I need a medic alert bracelet

I’ve reached the conclusion that I need a medical alert bracelet. Not because I’m getting older. Not because of any underlying medical condition. Purely because my family have become so accustomed to me disappearing into the garden that I’m fairly certain I could lie unconscious for most of the day before anyone noticed.

Picture the scene.

8:00 am. I head outside with an ambitious list of jobs. The family barely acknowledges my departure because this is entirely routine. “Mum’s in the garden.” Excellent. Everything is exactly as it should be.

Now let’s fast-forward.

10:00 am. No sign of Mum. Perfectly normal.

12:30 pm. Still no sign. Obviously she’s weeding something.

2:00 pm. Silence. She’s probably started another project. Or found a weed she took personally. Or decided to move seventeen tonnes of soil from one end of the property to the other because it “made sense at the time.”

4:30 pm. Still missing. She’s fine. She’s almost certainly talking to the chickens. Or the roses. Or both.

It’s only around dinner time that a tiny flicker of concern might begin to emerge.

“Has anyone seen Mum?”

“She’s probably in the garden.”

“Should someone check?”

“Only if we’re hungry.”

The worrying part is that a medical alerting system isn’t entirely unreasonable. The garden contains an astonishing number of opportunities to accidentally feature in a WorkSafe training video. There are chainsaws. Pole trimmers. Axes. Sabre saws. Loppers capable of removing small trees - and probably limbs if used with sufficient enthusiasm. Power tools that all come with instruction manuals containing the phrase, “Do not do exactly what you’re about to do.”

Then there are the ladders. The trees, when I planted them, were adorable little saplings. Now they’re big enough to climb. Which means they’re also big enough to fall out of. Nature is nothing if not fair.

Then there are the wildlife hazards. Our rooster occasionally wakes up and chooses violence. The sheep have all the spatial awareness of bumper cars. Pancho, my Labrador, is wonderfully loyal but possesses the uncanny ability to appear directly behind me the exact moment I’m carrying something heavy. The cats contribute absolutely nothing in an emergency. If I collapsed dramatically beside the vegetable garden, I suspect Master Possum would simply sit on me until I became warm enough to qualify as furniture.

The garden itself is hardly helping. I’ve dug holes. Filled holes. Created new holes. Moved enormous rocks. Stacked railway sleepers. Transported enough bags of compost to qualify for a weightlifting competition. There are wheelbarrows waiting to tip over. Branches waiting to whip me in the face. Brambles that regard human flesh as a recreational activity. And somewhere, lurking quietly, is a rake that has been waiting its entire life for me to step on it. 

I’ve also realised that I’ve developed the slightly concerning habit of tackling jobs that begin with the words: “I wonder if I can…”

I wonder if I can move this log myself.

I wonder if I can just reach that branch.

I wonder if I can balance on this completely unsuitable object instead of walking all the way back to get the ladder.

These are not the thoughts of a sensible person. These are the thoughts of someone who has spent entirely too much time alone in the garden. 

So here’s my proposal. A gardener’s medical alert bracelet. Not connected to an ambulance. Not connected to a monitoring service. Just connected to the family. If it detects that I’ve been lying suspiciously still for more than five minutes, an alarm sounds inside the house.

ALERT.

Your gardener appears to have stopped gardening. This is highly unusual. Please investigate.

Perhaps it could escalate if ignored.

Level One: Mum hasn’t moved for ten minutes.

Level Two: The chickens are beginning to look concerned.

Level Three: Pancho has appeared at the front door looking sad.

Level Four: Extreme risk of dinner not being cooked.

At that point, I reckon I’d finally have everyone’s attention. Until then, they’ll simply assume I’m exactly where I’ve always been…happily wandering around the garden, talking to plants, positioning wooden toadstools, and making entirely sensible decisions involving chainsaws.

Which, to be fair, is usually true.

Did you know?

It’s not only cacti that store water. They're just the celebrities of the plant world. Plenty of ordinary garden favourites have their own built-in water tanks. Sedums, sempervivums (hens and chicks), jade plants, aeoniums and even some euphorbias quietly stash away moisture in their fleshy leaves and stems, allowing them to survive weeks without rain. It's a clever survival strategy called succulence - and it's why these plants can shrug off a dry spell while the rest of the garden is dramatically flopping about demanding a drink.

What’s new on Behind the Garden Gate this week?

• 📲 Nitty Gritty: this week I’m talking about how I’m failing spectacularly at this social media influencing thing and why I’m totally OK with that.

• 🌿Nitty Gritty: and this week I’m also talking about how gardening is essentially a rebellion against the attention economy.