Kathy Slack: A Year in the Garden, A Life Renewed

Kathy Slack's transformation from the edge of burnout to the serenity of her vegetable garden is profoundly inspiring. In her memoir, Rough Patch: How a Year in the Garden Brought Me Back to Life, she shares how reconnecting with nature became the healing remedy her soul craved. We had the pleasure of speaking with Kathy to delve into how the simple acts of planting seeds and tending to her garden helped her rediscover hope, joy, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Kathy, your book shares your journey from burnout to recovery through gardening. Can you tell us more about that turning point when you decided to leave your high-flying career and how gardening became your therapy?

I had been working really hard for nearly a decade. Travelling internationally, always jet lagged, always stressed and eventually my body and my mind shut down. I was signed off work and, honestly, lay in bed mostly unable to function and consumed by sorrow and self-loathing. Eventually my ever-patient mum coaxed me into the garden where I sat amongst some raised beds which we'd installed when we first moved in, and I had diligently neglected since. And when I put my hands in the soil, I found unexpectedly a kind of peace. Relief from the constant chatter in my head. And over the course of several months, the veg patch quietly brought me back to life.

In Rough Patch, you write about the healing powers of nature. How would you describe the connection between mental health and the natural world, especially for those who might not yet see it?

We instinctively know that nature makes us feel better. And there's lots of evidence to show how it works but not much to show why. Personally, I think nature reminds us that we are just creatures, just being, and that all the minutiae we worry about day-to-day is really not as important as we think it is. Growing vegetables specifically offers more than that. It gives us agency and helps us take back a little bit of control in our lives. A walk in the countryside will calm you down but growing vegetables will give you hope.

You talk about the lessons learned from your garden - what do you think gardening can teach us about patience, resilience, and personal growth?

What I love most about growing vegetables is that it's one of the few areas in life, certainly when you do it just as a hobby, where it really doesn't matter if things go wrong. When you have perfectionist tendencies like me, it's very liberating to see something fail and say to yourself, Oh well.

You’ve mentioned how small moments in the garden, like planting leeks or tending to your harvest, provided transformative insights. Can you share one of these insights and how it helped shift your mindset during your recovery?

It's amazing when you see a lifeless seed germinate and grow into a huge triffid because it reminded me that nature just ploughs on life, just continues, things move forward. For example, you plant a radish which is a really tiny seed and four weeks later you have a ruby the size of a golf ball. The awe you feel from seeing something useful being created from nothing but sunlight is a drug.

Your book beautifully blends storytelling and recipes. How did you decide to incorporate recipes into your memoir, and what role does food play in your healing process?

It felt natural to include them because the act of creating a recipe with my harvests was part of the healing process for me. I find it very creative and satisfying - the culmination of my efforts and a way to bring the natural world into daily life. I think a plate of seasonal food can reconnect us with nature just as much as being outdoors can.

One of the most striking parts of your memoir is the way you use humour to balance the serious themes of mental health. How did you find the balance between candidness and light-heartedness when sharing your story?

While some of the humour is a little dark, and I hope doesn't make light of the situation, I did also want to make rough patch a joyful pleasurable read. Because ultimately it is a hopeful joyous story.

You highlight how reconnecting with the earth helped you rediscover hope. How has gardening changed your approach to life and well-being beyond the garden?

The main thing now is that it helps me remember, when I get fretful or stuck in the treacle of life like we all do sometimes, that the things I worry about aren’t, in the grand scheme of things, really is important as I sometimes feel they are. And that's all I need to come down and set me back on an even keel.

For anyone struggling with burnout or mental health challenges, what advice would you offer based on your own journey?

I'm always hesitant to offer advice because everyone's experience is so individual and what worked for me, might turn out to be incredibly stressful or frustrating for others. But I would say, though I know this will sound trite, to find a way to hang on, sit tight, because it will eventually abate.

Looking back on your year in the garden, what would you say was the most unexpected lesson or benefit that came from it?

A whole new career! I'd never thought of writing or cooking for a living and because it is a way to express my passion, here I am.

Kathy’s story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the profound healing found in life’s simplest pleasures.

Rough Patch: How a Year in the Garden Brought Me Back to Life by Kathy Slack is out on 6 February in hardback, eBook and Audio (Robinson, £18.99).