Rachel Purcell: Growing my own food helps me switch off from my phone
Rachel Purcell: growing plants and veg has helped keep the Tipp woman in balance
There’s nothing as satisfying as visiting a loved one and bringing food that you’ve grown yourself. That’s what Rachel Purcell discovered after she started growing her own produce at her home in Co Tipperary.
Rachel, who moved back to her home county and set up her own business, Fetch Coffee, during the pandemic, says she can trace her green fingers back to her childhood and adds she has always found a way to stay in touch with nature, even when living in an urban environment.
“Growing up in Tipperary, we lived at the foot of Slievenamon so I've always had an interest in the outdoors, we'd always be up the mountain any chance we’d get and my mum is really into gardening,” she says, adding her grandparents were keen gardeners too. "It's always been in our family in some ways.”
She says in her adult years, houseplants were her entry point into plant care and growing food.
“When I was living in Dublin, I got really enticed. Obviously living in apartments, I didn't have a garden or anything like that, so I brought the outdoors indoors with houseplants. I started with a few herbs on a windowsill, and it went from there.
“We moved to another part of Dublin and I had a small outdoor space there. When Covid hit, I started experimenting and growing a few of my own things in that little space. I had different herbs and I attempted growing tomatoes, peas and similar.”
Moving home mid-pandemic saw Rachel suddenly have access to a bigger patch for her vegetables. "I kind of don't know myself, I actually have a garden here and I have set up a polytunnel and I’m growing in that. I have the houseplants, the gardening and the polytunnel now so it's an obsession that's only growing more and more by the year.”
As the owner of three dogs and a proud auntie to her young nephew, Rachel is conscious of any products she uses in her garden and around her home when she is tending to her plants. She is an ambassador for Nature Safe, an Irish brand of 100% natural products made using Atlantic seaweed and she says she is glad to have found an alternative to many chemical products.
“I'm always really worried about what I am using, that it isn’t toxic for my dogs. A big draw for me was that Nature Safe is pet-safe and child-safe as well. I have a little nephew and he's always coming down to help me in the polytunnel, he loves it."
Rachel says she has benefitted in many ways from her hobby, not least because it forced her to step away from her phone and other devices.
“I love going out there because it actually makes me get off my phone. I could easily just sit down and be scrolling for ages on my phone but now I'll actually go out and water the plants and check on everything. It’s like a form of mindfulness, just helping me switch off and be really present.”
When it comes to food, she recommends only growing what you know you can consume.
“I have tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, spinach, pumpkin, courgette, cucumber — all things that we eat quite regularly here at home. It is very easy to go overboard, I really had to rein myself back in and not try to do too much, and only grow food that we would actually end up using.”
She says she finds it “amazing” to see a seed she planted grow to become the food on her plate and she loves to share her yield with her loved ones.
“I’m mindful about what I am actually growing and how much we can actually eat. I live close to my parents so I'm able to drop things off to them if I have too much of something. I am trying to be a lot more conscious of what and how much I am growing.
“It's always nice if you do have some things leftover to drop them into neighbours, family and friends. It is really nice to be able to give them something that you've brought from your garden.”
For would-be houseplant owners, Rachel recommends starting small and choosing ‘indestructible’ plants to start with. “Look for plants that are easy to look after, like a snake plant or a ZZ plant, they're great beginner plants,” she advises.
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