Growing local
Starting my journey on the path to organic home-grown vegetables
I have just been lucky enough to move into our first "own home" - my husband and I, that is. Upon walking into the house, my heart warmed when I saw glimples of fruiting lemons and camquat trees from our kitchen window! I have always wanted my own garden, and I was so excited to see what it was and what we could make of it.
I ventured through the wooden gate leading into the garden upon which a carved wooden sign hung simply saying "welcome". The gate was attached to a wooden frame upon which rose branches and bouganvillea was entwined (and another variety of climbing plant that I am yet to identify). To my right was a beautiful magnolia in full flower and sure enough, to the left, were two varieties of lemon and two varieties of camquat trees lining up like soldiers against our kitchen and living room windows. In the far corner was a statuesque decorative banana plant sitting amongst a scattering of birds of paradise, pastel pink blooms of bromeliads peeking through the foliage. A paradise indeed.
Turning the corner, I was elated to find a two raised garden beds yearning for attention and a little tender love and care. My next project!
After obtaining an armful of gardening books from the local library and zooming through the pages trying to absorb every bit of information I could on the organic cultivation of food producing plants, I set to the task of cultivating the soil and planted my first seeds. I now have coriander, mint, climbing long-bean (new shoots just came through a week ago), sweet basil, rocket, garlic chives, marigolds near the two varieties of tomato, spinach, capsicum, eggplant, baby carrots, strawberries and spring onion. I am still waiting for my okra seeds and cucumber seeds to germinate...
I never thought that I would take to gardening, but there is something so special about being so close to the earth, it is almost meditative. I look forward to waking up early every morning to water my seedlings, carefully pick off the weak leaves and pull out any weeds. Gardening really is good for the soul...
(next update, when my okra and cucumber seeds germinate!)
I ventured through the wooden gate leading into the garden upon which a carved wooden sign hung simply saying "welcome". The gate was attached to a wooden frame upon which rose branches and bouganvillea was entwined (and another variety of climbing plant that I am yet to identify). To my right was a beautiful magnolia in full flower and sure enough, to the left, were two varieties of lemon and two varieties of camquat trees lining up like soldiers against our kitchen and living room windows. In the far corner was a statuesque decorative banana plant sitting amongst a scattering of birds of paradise, pastel pink blooms of bromeliads peeking through the foliage. A paradise indeed.
Turning the corner, I was elated to find a two raised garden beds yearning for attention and a little tender love and care. My next project!
After obtaining an armful of gardening books from the local library and zooming through the pages trying to absorb every bit of information I could on the organic cultivation of food producing plants, I set to the task of cultivating the soil and planted my first seeds. I now have coriander, mint, climbing long-bean (new shoots just came through a week ago), sweet basil, rocket, garlic chives, marigolds near the two varieties of tomato, spinach, capsicum, eggplant, baby carrots, strawberries and spring onion. I am still waiting for my okra seeds and cucumber seeds to germinate...
I never thought that I would take to gardening, but there is something so special about being so close to the earth, it is almost meditative. I look forward to waking up early every morning to water my seedlings, carefully pick off the weak leaves and pull out any weeds. Gardening really is good for the soul...
(next update, when my okra and cucumber seeds germinate!)
Add a Comment
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Comment by Donna on October 7, 2009 at 10:04am -
Sounds fantastic - I am so jealous of your already established fruit trees!
We have a Gardening Visit group that usually meet at each others houses monthly to discuss our gardens and swap excess seeds or other gardening stuff. If you join the Brisbane Seed Saver Group (under the Group tab) there is a forum there for swapping each month, and Visits are found on the Events tab and labelled as a Garden Visit.
Happy gardening!
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Comment by Mark Thomson on October 7, 2009 at 7:17am - That's the best part of gardens is that they grow with you....
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Comment by Scarlett Patrick on October 6, 2009 at 9:11pm - :)
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Comment by Elaine de Saxe on September 30, 2009 at 7:54pm - On the other hand, you don't have someone else's plants to dig out and find new homes for! ;-)
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Comment by Pree on September 30, 2009 at 1:40pm - Thank you very much. I will post some pictures soon! Yes I am really fortunate to have a mainly established garden. I can imagine it would be quite a job to plan it from scratch.
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Comment by Vanessa on September 30, 2009 at 11:59am - You're so fortunate to have bought a house with a garden already set up with just a need for some TLC. Sounds beautiful and I look forward to some photos
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Comment by Florence on September 29, 2009 at 10:14pm - Lovely blog, sounds like a lovely garden ~ Would love to see some pictures ~
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Comment by Mick Porter on September 29, 2009 at 9:53pm - Sounds great! Looking forward to hearing about the progress.
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Comment by Elaine de Saxe on September 29, 2009 at 3:44pm
- Lovely Pree, thank you for sharing :-) and welcome to this gardening family.
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Comment by christopher zane hart on September 29, 2009 at 2:53pm - welcome to the site , and thanks for the blog your excitment and enthusiasum will help inspire us all in our gardening .
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