Learning to garden

Hey there!

Our garden project 2018

March

June

This year we started our garden project. We built a raised bed from old pallets, filled it with lots of twigs, old leaves and compost soil. At the same time we planted various seeds in small pots filled with soil to then work with the young seedlings later on in our raised bed.
Over the time our flat's window-sills were packed with tiny tomato, carrot, cucumber and bean plants as well as herbs and sunflowers.

Tomato seedlings

Lettuce and Herbs

Zucchini

We went plant shopping at the farmer's market more and more often. Eventually we had planted zucchini, rhubarb, lettuce, strawberry, black and red currant and raspberry plants in our garden that we had bought from the market.

Sunflowers, Beans, and Red Currant

A few plants didn't work out that well. For example our carrots didn't grow much larger than thumb-size and a few of our lettuces were eaten by snails during the nights..

However some plants really surprised us. We had never expected to harvest the crazy amount of cucumber and zucchini. At times we had 8 cucumbers per week and the zucchini is still producing fruits in late october..

Zucchini

Tomatoes

Over the course of the year we have learned so much about soil, plant growth, care for plants, types of plants, the work of insects such as bees, how plants blossom, how to harvest, how to arrange a veggie patch etc. etc.
We watched gardening shows by Monty Don, a famous speaker of horticulture from the UK, read lots of books about gardening and talked to my parents, both biologists, who taught us about their parents' ways of gardening when they were little.

Bumblebee on a sunflower

Cucumber

Lavender

Beans

Sadly the year is slowly coming to a close and the gardening season is almost over. We have already made many plans for the next year concerning our raised bed and growing veggies and fruit, e.g. we'd like to grow aubergines, pumpkin and more different tomatoes. We will also try to improve our planting calendar so that we're not late with planting winter veggies as we were this year. We would have loved to plant kale, but only had space in our raised bed from late September onwards, which would have been to late to grow kale from seeds.
Also we're currently building a cold frame for our raised bed and a few bits and pieces for indoor gardening as well.

Sage, Mint, Carrots and Cucumber in the background

Basil

I hope you enjoyed the photos. Maybe you can make space in your own flat, your own room, your balcony or even in your garden if you have one to start growing your own produce as well. Maybe start of with herbs or easy plants like radishes. It's definitely a lot of fun and it can take your mind off other things or thoughts that burdening you.

So start planting!

Steph