Years of Gardening

[remnant]

I have been an on and off gardener having started out in childhood when I experimented on giant beans. My most recent gardening experience was with butternuts and I learnt alot. Therefore, to become an expert, one has to take farming as a career and specialise in a particular niche of crops for an extended period of time, about 5 years to cover all aspects of agronomy and make new discoveries.

 

[DeborahJane]

I had occasional small gardens when i lived in the US, but never had much time to provide them with the needed attention. That is a fine looking cantaloupe @Corzhens. It reminds me of when i grew cantaloupe when i lived in the US...there were so many of them, but they were small and i kept waiting for them to get bigger. I didn't know i was growing a small variety and one day i noticed the sweet smell of cantaloupe in the air, and i noticed that many of them were falling off the vine. I ran to tell my husband to call everyone we know to invite them over for cantaloupe. Lots of people came, thank heavens, and one couple brought an ice cream maker with ingredients (including an enormous goose egg). We feasted on cantaloupe and ice cream and ate every last one and that ice cream was delicious, made with goose egg and honey.

So, when i moved to a tropical location and began gardening 8 or 9 years ago in earnest, i had to learn everything all over again, because so many of the rules are different and i was never much of a gardener before. But organic methods are very much the same. I would call myself an experimental gardener and some times i get lucky, but gardening is such a magical process that now i cannot imagine not doing it. The plants don't seem to mind me very much. I must say i have learned so much at this website and am so appreciative of the people who participate here and for the first time i feel more equipped to deal with the questions and problems that present themselves in the garden. I'll never be an "expert" though and i will always "know" so much less than i need to.

What a wonderful treat, Beverley. "Goose Egg Ice Cream"...maybe you could market it, you'd just need to find a catchy name because I think most of us would say ! I'm sure it was wonderful especially with home grown cantaloupe. It is also called Rock Melon here but" I say Cantaloupe, you say Rock Melon".

 

[DeborahJane]

Six years of gardening for me. It gives me so much pleasure and pain, sore back, aching arms, etc. I think I almost like that too because I see so much for my efforts. Veggie patch a disgrace though, weeds 2 metres high last time I looked. I'm concentrating on herbs, lettuces, tomatoes, silver beet and hope my success will spur me on. I do have a peach tree and an apricot tree which are starting to bare fruit and my lemon and lime finally fruiting. My passion fruit vine has been very unsuccessful this year, all the fruit have brown spots on them which has been very disappointing. Do have lots and lots of rosemary so almost all vegetable are roasted with rosemary.