On May 1st, I became a proud member of the Gardeners' Association,
I got my card with a stamp and sticker for the year 2024.
I'll write out a few thoughts here…
A few stamps and I have the key. I'm becoming a timeshare owner.
Books that come to mind when I'm in the garden:
There are three books that accompany me through the garden in succession. First it was The Gardener's Year by Karel Capek. A classic, after which my photography project is named. But Karel included me too much with facts, so many types of plants, so many instructions on what to do and what not to do. I don't want to have a garden like my neighbor, who obviously has some military academy or accounting career behind him. Everything in his garden blooms and produces on command. He won't even let the weeds come up.
The second book, closer to my heart, is The Revolution of One Stalk of Grass by the Japanese farmer Masanobuya Fukuoka. A book about farming that is not just about farming. A manifesto for not fighting against nature and an inspiration to act in a way that does not disturb the natural course of things. It has influenced a wide variety
of people: farmers, gardeners, environmental activists, organic farmers, slow food enthusiasts, people studying Eastern teachings and others who feel that it is our retreat from nature that has created intractable problems.
And the third, closest to my heart, is a book by Jirí Trnka -
The Garden. It is the most charming of all because it describes a mysterious garden. Mine looks the same, it has the same mysterious gate with a golden key, a mysterious arcade to get in, and yesterday
I found out that I have a mysterious cat who reigns there and disappears as soon as I come in. My dad used to read me bedtime stories from this book as a child.
The biggest pests in the garden are slugs. I pick them up carefully and throw them over the fence. I don't want to hurt them.
So, imagine, I'm getting into the rhythm of grass growth. I already know I have to go mow in a week because it's going to grow. I bought a rake!
You're supposed to plant Africans next to tomatoes. They're supposed to protect them.
The only way to get to the garden is by the cycle path. It goes around the river. Sometimes there's beautiful light on the path and in the water. It smells everywhere. Grass, hay, water. I don't think I can get
a picture of the birds singing, but who knows.
Boots! The best invention right off the hoe.
I got that mug from you. You made it for me when you came to Bohemia for a visit last fall. I feel a strange, intimate sensation when
I put my lips to the edge of the object your hands shaped. It's very nice to drink from.
The viburnum has bloomed beautifully. It greets all the settlers who pass by to their gardens.
My mother sometimes comes to the garden with me. We're more together, and that's good.
The last contact I had with David was in Oxford, 20th July, 2024.
David passed away on Winter Solstice, 21st December, 2024
at 12:05 am.
I had acquired a 200m2 garden from a lady who, when she learned that this colony of gardens would soon be closing down, had no intention of continuing her membership.
The lady was apparently of a slightly bohemian nature, because unlike the other hard-working settlers, she did not grow only vegetables. Various ornamental grasses, shrubs
and flowers grew everywhere.
I'm only in the few months of gardening, but already it's been a very interesting experience to recognize all the planted treasures that are gradually being revealed, budding and blooming.
On May 7, 2024 a day came that took me very much by surprise.
My friend David, an Englishman living on a boat in Oxford, announced to the world in his blog that he had cancer.
An aggressive form of cancer, metastasizing freely to various parts
of his body. He is currently undergoing the classic chemotherapy treatment, after which it remains to be seen whether it will make sense to continue the treatment or just numb the pain with opiates
by the end of it.
David is a writer. He loves the Czech Republic and the Czech language (he speaks Czech quite well), the photographs of Ibra Ibrahimovic, the work of Václav Havel and the philosopher Jan Patocka. Somewhat ironically, David has long been involved with
the topic of hope. Hope. He has even written a book about it.
He lectures about it to students at universities, to pensioners in old people's homes, to soldiers in the army,
in rehabilitation institutes and in facilities where we encounter human suffering in various forms. Every other Saturday David teaches seniors to dance in a pub by the River Thames, rides his bike, writes fiction and makes pottery for a living. He is a member of
a community garden where he grows vegetables. He is quite dependent on its harvest or non-harvest for his livelihood as he does not have much income. But he has chosen to live this way voluntarily, and I would say he lives a happy and uncomplicated life.
It was thanks to David that I came to the intention of finding a garden, a piece of land where I could grow my own food. Me, a kid from a block of flats who hasn't the faintest idea how flora works.
I guess it was meant to be, because the opportunity to have a trial garden was soon offered to me.
My gardening project now takes on a much deeper meaning. In the form of a photo journal, I am documenting my individual steps in the garden. I think of David in them,
I want to share my findings with him, the joy of discovery. I want to thank him for planting, by his own example, the seed of curiosity in the people around him that anything is possible, anything we wish. That each person can live, for example,
an adventurous life on a boat, write a book, or give up consumerism and follow a path that is more in tune with nature, with its rhythm.
I will be sending this journal to David along with comments on what was going through my mind during the shoot.
