A part of this peace has become my gardening. Neither of my parents are green thumbs, my mum actually admitting to having a brown thumb, that is, every plant she touches dies (she believes). I believe the gene must have skipped a generation though.
Her parents had a thriving garden they had to live off (mostly), living 30km out of town (or 20 miles as Mick, my grandfather, would always say). Mick's garden consisted of a fruitful orchard and I remember his homegrown apple cucumbers, beans, and all sorts harvested in the brighter months as a kid, before his battle with cancer and dementia. Granny kept up the patch that grew a huge assortment of herbs, vegies and various flowers and the lemon tree in the corner, not to forget the treasured orange tree my uncle Jim swore he could jump to from the swing set (I always supposed this was the day it arrived, while it was still in a portable pot).
On the other side, my pa wasn't much of a gardener but his father was a prize winning rose grower, a family tradition that went back a couple of generations, some of whom actually named a few particular types of roses (some with less than politically correct names). This was back in the days when Parramatta was a rural outskirt of Sydney. Dad's mum on the other hand is still a vigourous woman with a huge garden on the NSW Mid-North coast, growing everything from pineapples, papaya and guava to the more traditional lettuce, sweet potato and leeks.
As an introductory post I thought I'd introduce my garden which has just passed it's one year anniversary from when my partner and I moved into town off of our parents places. The following is a snapshot we took before we moved in:
And now:
(The sparrows are pushing me, and my spinach, to our wits end, hence the netting)
