Since it is winter and growth has slowed considerably, I have been focussing on seed saving. Last summer, I grew lots of sunflowers. I harvested the heads when they were dry and have been working on extracting the seeds.
Seed saving is important for several reasons. Firstly, it is an economical way of planting for the future. Secondly, it ensures that strains continue to survive. It is important to note that heirloom seeds will come true to type while hybrid seeds may not necessarily come true to type. The method used to save seeds depends on the type of flower, vegetable or herb. The key to success is ensuring that the seeds are fully dry on the plant before harvesting them.
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Everyone has neighbours. Unfortunately we can’t live in a vacuum. We have to live next door to someone. In a suburb like ours, people live on 1/5th acre sections. Even if you live on a dairy farm, you still have neighbours, except they’re a lot further away. Neighbours behave differently according to where they are located. For example, relations between neighbours in France are different to relations between neighbours in New Zealand. Even exclusive areas may contain a local busybody who asks lots of personal questions.
If neighbours are spending all their time talking and thinking about other people in the neighbourhood, they are doing very little to develop their own lives and gardens. The key is to develop the ability to filter out such negative energy. Remember that it is none of their business and they should respect other people’s privacy. Some people, such as retirees, do not work and they have nothing better to do than gossip about others or their gardens. Our general impression is that neighbours have not been happy when wwoofers have stayed with us, nor have they liked us having such a large garden infront of our house. We have been criticised for the amount of money we spend on the garden, yet it is none of their business. We make sacrifices in other areas as we find gardening gratifying and are dedicated to preserving bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects. We have also been told that we should put the garden back into lawn. There are several ways that prying neighbours can be handled but it depends on the circumstances. I try to be polite but if people persist in asking personal questions, it is acceptable to tell them to mind their own business. Gardening obviously requires a lot of time to be spent outdoors in the sun. It is important to look after your skin. The UV rays in New Zealand can be very fierce. Suncream and sunglasses are a good idea, even outside summer. Skin can burn very easily and it is important to look after your eyes in order to prevent diseases. The skin around the eyes is also very sensitive. A hat is also very helpful and can help to protect skin around the neck.
People in your personal and professional circles may be quite negative when you move into a new venture. There are some people that don’t like change. Unfortunately, not everyone will be happy for you if you succeed. If you are perceived as a tall poppy in your field, you will quickly be cut down to size. The golden rule is that it is acceptable to distance yourself from others if they are insulting or offending you, even if they are family members.
Remember that there are some people that will always have something to say, and it will always be negative in nature. If you are working hard to establish a new profile, they will be quick to call you a workaholic. Yet if you sit in bed watching Netflix all day, you will be accused of being lazy and not contributing to society. If you care about your appearance, you are vain but if you do not, you have let yourself go. And so on. Ignore these people as you will never be able to win, whatever you do. The key is to keep your circle of trusted associates very exclusive (which may well prove a moveable feast because friends come and go all the time). Don’t worry if people accuse you of being a snob for being selective about who you mix with. Filter any negative energy from outside that zone. In some cases, you may not be able to eliminate people who are putting you down completely because they may be family members. I am hardly the Emily Post of etiquette, but in my view, if someone is really upsetting you on purpose, it is fine to distance yourself from them. Remember the saying (which also seems to be a popular tattoo these days), “blood makes you related, loyalty makes you family”. If people are talking about you behind your back, that too can generate negative energy. However, this is difficult to prove (ie both that it generates negative energy in the atmosphere and that they are saying things about you) as you must have evidence or it will all be in your imagination. If people are talking about you behind your back then they are not using their time productively which could be used to develop their garden. But if this is actually happening, be flattered. At least people find you interesting enough to talk about! Don’t be surprised if you have difficulty relating to people who have the luxury of not working. You have to be thick-skinned to survive in the working world, and we don’t all have the luxury of being kept women. A lot of people don’t understand how rewarding we find our work. Finally, some people ask too many personal questions and ought to learn how to mind their own business (if they have one). “It’s not like you’ll ever practice law again” someone once told me. This really hurt my feelings. Education and experience in the workforce is never a waste of time. I wouldn’t be able to run an extensive urban farm and operate my own business had I not studied law and arts at university. Education and work experience gave me the confidence and skills to branch out into a new venture. Study does not restrict a person to a particular vocation. It should broaden a person’s intellectual horizons and develop critical thinking. When I returned to New Zealand after spending many years working at an international law firm, I changed practice areas. This would not have been possible without my academic background, coupled with solid work experience in many different practice groups. Education builds a foundation for the future. Work experience gives a person life skills. On a more serious level, you should be able to start again financially even if you lose your entire net worth.
