I am thinking through my relations in the garden, and it’s increasingly apparent that much of what I do depends on material relations. Material relations include the tools, water systems, metals and timbers, transport histories and cultivated seeds that are entangled in my gardening practice.

Now this point is fairly obvious - in the garden I use a hose, a garden fork and gloves. But I am ‘thinking with’ those relations in ways that are deepening my experience of interdependence.

For example, ‘my garden’ exists within fences. Those fences are material infrastructures that keep wallabies and kangaroos out and keep my ‘area of responsibility’ in. But they are not neutral. They reflect colonial property rights regimes and Aboriginal dispossession. They are political and historical artefacts.

Why should it matter? That there are fences. That I use gardening gloves. That I have a pitch fork to turn my compost. That I use a hose and rely on water mains pressure to wet my garden.

It matters because these too are relations, that have meaning and that shape my actions in the garden. They also shape the actions of more-than-human lives and processes.

Material relations

Coffee as an energy flow

Assembling compost