Getting to know you

[kentishgal]

I grew up with grandparents and parents with big veggie plots and some of my earliest memories are picking PSB and kale to eat straight off the plant and playing in the giant blackberry 'fort' my grandfather made with careful pruning! Although I didnt bother with gardening for many years due to always having tiny yards rather then gardens.
Now I have a 'massive' 10ft x 25ft garden and have managed to squish in fruit, herbs, veggie beds, pond, greenhouse, compost bins, seating area and trees! I love pottering around out there though...its immensely rewarding watching something you have nurtured from a seed growing tall then picking fresh ,tasty produce right off of the plants. Also creating a garden means that even if you have no artistic talent at all you can still create something beautiful.

[ancee]

I looked at a seed one day and wondered what it would grow up into. I had no idea so I planted it in a planter of compost and waited, after a while it shooted and grew and grew... it was a conker tree! It grew to three feet tall, (the I gave it to a lady who worked in the shop next to where I worked as she had an enormous garden) I am not making this up by the way! Yes it was a large seed, I had played conkers at school previously, I had not made the connection that a conker was a seed... or that a planted conker would grow into a tree! I am much better at seed recognition now and that's how I got into planting stuff

[Nicos]

Hi there- and welcome to the Vine

We grow our own to try to be as self sufficient as possible- with meat and veg...and as organic as possible at the same time!

[susieq100]

My grandad had an enormous garden - during the War the garden was essential, it fed the family. Then as I was growing up I have enormously happy memories of 'going up the garden' (outside flush loo that he had installed himself as there was no room in their little rented cottage for an indoor one) and during the summer scrumping peas, radishes, raspberries, strawberries, even peaches from a tree he had grown from a peach pit. I grew up on a farm and my parents always had a garden, the size depended on how busy they were farming (!) but I remember the excitement of lifting new potatoes ... it was like digging for buried treasure! I seriously got back into it about 6-7 years ago when we moved to this house. I am in my 50s now and I take as much pleasure from the natural world (except bl**dy slugs) as I did when I was a child and it was all new. I think gardening is about that as well as my general love of food! I like to cook, I like to eat and I especially like to cook/prepare something I have grown.

Incidentally this forum is the friendliest, funniest and most informative one I use. Welcome and enjoy!

[VirginVegGrower]

Having researched my family history, on my mum's side I am surrounded by farmers and market gardeners. So I suppose you could say it's in my blood. I remember my aunty Blanche on my dad's side, she was a farmer, sending me out to dig up some spuds for dinner, or collect a lettuce. She was the one who gave me a lifelong chicken bug, which until I got on here with you lot, I never committed too glad I did!
My grandfather grew nothing but veg and fruit in his rear garden and it was a huge plot. The side garden was given over to my grandmother's roses. The front garden being lawn and a neat fence. He always limed his soil in the Spring, having mucked it in the Autumn. When he had the chimney swept, he put the soot on his soil - I still don't know why. Clinker was given to the farmer in return for muck. I suppose it was used to line the farm tracks.
My mother had an allotment too, after she was widowed young. I was fourteen and I used to go up and help her. She kept it going for fifteen years, until I had children and she child minded for me. I suppose we both ran out of time.
It was a place of sanctuary for her I guess. She had a highly pressured job too.
Anyway, here's a picture of my Aunty Blanche and Uncle Den in Suffolk, outside their farm.

[Sheneval]

Although I have had a garden since I got married 44 years ago, I only started on the allotment site last June after my eldest grandson said he wanted a plot and I got the kid's plot/s for him and his brothers.

However, since I started I got hooked and got my own plot last November and my daughter now has one too.

I do it for a number of reasons - it is great exercise, I have lost at least a stone and probably nearer two since last Nov. the site is tranquil especially when I am on my own which reminds me of the isolated lonely places when I walked through when I was hill walking some years back; the vast majority of the people on the site are friendly and it is nice to share a beer with them, I have learned a lot over this last 6 months, but mainly I do it because it is Fun