Helping my Grandad in his garden and allotment when I was "knee high to a grasshopper"
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We moved into a house with a jungle. I looked at it for ages, and every time I looked out of the window it bugged me.
So I started cutting it back and discovered a patio. Then we cut a bit more back, and it bit more, until we found a decent sized garden. My Ma came over, and things were just starting to sprout leaves. Ma told us which were plants, which should be pulled up and which should be treated with brushkiller (don't touch the stuff thirty years later)
By the next summer we had a lovely little garden with a patio, a lawn and some beautiful shrubs and trees. So then we got creative with planters for flowers and digging up an expanse of lawn for vegetables.
One Summer later and we have a baby boy, and a nice garden to put the pram in when the baby went for his siesta. We also had the makings of babyfood growing in our garden. We added window boxes, hanging baskets and soft fruits to our edible collection that year.
When the baby was nearly three we had to leave our little green heaven and come back to the UK. I do hope the next people looked after and enjoyed it. I left them diagrams of what was planted where, just in case.
We came back to the UK and started again, this time with a little girl. That little girl has just moved into her first house, with her first jungle. She's already started attacking it, and they've built two small raised beds for veggies - 3ft x 1ft, so they're going to try Square foot gardening in them.
And so it starts again........Last edited by julesapple; 11-05-2013, 09:21 AM.Jules
Coffee. Garden. Coffee. Does a good morning need anything else?
♥ Nutter in a Million & Royal Nutter by Appointment to HRH VC ♥
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Can't remember not gardening. My sister and I started with a patch by the back door and then when my parents divorced I took over the maintenance of the family garden, whilst doing O and A levels as well. I think I used it as stress relief even then!
I have a vague memory of visiting grandad's allotment in Harrow. Veg growing was a serious business as they were a family of seven when my mum was growing up. Whenever I think of Nanna she is peeling potatoes! When they moved to Suffolk his much smaller garden was immaculate and very formal, square pond in the middle surrounded by regimented African and French marigolds. He died when I was 18 so I never got around to drawing on the wealth of knowledge he must have acquired during years of gardening. Lots of things I'd like to ask him now.
First house had to have a garden, it was 13X23 feet and had a large shed as well for all our bicycles. No veg growing but we did have a pond. Moved to our current house 7 years later and got an allotment when No2 son went to school. Thinking about it everyone in the family gardens and I hope in time my sons will too.Last edited by WendyC; 10-05-2013, 09:13 PM.
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I have been renting my plot from the chapel next door for over 20 years but I have always been mad on sport and I must confess that the garden always came second. The produce has always been quite pathetic and I wasn't too bothered. However, having been looking after the juniors at the golf club for the last 16 years, I decided to let someone else do it. Having the extra time on my hands, I decided to make an effort to get organised and produce much better veggies. This website is wonderful with so much information. Can you believe I had never heard of a raised bed until three months ago!! I have a great plot with nice light soil. It overlooks a cricket field and at the foot of the plot is the river Avon. Talk about god's little acre!! The only drawbacks are a neighbour who has leylandi which is 40 feet high and starves the plot of sunshine for the early hours of the day and the river that does flood part of the plot when the weather is really wet.
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Our front garden was a bit overgrown, not with weeds and such but lots of plants/bushes and a tree. We was looking at tidying it up a bit and earlier on my girlfriend had been watching tv (river cottage i think) and said why dont we grow some vegetables in it. So i got a skip and ripped everything out and constructed two raised beds and its progressed from there. Never really had an interest before that but that has certainly changed.
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After a few beers, I bet my mate a fiver I could grow a bigger pumpkin than him by halloween.
I went home and dug up a patch of the lawn to grow it in. After failing miserably at growing pumpkins, the following year I had an empty plot to fill. One thing led to another and now I haven't got much lawn left.Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing-'Oh how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner-knives. ~ Rudyard Kipling
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Reading people's talk of their grandparents reminds me. My daughter doesn't take a great deal of interest in the growing here atm. We are teaching her where the herbs and the lettuce are so she can be sent out to grab them when there is cooking in progress! She's the horsey one, so has a lot of work to do with that side.
Funnily enough tho, my father was a great gardener, and when I used to drive a couple of hours to his place with 3 kids, he'd always take me out to show me the garden, and send me home with some veg. And grapes with seeds! The kids had never had seeded grapes.
Later when we moved south and they moved north, I'd drive 8 hours with 3 teenagers, and on arrival he'd want to walk me around the garden. I wanted to have a cuppa and a chat with my stepmother. My daughter used to go out with him and look. As she got older she used to ask him to take her out and talk about the different fruit and veg. He loved it, and so did she. So, I'm thinking that in years to come she might well be saying 'My grandfather....'Ali
My blog: feral007.com/countrylife/
Some days it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints!
One bit of old folklore wisdom says to plant tomatoes when the soil is warm enough to sit on with bare buttocks. In surburban areas, use the back of your wrist. Jackie French
Member of the Eastern Branch of the Darn Under Nutter's Club
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A letter from the Council regarding the state at the end of our garden which was previously used as a veg patch 3 years ago Been addicted ever since.
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My lovely grandfather. He was always pottering in his garden. It was a really long garden completely dedicated to veg but he had a few flowers around the edges. He taught me many things when I was quite young such as how to take and plant cuttings. One funny thing that I always remember is that he was great at growing tomatoes but he didn't like them, so never ate them! I have a really old gardening book that belonged to him which reminds me of him in his garden.
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