While working as a lawyer for an international firm in England and France, I represented large companies in both transactional and contentious matters. In doing so, I learnt a lot about the way businesses operate and how they are structured. I also learnt how to negotiate which is useful when owning a business. When negotiating supply agreements, prices are negotiable. While contracts can have a fixed duration, there may be a mechanism for adjusting the price. My legal education is useful in terms of researching issues related to the garden. A long time ago, a neighbour planted a willow tree near the boundary with our section. The roots of the willow tree (which are notorious for spreading in their search for water, hence why they are often planted along river banks), as well as a Cotoneaster tree (classified by the council as an invasive weed) travelled underneath the foundations of our house. We were also concerned that the roots of these trees would interfere with our drains. Pipes can be extremely expensive to repair. I was interested in learning both of our rights and obligations in respect of the trees and felt grateful that I was able to research this on my own. I own and operate my own business. I have no background in running a business. I didn’t do a Commerce degree at university, nor do I have an MBA degree. I also didn’t have a business plan.
In terms of my career, it was one of two things that I always swore I’d never do. The other was to be a politician. My reluctance to own a business may be surprising for some people, who prefer to be their own boss. However, I have never had trouble working for someone else in my previous positions, in fact I enjoyed the team dynamic very much. I have no background in running a business. I didn’t do a Commerce degree at uni, nor do I have an MBA. Running a business entails a high level of risk. Lawyers prefer to advise on risks rather than run them. I was lucky as I didn’t require a bank loan to start Anita’s Garden. Like law, the higher you want to go with the business, the harder you have to work. Building an empire can be enriching. Businesses employ staff therefore increasing the workforce and are in a position to make a difference in the world. For me, one of the most difficult aspects of running a business is accepting money from customers. At a law firm, funds are handled by the billing department so the issue is less uncomfortable, unless of course the client wants to complain about the bill. I also struggle with profit margins as it just seems wrong to make money from marking up stock. One of the advantages is that it enables me to have a bit more freedom. Unlike at a large law firm with corporate clients, I can hold shares without being accused of insider trading. I also have more freedom in how I structure my day. The home, garden and office are conveniently rolled into one. This saves commuting time. As I am my own boss I am even able to go for a run in the middle of the day which is handy as the days are quite cool and short at this time of the year. I also get to spend more time with Ginger, a stray cat who was always hanging around in the garden and rapidly found a way into our home and hearts. But for those of you who do work in a large firm, you have to look on the bright side. Having a separation between work and home can be nice (unless of course you are constantly bringing work home or can’t stop thinking about work). Furthermore, if you ever get locked out of your home or apartment, at least you can rely on the law firm’s office always being open. For those looking to launch their own venture, here are a few tips. Scribble all your ideas in a notebook. Don’t share them with anyone. You have to be secretive to have a competitive edge. You might also be teased by family and friends that they are pure grandeur. Be prepared to be tenacious in promoting your business. Social media is the best (and often free) means of advertising. Be careful what you say, both online and offline. You certainly don’t want to be sued for defamation! Make sure that you keep accounting records for tax purposes. I feel fortunate that I studied accounting at school and also that Dad gave me extra tuition over the weekends as he was an accountant. Businesses require open communication. This is quite different to law where you try to say as little as possible, while at the same time trying to cover the firm and the client as much as possible. Naturally, this is a difficult task and it is for this reason that lawyers can justify charging the earth for their services. In the future, I am interested to see if I can help people overseas. I did end up practising international law so it is perhaps natural for my interest in gardening to take an international dimension. To me, it does not matter if climates or growing conditions are different to those in New Zealand. With adequate research, it should be possible to advise gardeners on how to adapt their growing methods accordingly. Concepts such as vertical gardening are relevant globally. Anita’s Garden grew organically. It stemmed from a hobby that, put simply, makes me happy. I was fortunate to grow up on a ¼ acre section in Whangarei surrounded by fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. I helped my parents in the garden over the weekends. In those days there were no Xboxes, smart phones, Ipads or even the internet.
