Gardening Bootcamp – David’s Stories.

(This article was written for David’s monthly Valley Voice Magazine column)

Driving past our local school on a weekday night just on dusk is a sight worth slowing down for.  Like white butterflies around a brassica, Groups of red faced scantily clad gorgeous gals flit around the school field  performing all manner of physically demanding tasks that make an All Black coaching session look like an origami course in a rest home.

Getting close to one of these beautiful butterflies is a bit of a challenge, however my skills honed each summer with a butterfly net in the Plant Centre came in handy, and one evening I stopped and  managed to trap one lady for long enough to ask ‘What on earth are you doing’.

The reply was simple, and actually, if I had a few more leaves in my upper branches, I could have probably worked it out myself.

‘We are doing Fitness Bootcamp’ she puffed her reply while her legs, arms and chest went up and down like bunches of grapes in a windy vineyard .

I’ve learnt over the years through bitter experience that there is no right reply to comments like this.  My ‘That’s great’ could be interpreted as ‘So you think I am fat and need to do Bootcamp’.  My asking  ‘Why are you doing Bootcamp’ would be a bit too obvious a question, as the lady in question had obviously had some good growing seasons over a number of years.

However I’ve never been one to use a pair of secateurs when a chainsaw is available, so I boldly suggested that I knew of a much more effective way of losing weight.

‘Come and work for me for free’ I suggested.  Not the most original pickup lines, but at least it got my message across.

‘I can set up a whole set of fitness exercises in our gardens’ I went on, completely ignoring the increasing agitation of my captee as the rest of her group started carrying  weights not too dissimilar in size  to a bag of cement the entire length of the running track. She seemed surprisingly keen to join them.

How about I set you up with the ‘Compost bag stretch’  I suggested – it’s a great little warm up exercise which is lifting 4 bags of compost onto a wheelbarrow and pushing it up a hill towards the gardens.

Or the ‘Calf muscle builder’, I went on, it’s great for toning the legs, with the bonus I get my vegetable garden dug at the same time.

Or the ‘Stomach and back tightener’ , gets rid of unwanted flab, builds core body strength, and I get mulch spread around my orchard trees.

Not a lot of response from my subject,  so I suggested the  ‘Weeders Wiggle’, which  is particularly good for all over toning, and is a good daily stretching and bending exercise that simply must be done .

I also told of the day long course I run;  The  ‘David got a bit carried away with the chainsaw, and we now only have 1 day to turn this disaster zone of twigs and bare soil into something people will pay to see as our annual Sculpture Gardens  exhibition opening is in a week’s time’. This is an extreme form of weight loss gardening that should only be done sparingly and in emergency situations. The bonus with this one, is that 10cubic metres of compost and mulch later and a couple hundred holes, you are so tired that there is no chance of having enough energy to eat much at the end of the day.

‘Stop!!, that sounds awful, I will not come and work for you’ came the cry from the Bootcamp Butterfly, and she flitted off to join the rest of her group, who at this moment were doing a sideways twisting movement that I could have easily recreated by giving them a hedge to prune.

I was left pondering the situation. Why would you inflict pain and indignity upon yourself in a public situation, when you could achieve the same results working in your garden? The added bonus of gardening is once you have finished your exercise program you can look back and say, ‘Wow, that looks great, I’ve really achieved something today’.  

For anyone who is inspired, Free Gardening Bootcamps are run at Kaipara Coast Plant Centre and Sculpture Gardens most weekends – contact us to book a space!

Disclaimer: A huge thank you to the Bootcamp Beauty who provided the idea for this article, and if you or your friends happen to read this article,  I will deny all knowledge of you being the stories inspiration in case anything I have written is found to be offensive.