When I was growing up, we lived in a house with a huge garden. I didn't appreciate it at the time, nor did I realise how amazing it was that my dad grew all his own vegetables. Row upon row of plants tied up to bamboo canes, tethered using a leg from a pair of my mum's old tights stood in a regimental fashion over three quarters of our garden. As a child I remember longing for beds of beautiful, bright flowers, but my dad's ethos was if you couldn't eat it, he wouldn't grow it! I recall helping him harvest peas, beans, rhubarb, strawberries, tomatoes, cabbages, onions and my own personal favourite, purple sprouting broccoli! In hindsight it seems quite idyllic and I'm sure even during times of austerity it meant we always had food on our table.
The reality of gardening for me is however a very different story. We moved into a brand new house, and although our home is lovely, we had to compromise on the garden. It is a very uniform square plot with high fences on every side. The sunlight doesn't reach into all the corners and the soil is very poor. In fact, the layer of top soil is so thin you can see the rubble left over from when they were building the estate through the turf. It is not a great garden, but I was not going to let it dampen my determination to grow my own!
Last year my gardening project got under way and with the children's help we set out to make a potted herb garden. Using troughs and terracotta pots, we planted up Parsley, Basil, Chives, Oregano and Mint from seed. We also sowed an array of fabulous sounding salad leaves in a gro-bag. We tended our seedlings and watered them everyday. We were very proud of our work and quickly we began to see the pots fill up with the aromatic plants.
Snipping our first handful of chives was a real revelation! Picking a baby salad leaf and eating it fresh from the soil was more exciting than it really should have been. We had worked with what he had and were reaping the reward of having some wonderful ingredients ready to use straight from our garden.
The end of this tale is sadly not a happy one. One day a few weeks ago high winds battered our garden causing the next door neighbour's six foot fence panel to crash over, crushing and smashing our herb garden. My foray into growing-my-own was over. However, all was not lost. As I look forward to the time when I move to a new house, the garden will be a big consideration. A little sunny space with fertile soil to grow some plants is now a definite priority!
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