Gardening is great therapy for grief, as I discovered after Dad passed away in 2012. I planted an oriental lily called “Hot Spot” in the garden in his memory. Gardening is also great therapy for stress. From September until April, the garden is a nice place to spend time after a day at the office, when the days are longer in the Southern Hemisphere and it is possible to potter around outdoors. The garden is also a great place to take your mind off your problems, because nature can be very healing. It is gratifying when something grows. Flowers in bloom are beautiful left outside or can be picked and brought inside to admire. If you live in an apartment in a big city, try having a few pot plants on your balcony. If this isn’t practicable, the next best thing is to visit a public park or garden. I highly recommend Kew Gardens in London and the Gardens of Versailles outside Paris. Whenever I felt down while I was living in Europe, I always felt better after wandering around a public garden. I really enjoy growing our own fruit and vegetables. However, complete self-sufficiency remains an unrealistic goal for many reasons. Firstly, there are space constraints on an urban section. Secondly, it is difficult to produce fruit and vegetables evenly throughout the year due to uneven temperatures, which can cause crops to bolt to seed prematurely. Working outdoors with soil, seeds and plants has kept me grounded and taught me to appreciate what’s really essential to our survival. Air, water, food and shelter (put simply, protection from the elements) are basic necessities in life. Some sunlight is probably helpful too, for vitamin D. The internet, hair straighteners and luxury cosmetics are not necessary to our survival. While it's understandable to want to enjoy the finer things that life has to offer, I have relished being taken back to basics. In my next blog post, I will discuss how I created my own startup, Anita’s Garden, in more detail. To recap, I was recently asked by a lawyer who shall be known as X about how I left the legal profession and launched my own startup called Anita’s Garden. For this topic, I think it makes more sense for me to start at the end and work backwards, even though this may seem back to front.
X’s email is founded on the assumption that I didn’t enjoy practising law anymore and that was the reason that I left the profession. This is incorrect. I didn’t leave law because I didn’t love it anymore. I left law because I found something else that I love even more. I left a profession to which I dedicated many years of my educational and working life, a profession which I found incredibly rewarding and a profession for which I still have so much respect. Being a lawyer is so much more than merely a job. The legal profession is a fraternity, a family, an extended and complex support network. I am constantly blown away by how much encouragement fellow lawyers have given me over the years, both in New Zealand and when I worked overseas. It was difficult balancing work at a large corporate firm with the maintenance of such a large, productive garden. I decided to devote myself full time to Anita’s Garden so I could inspire, encourage and assist others to develop their own private happy space – a sanctuary, a haven, an oasis at home which allows them to escape their problems, as well as the pressures and responsibilities of adulthood. I also created Anita’s Garden because I feel passionate about educating others so that they can learn how to grow their own fruit and vegetables organically, feed their families, improve their health and reduce their grocery bills. I’m genuinely horrified that my startup might encourage people with a similar academic and professional background to leave the legal profession and embark on a journey similar to my own. That was definitely not my intention! I don’t consider myself to be a trailblazer. I am surprised that anyone would want to follow in my footsteps. I’ve always just tried to make what I deemed to be the best decisions in the circumstances, after considering all the factors. For me, moving away from legal practice was the right decision but each person’s journey is different. There are no precise steps that you must follow. Each person must decide if and when the time is right. Trust your instincts. This might sound vague but I’ve always been reluctant to advise people what to do in personal situations, as I don’t like being blamed when things go wrong. Don’t forget that this isn’t a point of no return. Many lawyers in New Zealand have left legal practice to do something else, only to return to law at a later stage in their life. The grass always appears greener on the other side. Sometimes it’s better the devil you know than the one you don’t. Don’t forget that it can take some time to settle into a profession. Give things a chance. For me, law was not exactly love at first sight. It took me awhile to understand exactly what it meant to be a lawyer and to really enjoy what I was required to do as part of my job. Basically, you get paid to read the really boring bits. Every job has aspects which are dull, so I’ve learnt to take the bad with the good. In X’s case, as you become more senior, the dangling carrot of partnership becomes very lucrative. To start all over again means taking a cut in seniority and remuneration. This is a major consideration when one has financial commitments such as a mortgage and dependent children. But sometimes you need to take a step back in order to take two steps forward. Nothing is ever a complete waste of time. Over the course of the past ten years, X gained valuable experience, contacts and confidence in herself. Sometimes what we are doing at present is a part of something even greater further down the track. In a nutshell, life is a journey rather than a destination. Relax and embrace it! A few days ago, I received an interesting email from a lawyer I know who I shall call X, of an anonymous country of origin, law firm and practice area, to protect her identity. X had stumbled upon my blog after we became reconnected on LinkedIn. I would like to share X’s message and my response in a series of posts on my blog, since other readers may have similar questions. X congratulated me on my startup, Anita’s Garden, which she said made her feel inspired and encouraged. X commended me on always knowing that I wanted to become a gardener. X explained that she was thinking of doing something similar herself but didn’t know how or where to start. X said that she had worked at her law firm for ten years and that it was hard for her to leave behind everything that she had worked so hard for. X wanted to know how I had managed to leave law to do something completely different. In particular, she was interested in how I started the process and wanted me to guide her through the steps I took to create Anita’s Garden.
