A garden! A garden!

We've never been a green thumb family.

Most stuff gets killed by us. I remember being excited about winning a flower pot (full of flowers) at a church activity, praying that the flowers would live. Well it wasn't long before they were all dead :(

We've always known the importance of having a garden but just haven't been able to achieve it, which always makes me sad. There is many a life lesson to be learnt by the law of the harvest. Let alone the money savings, and environmental savings ( growing plants in home gardens uses less water, pesticides, less energy miles - delivery of foods from far away cost more in energy than the food gives etc so if everyone grew more of their own food less of the world would be destroyed)

About 7 years ago we decided that WE WILL have a vegetable garden. The Mr went and bought wood to make the large boxes, cane mulch, dirt, seeds etc etc. We made a garden that took a bit of work and cost a pretty penny. Of course nothing grew. NOT A THING!! heartbreaking it was.

Actually, I lie,  something DID grow -  one beautiful tomato plant that we DIDN'T PLANT.... it grew out of the compost bin next to the garden. Everytime we ate one of the  tomatoes that grew on it, I would say "I hope you're enjoying that $10 tomato!"

That ended our escapades as gardeners. We didn't try again on a big scale and just knew that gardening wasn't for us. We just didn't have green thumbs, didn't have the knowledge, didn't have the money to throw away on attempting to grow food that might not grow,  I don't know but we just didn't have whatever IT is to be good gardeners. And then we moved to the city to a house with no garden, so that helped us calm our guilt for about 5 years.

Earlier this year I borrowed THIS BOOK from the library. It was upbeat, positive and simple to follow with great little handdrawn garden plot maps eg a salad garden, a stirfry garden, a curry garden. It inspired me to want to try again and be successful.

After reading this article with several quotes about the importance of having a garden I knew that we should attempt a garden again. But as with most things it takes The Mr to be on board for them to actually happen :) (ie I wrangle babies while everyone else works )

We crazily planted this year in April, just before the start of winter hoping to catch the last of autumn.

And guess what?? STUFF GREW!

I was so excited.


Not everything grew but enough did to give us the gardening bug. I have not had to buy a single lettuce in months! We just pick a leaf or two as we need it and we only planted five lettuces! Though our pea's didnt grow abundantly the pods that did grow were snatched up by the kids and eaten while still in the garden. They taste like mint! one child exclaimed. Kids that don't eat many vegetables happily eat raw ones that they've plucked off a vine or from out of the ground. Interesting.


We have just redug the garden and are looking forward to growing our Spring Garden.

Fingers crossed things will grow again. *pretty please*


Tell me your gardening advice.....