As for me, even a few short minutes a day spent among my plants gives me joy and helps me stay grounded.
Unfortunately, my limited space doesn’t allow for expansion. Before I make any new additions to my garden, I need to be pretty sure that whatever plant I’m introducing will yield fruit I can eat. I need to be very mindful of what I want to grow. My ultimate gardening dream is to produce enough veggies to substitute for my weekly shopping, or at least most of it. Unfortunately, currently, it’s not feasible. Still, I’m grateful that I can grow herbs, tomatoes, peppers and pumpkins. The feeling of being able to produce something that can feed you or your family is priceless.
Growing any plant just last year was way too overwhelming for me. This year, I can’t get enough YouTube gardening videos. Life can pivot in funny ways.
I must admit I have a broader agenda behind my desire to grow food. I’m trying to learn (I’ll be sharing this process, so stay tuned) how to devise creative ways and solutions to ascertain my family’s food security. That would also allow me to work less in jobs I do only for the money.
Physically, my garden hasn’t expanded much in the past few weeks; I still have two types of tomatoes, Alicante & Roma, and I’m happy to report that both have fruit.
They aren’t ready to eat yet, but we will have a small harvest once they are. My sweet and chilli pepper trees are bearing fruit as well. Not much was happening with those trees for a long time, but they picked up in June, as the label said they would. So far, I have grown six pumpkins from the pumpkin seeds I collected from our Halloween pumpkin. To my surprise, they grow really fast and reasonably soon; I’ll need to find a bigger place for them to spread their wings. Baby M. and I planted many flower seeds in May; we are still waiting for those to bloom. Between you and me, I think baby M. might have been overwatering them.
The kids have been eating the few wild strawberries we have had so far. It’s adorable that for baby M., eating strawberries from her garden isn’t anything out of the ordinary but just part of her daily routine.
The herbs are pretty happy rising to the sun. Without much warning, they have already outgrown my tiny greenhouse. As a result, I have been thinking about a creative solution for my plants for the past few weeks. So far, I haven’t been able to find anything that I could quickly and cheaply implement. However, I’ll surely need to rethink my winter gardening setup.
I still try to reuse as many plastic containers as I can. Baby M. & I had planted a lot of flower seeds in those. Another way I use plastic containers is to collect water from underneath the small plant pots. I always planned to find an alternative use for plastic before it was sent through the recycling cycle when I decided to set up my garden. Hence, I’m happy I could keep up with that practice.
Recently, I have considered whether to buy small fruit trees I could nurture until they are large and independent enough to be replanted elsewhere. Maybe by the time they are ready, I’ll have my garden with raised beds. I will surely keep you updated on the tree idea.
Another reason I have been a bit reluctant to extend my garden, besides the limited space, is the problem with pigeons, which we have been struggling with forever. These winged rats build nests above our balcony, and it’s nearly impossible to get rid of them; our housing association isn’t that keen on helping. My plants also absorb the exhaust fumes from cars that come and go through our parking lot. I would instead try to avoid that type of pollution in my garden. So, the space around my balcony’s garden has become an issue, and it’s totally out of my control at this point.
For now, I’m looking forward to the day I can finally try my tomatoes and peppers because, so far, the herbs have been so deliciously delicious 🙂
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