I should start by saying that there are quite a few questions, issues and even a couple of assumptions contained in X’s message. I would also like to elaborate on some tangential points arising from X’s email. To prepare my response, I began by dissecting X’s email into a number of components. I have been sketching my thoughts in draft form over the last couple of days. There is a lot that I would like to say in response, so I will organise my thoughts into a series of posts on my blog. It is difficult to relate the story of my journey from law to developing Anita’s Garden chronologically. Since returning to New Zealand in 2010, there were many events in my life that occurred in parallel rather than sequentially. While it is natural to want to construct a chronology, a timeline won’t adequately capture the essence of my journey. I think the best way to structure my response is over the course of a number of posts that cover the different themes, issues and questions raised by X’s email. There will, of course, be some overlap as it is difficult to look at things in isolation. I find that even if I want to examine the detail, I’m still always trying to put things into context! In the end, I have settled on organising the information under the following headings. 1. Pursuing a career in law and leaving the legal profession 2. How my interest in gardening evolved 3. Creating and running my own startup, Anita’s Garden 4. Reflections on the value of higher education, years spent working as a lawyer in large corporate law firms internationally and where I am today 5. How to deal with negativity from other people in relation to all of the topics above Keep checking back regularly as I cover each of these topics in more detail. Negotiation is central to both law and life in general. As a former corporate lawyer, a large part of my role in acting for the firm’s clients involved negotiating with legal counsel for the other party in disputes and transactions. The goal was to reach a private agreement, without the need to take formal legal action such as litigation or arbitration. Negotiation also occurs regularly in day to day life, even though it may be conducted in a more informal way and therefore be disguised as mere dialogue. Even a discussion about a trivial matter such as what to have for dinner may include an element of negotiation. Negotiation is about communication and compromise. It forces both parties to listen to each other, reconsider their initial position and try to meet somewhere in the middle. Normally, some give and take is required in order to reach an agreement.
The word no is extremely powerful. It signals the end of the road and a refusal to engage in further discussion. It’s a bit like issuing an ultimatum to someone and saying “take it or leave it”. At the office, no was a word that I seldom used. Lawyers usually try to find solutions to problems. An important part of the role of a legal advisor is to advise on risk. The question was therefore not whether the client could act in a certain way, but what the legal implications would be if they decided to do so. In my personal life, it’s also a word that I try to avoid because compromise is the key to building and maintaining successful relationships. By contrast, acquiescence, the result of coercion, can be dangerous. It is entirely appropriate to say no and stand your ground. Where consent is an issue, no means no. End of story. As I develop the concept of Anita’s Garden from a physical green space into an entity, I have found myself constantly engaging in negotiations with customers, suppliers and consultants. Lately, I have been finding that on the odd occasion when I have used the word no and really meant it, I have been met with forceful resistance which has left me taken aback. There is a fine line between tenacity and being perceived as pushy. While the former is an admirable quality, the latter can be a little off-putting. Furthermore, respect is an important attribute. Sometimes, you need to back down and respect someone’s feelings when they say no. |
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