Hodge Podge Garden party

This year I would like to plant a garden, nothing fancy, just a few things here and there, no landscaping required. Just a few lettuces and tomatoes I tell myself. I’d like to grow beans but I’m not sure they would survive as we have almost constant visiting moose.

But I would like to, we shall see. I’m keen on container gardening as it’s manageable it’s small and I won’t have to spend ages trying to dig over the yard. It’s almost instant gratification too. We really don’t have the space to plant lots, but to have a taste of something fresh and home grown that’s the whole point. So, a few well planted containers on the small front deck and I’ll be happy.

My mother never had a large garden, yet she grew lots of things, mostly in pots.

Although I grew up visiting relatives on farms we lived in the city, which I know my mother hated being a country girl. But we did, and we grew things in pots, cans, margarine tubs, even toilet roll inserts. The windowsills inside were full, there were grow-more bags on top of the coal bunker, anywhere we could get something the was something. It was a beautiful mess of flowers and tomatoes, of lettuce and marigolds, the smell of the flowers on a warm summer evening would transport you away to somewhere nice in your imagination.

I liked to go and water them for her in the evening and dead head the flowers as I went.

Such wonderful hanging baskets, the smell was heavenly, and the burst of colours was a sight to behold. Nobody’s backyard was like ours, I swear my mother could have grown anything on anything she had a gift. She would talk to the plants and care for them so tenderly, no wonder they bloomed so well.

I’m not as good at growing things as my mum, but I do enjoy it a lot. One of my sons enjoys gardening as much as I do although he doesn’t get much time to do it I know he feels happy when he’s out there with his hands in the soil, like I do. It’s a good work out if you’re fit enough to dig or want to and the rewards are many. I grow potatoes in a large bucket and that makes them easy to harvest, ok, you don’t get much but they taste so sweet and are so fresh, it’s worth it for sure. The difference in anything you can grow from what you can buy is immense, the starch and sugars haven’t had time to break down like in the bought food, so the taste is much better and the texture too. My mum taught me that even if the space you have is small it doesn’t matter, use it, grow something, anything. So, it’s definitely going to be lettuce, because we eat a lot of it in our house, staggered planting to ensure continual supply through the summer. Tomatoes on my deck and maybe a bucket of potatoes. If I have any room left, I think I might try a couple of hanging baskets or a bucket of flowers out front. When you plant things in pots it makes them transportable, you can change the look of your garden very quickly, see what works and where it doesn’t without having to plant it or dig it up. Move them around and mix it up.

So, with a small back deck too I’m hoping we can reap the benefits and enjoy some veg and flowers. This will be the first summer we have here in our new place and although the summers are hot I’m really looking forward to it. Barbecuing, going to the river, not wearing what feels like 14 jumpers and an arctic coat when I go out I won’t miss chiselling out the car from the ice or the long cold warm up in the mornings that my poor husband has to do to the car just to get her manageable. It will be lovely to sit on the back deck and have a cold drink and watch the flowers. Mind you that does bring me a problem, butterflies, they pester me all the summer long, they actively follow me around the yard, everyone thinks it’s so funny, me I find it stressful, maybe I should invest in one of those hats with the net on them to keep them out of my hair. It’s not my imagination either, they really do follow me. So, I shall have to be