For the first 40 or so years of my life, I was never very interested in gardening.
I appreciated the results of other people’s green thumbs, but had no desire to follow in their footsteps – until comparatively recently.
In the past couple of years I have discovered a passion for vegetable gardening. Who would have thought such deep and meaningful conversations could be had with other gardening types about the best mulch to use?
Then there was the embarrassing time when I discovered earthworms in my compost heap and announced proudly to my husband, so the whole neighbourhood could hear – “I’ve got worms!” 😉 .
No day is complete without a meander around the vege patch to water and check on the latest progress of my ‘babies’.
Although definitely still a novice, I’ve had some wins: notably with tomatoes, passionfruit, lettuce, shallots, sweet potato, and various herbs – mainly due to our sub-tropical climate I think, more than my gardening abilities! (I was surprised to learn that in the UK for example, you really need to grow tomatoes indoors if you want to be successful!)
I’ve had some failures too. My zucchini keep succumbing to powdery mildew. My radishes refused to “bulb” up. Green grubs feasted on my broccoli; and something keeps eating my strawberries just as they turn fully red and ripe – but I still haven’t worked out what – or how to stop it!
If a plant doesn’t thrive, I pull it out in disgust and throw it in the compost heap. I guess you could say I’m a bit of an impatient gardener!
So when my potato plant started to die it was the last straw.
I was so annoyed, I reefed it out – and was amazed to discover the perfect little spuds that had been hiding beneath the soil!
That’ll show you much how much of a novice I am. I thought the potato plants had to at least have flowers on them before being ready to harvest. Apparently not. Who knew?!