I have a fairly tiny garden but I do make it work hard. All year I grow a range of herbs - rosemary, bay, oregano, thyme and parsley. I have a lemon tree and in summer I add basil, tomatoes and other veggies to the mix. This year we are growing zucchinis and eggplant.
We have harvested kilos of tomatoes and quite a few zucchini but our first eggplant is still growing. Every year at about this time as I admire my bountiful supply of tomatoes and other veggies I'm filled with pride and a short lived sense that I could be self sufficient - short lived because I quickly realise that growing a few plants is not equivellent to growing all you need to live on.
I dream of one day having a huge vegetable patch with a rotating planting system, growing a significant portion of our food each year. I would really love to grow my own fruit, I know from experience it tastes so much better than what you can buy in the shops. But in the meantime I continue to feel very proud of the delicious food my tiny garden produces.
Do you grow vegetables? And does ti give you a somewhat overwhelming sense of pride when you get to eat what you have grown?
I'm so impressed by your garden yield. Unfortunately this summer most of my plants just haven't survived the heat - that week we were away when it was 40'C daily didn't help (we had someone water once, but once in the midst of that didn't go a long way!) and they've struggled to recover since. My lemon tree is going well, thankfully, and the established plants but even with shade cloth the tomatoes have struggled and I'm yet to get anything edible! You should feel extra proud given you've had hotter than usual weather this year too :)
ReplyDeleteAside from the fact that we started a bit too late last year, our biggest problem so far has been possums ... the little blighters have left almost nothing to half our tomatoes, our capsicum is basically non-existent, they're eating cucumber and zucchini straight off the vine, breaking branches on everything and then they took my two little pumpkins over the weekend (my first from 5 attempts). The dogs deterred them for a while but apparently they've now worked out how to get into the garden without waking them! All of that said we have had a bumper cucumber crop and have enjoyed some great zucchinis too. It really is a wonderful feeling to go out and pick them straight off the plant ... we'll just have to work out the possum problem :)
ReplyDeleteBravo! I am very impressed, I cannot wait to have a garden of my own - space for it is a pre-requisite at our next place! Not easy though, I see that from living at mum & dad's! Nasty possums stealing the quinces :(
ReplyDeleteHeidi xo