Who else likes gardening?

[ecomama]

Hi everyone

I hope you're staying well today.

Who else likes gardening? I would love to connect with people here who are happy to share their gardening adventures.

For me I know that gardening helped heal my soul during tough times. I hope it will again.
Then with other things going on, it became a jungle.
I'm part way into rediscovering it again and doing A LOT of hard yakka atm, when I am motivated.

I have new dreams and ideas to put into the many bare places, as I remove thickets of lantana etc. This will all be on a tight budget and I'm ok with that.

I want to create a peaceful place where I can be.
I would like to grow food again (tell 'er she's dreamin' atm lol).
I would like to re-establish my worm farms and compost heaps.
Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year in the garden.

I'm 'alone' in my gardening journey and would love to share and hear about other's gardening antics. Hopefully we can troubleshoot any issues in our gardens and talk about any healing we're feeling too. There's a lot of knowledge we can share. I hope this thread can brighten your day!

Love Ecomama

Please

[spontaneous sunflower]

Hello everyone!

This is a lovely little thread!

I'm 17 and I've never really gardened but I'd love to get into it, I live on an acre property with plenty of room to start a little garden and plant some veggies/fruits. I'd also like to put some indoor plants in my bedroom. Taking care of plants and such sounds like such a relaxing and rewarding task, something that I could really benefit from right now!

I would love some tips on what sort of things I could plant in my yard, particularly things that can handle the cold and rain as I live in Victoria and heading into winter it is getting quite rainy and cold! I would love to start a little veggie and herbs garden, so I could grow stuff to use for cooking! Also would love some recommendations of easy to take care of indoor plants that preferably don't need much direct sunlight, as I only get direct sunlight in my room during the morning.

Hahaha I just realised how funny it is that I have the word "sunflower" in my username yet I've never gardened! I love sunflowers, would love to plant some one day!

[Matchy69]

Hi spontaneous sinflower,i love you user name and welcome to this thread.It is great to see someone your age keen on doing some gardening.I have been gardening since i was kid.My mum use to have a vegie garden in the back corner and we use to harvest so much and mum use to bottle it or freeze it.I remember the lovely corn it seemed to be the best.

I am glad your keen on starting your on vegie garden and herb garden.Put a lot of organic matter in the soil.I use compost and horse manure and plant away.With these cooler months you can plant anything in the brassica family that is cabbages,brocoli,cauliflower and my favourite brussel sprouts.Does anyone else love them or is it just me.You can plant chinese cabbages like bok choi or lettuce.Leeks are good.Carrots and radishes and swede and turnips for root crops.You can grow any of the peas or broad beans for legumes.Plenty you can plant and more i havent mentioned.Good to plant a variety of crops and rotate them every year as they give different nutrients to the soil.

Herbs are great to grow.I have a herb garden ot scent garden as i like to call it in my front yard.Some things get hit with the frost here and get knocked back and reshoot in spring.My favourite herb is rosemary and i love the scent of it and planted it near the tge gate so when i go out i rub my hands on it and i smell ofbrosemary.Good for colder climates.Lavender is great to plant.A heap of different varieties and i allways have parsley and mint growing.I would plant other varieties in spring so they can get established before the cold.

Happening gardening,

Mark.

[Matchy69]

Hi em i saw you mentioned Bromiliads and that you goy some Tillandsias and put in the trees.If you notice in my picture my sign says Brom-Haven which came from my mothers place.She was huge in Bromiliads and had hundreds of them.I have a few here and i have one that was named after her which is my pride and joy.A neoregelia with blushing red pinkish centre.The brom family contains the edible pineapple to the more unusual like the old mans beard that you see hanging in trees.

You mentioned chillies in jam.I have never put it in jam but have put them in chutneys which was a really big seller for me.I know other people put chillies in jams.

I think because of my ocd i dont do much companion planting.I do have in gardens around the vegie garden marrigolds.Companion planting is really a good idea for pest control and giving the vegies the nutrients they need.

Happy gsrdening everyone,

Mark.

[ecomama]

Hello spontaneous sunflower! Indeed you are! Your post was so gorgeous.

The brains trust here is like no other lol. This thread is a new one but it's a lovely warm place to come to.

You can take or leave ANY suggestions we make, but I'll respond to your post, in parts. I'm so happy to have you here because you'll find a sanctuary in gardening that could well be lifelong & health sustaining, I hope so.

Like ANY gardening the most important thing to do first is OBSERVE your potential spaces.
The other thing when starting out is to see / ask what neighbours have success growing - that's a fast fix.

