybe twice a month,
you rotate and one day you'll go over to their garden
and help them out for a Saturday morning
and then the next Saturday, swap around.
And turn it into a nice fun event, chat about things,
but you can help hold each other accountable.
Because sometimes for a lot of gardeners, it's quite lonely
so by having someone who you can grow with
and hold each other accountable
and feel like you've got support for those bigger jobs
or perhaps you suddenly got overrun by weeds,
suddenly it feels like you can cope with a lot more
and you don't have to stress.
If you're finding it really tough
to search for a fellow gardener
to do that once-a-month or twice-a-month accountability
and helping each other out on a particular day,
which is something you should really try
and put a lot of effort into begin with
because you get so much return from it,
but a second kind of alternative is to simply make more use
of the time when you are in your garden.
So very often, if I'm gardening by myself,
I'm simply gonna have my earphones on
and get on with tasks whilst I'm listening to an audiobook
or I'm catching up with one of my favourite podcasts.
And it makes me feel a lot more productive
because, in a way, I'm killing two birds with one stone.
I've got other voices around me
but I can also get a lot done in the garden.
(cheerful music)
But sometimes, one of the main reasons
why someone is feeling overwhelmed
is because they've taken on too much
and it's very understandable.
You know, we can get so excited
and when you get an allotment, for example,
you think oh my gosh, all this space!
But then you don't know where to start
and you take on too much.
And then nothing is quite efficient
when something is scaled too quickly, like a business.
A lot of businesses fail because they grow too quickly.
And slow and steady does definitely win the race
in the longterm, so if you feel
that you've taken on too much
and perhaps you're just a bit fed up
with feeling overwhelmed, then the best thing to do
is just scale back your growing operation.
But you don't need to worry about it
or feel any less of yourself,
like some people do for some reason.
All you need to do is just choose
maybe two or three raised beds
and cover them with a load of cardboard or newspaper
or some landscape fabric if you have any
and just let them hibernate for a whole growing season.
Keep them to one side,
they're not gonna grow any weeds 'cause they're covered,
and just focus on just stepping back a bit
and rebuilding your confidence
and your understanding on how much time things take.
And then perhaps if you feel then
the year goes really well, the following year,
open up a couple of the raised beds again
and start building up, rather than giving up on everything.
It's horrible when I hear stories of gardeners
who've created massive gardens
and then they find it too overwhelming
and give up everything.
I think that's tragic.
All you need to do is just maybe halve
or just third the
operations that you're doing
and then have a growing season
where you can really enjoy the actual growing,
not feel stressed out or overwhelmed,
and start to build up again.
And so my final suggestion
if you're feeling really overwhelmed
or perhaps lacking motivation,
perhaps if you've been growing for many years
but you feel that things have become a bit stagnant,
then look at shaking things up
and trying something completely different.
Maybe if you're growing lots of vegetables,
try growing some ornamentals,
like edible flowers or cut flowers,
and just try something new.
Because very often, trying something new
and having the freedom to experiment
can really reignite your passion.
And something that has helped a lot of gardeners recently
is a real rise or the revolution of no-dig gardening
and how much easier it is and saving your backs.
And I couldn't possibly imagine trying to dig over
all of these raised beds, but quite a few people do.
So just shake things up.
Try something new.
Try something different.
Maybe go into growing some perennials as well on the side.
Split things up, it's okay.
It's okay to experiment if something doesn't work.
But the great thing about gardening
is if something doesn't quite go right for a year,
you always have the next growing season
to try it again or try something new.
(cheerful music)
Remember, it's perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed
and I believe almost every gardener will experience it
and I'd be surprised if there's gardeners
who have never felt overwhelmed,
it's just part of it,
and everyone feels overwhelmed in different parts of life.
So just embrace it
and remember that you're not gonna be feeling alone
and hopefully these tips have given you some ideas
on how to cope with overwhelm
or how to prevent it in the future.
One of the best things you can do
is all about planning your garden in the best way possible,
so I'll be making a video very soon about that,
on how to improve your garden plan.
And I'll also be making a video
on how to be more productive as a gardener,
because I know it's very therapeutic
but sometimes we don't have enough time
and we need to just do some things quickly
to keep everything in check.
So stay tuned for those couple of videos.
And look in the comments section for the time stamps
so you can easily navigate back over the ideas.
And I will see you again very soon in another video.
All the best, goodbye, and just get ready and excited
for the new and upcoming growing season, like I am.
I literally can't wait.