Since I moved into my house I have dabbled with trying to grow my own veggies, I had great success with growing peas and herbs and absolutely abysmal attempts with mainly tomatoes. I know my issue fully lies with either not watering enough or at all especially in the summer months. Sometimes it was because I'd get in from work late and other times just because I downright couldn't be bothered.
Yet ever since I was little I've wanted my own little allotment or in an ideal world a homestead; my great grandad had an allotment in his back garden as he could never quite give up on his farmers life. That man instilled a love of nature that my grandad and dad in turn helped foster in their own ways. I was also quite obsessed and still am with the original River Cottage series and the idea of being self sufficient especially when I learnt about Anderson shelters and the grow your own movement from the world wars.
Above on the left is my far too squished and poorly spaced first attempt at a veg plot and on the right the ill fated tomatoes; considering I had 80 seedlings not one survived well none that I kept anyway! So they always say you learn from your mistakes and this taught me a lot about proper spacing, what to grow as companions and what not to grow alongside.
I have bought a couple of metal frame open bottom planters that I'm going to use for my veggies and then my beat up pallet planter can be used for cut flowers. I have a metal arch that ended up being huge and too flimsy to actually put in my lawn either side of the path; that will be perfect for climbing veg such as peas and cucumbers. My Scotsman has kindly subscribed me to Pot Gang so I can grow 3 different things each month, he is of course thinking with his belly and what I can cook with it! But who am I to complain about his reasons why when he is facilitating me in being intentional and getting me outside even if it's just in our back garden. I just need this snow and rain to nick off even for an hour or two!
I'd love to hear about your gardening successes, learning curves and funny stories. Is gardening in it's many forms something that you want to do to be more intentional in your life?
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