Herb garden
Now it's coming into Winter, many herbs aren't too keen on being planted at this time BUT you can build your beds up with LOTS of yummy nutrients now, so that when your herbs are planted they will literally JUMP out of the ground with joy lol. You can make a compost or leaf mould (avoiding eucalypts / pines) in the beds now.
The beds need prepping anyway so now's a great time. This way it's super cheap too, so you can spend more on lovely seedlings and seeds, maybe an 11L Bucket with lid or 2 for your delicious "weed teas", which you can start anytime.
Write a list of ALL the herbs you LOVE to eat. You can post here and or Google best times to plant.
You can draw a plan of your herb beds. Then Google companions to eg coriander... or sage, if they're on your favourites list like mine. Also consider whether you REALLY want perennials (that you plant and can grow for years) or annuals (which are SUPPOSED to be planted once per year...).
Here herbs can grow well most of the year but it's MUCH warmer and I know the "hot spots" in my garden.
I once had a Italian Basil that is an annual but it was in such a perfect spot that it lasted FOUR years, omg such a shock and so yummy lol.

Indoor plants
If you have sunny spots then THOSE plants would be different to plants that need to live in shade all or most of the time.
Cactii are great to start off with. Don't love them too much or we can kill them with kindness ie over - watering or soil that's too rich. Usually people are happy to give you their cuttings and they are BRILLIANT to grow. They like sun but I've found that when indoors, not full sun.
See how you go. If plants begin to look insipid and lose their GREEN colour then they need more sun to photosynthesize.
Mother-in-law's tongues LOVE shade. I've found they like shade for quite a while.

Happy gardening!
EM

[Jesicca]

Hey ecomama,

I really want to get into gardening but I don't know where to start! Do you have any tips?

[ecomama]

Hi Mark

What a lovely memory about your mum and her bromeliads. I love their beautiful flowers, they're all spectacular.
Great name for your house too.

I do grow pineapple plants in our garden, cut off from Supermarket bought pineapples and rooted in a glass of water on my kitchen windowsill. I've only had one miniature pineapple grow lol but the plants are still beautiful (and free 🙂

I used to make jams but with so many EATERS in our home now, most fruits are eaten quickly but I do love to use our food dehydrator to make fruit strips. EG if our neighbor has excess mangoes (I did load up 4 wheelbarrows full once - nearly drove me crazy), then I blend up the fruit and lay it out on a food dehydrator then slice it up. It lasts for ages this way and is great in home made muesli. I give most away.

It's funny you mention OCD in the garden, hopefully that's a benefit to you! I think I can guarantee I don't have OCD in the garden by looking at it. My taxes are done like a person with OCD but not much else.

EM

[ecomama]

Hi Jesicca! Welcome to our gardening thread and I hope the brains trust (I hesitate to call everyone the GREEN brains trust lol) will chime in soon and give you STACKS of tips!

I think that's AWESOME that you want to get into gardening, yay!

I think we're developing a greenometric Q & A for people here....

Sooooooooooo what did you want to do?

Would you like to grow FOOD or ORNAMENTALS?

Do you want to grow things in POTS or in the SOIL?

Do you have land around your home or are you in an apartment?

Could you describe your climate for us....

Mark listed a whole array of yummies to plant right now, so he's the one to ask. I'm too busy freaking getting tree loppers etc to FIND my garden lol!

A great thing you can do straight away is to ask people you know who garden near you, what they grow?

If there's a Community Garden near you, have a peek in the daytime and take pics or list some things that you'd like to eat there BECAUSE if things are growing well there, then they would most likely do quite well at your place given the right conditions.

Jesicca we are SO GLAD to have you here! We look forward to hearing more about your ideas and feedback to the Q & As then we can dig right in lol!

EM

[Guest_1055]

Hey Em, you are sweet. Thankyou for the instructions for the leaf mould. I think I will copy and paste all that. Along with your post about growing herbs.

You really do seem to have a passion for all this, which is awesome. Its like you live and breathe it sort of thing.

Shell

[ecomama]

Awww Shelll, You're so sweet saying that.

I wish I could live and breathe gardening all my waking hours lol. But I would miss the other parts of my life I love too.

Although I started a number of organic gardening things at work in the gardens there. Composting, worm farms, vege beds. It's taken around a decade but now all of a sudden, others have shown keen interest. Maybe the covid restrictions precipitated things such as these.

Simple but grand to walk past in the mornings and see as I leave work.

Things have fallen apart for one my adult children this week. I've been there for days. We've done some trimming pot plants etc. I'm not sure what hope looks like for my darling child but observing the life in the garden helps I Pray. We found small mandarines growing.

Gardens can bring hope to see things flower, fruit or mature in the future. We can also fall in love with the rhythms of the seasons and look forward to the next.

These are my hopes for others also by sharing here. When all else fails, we have the garden.

Are you having any ideas about your garden Shelll?

Happy gardening.

EM

[Matchy69]

Hi all after doing a little pottering in the garden i am really pleased with how well everything is growing.My cauliflowers have little caulies coming on.I have been harvesting silverbeet like crazy and been given some away and also give some to the chooks they love it.I am going to harvest the rest of my radishes today and have some more strawberries for my son to plant.My neighbour is giving me some more cabbages and cauliflowers to plant so full steam ahead in the vegie garden.

I have started picking mandarines and my Tangelos are starting to ripen up.The bush lemon is just loaded and been picking them for the last month.I will have to make some lemon butter soon.

Happy gardening everyone,

Mark.