Lately my interest in gardening has surpassed my interest in cooking. It's not that I don't enjoy cooking what I grow, it's just that gardening is a whole new area of investigation for me with so so many things to learn. I feel like I'm in gardening primary school: my attempts are wonky and haphazard, but the enthusiasm is there.
So far there has been a successful (but short lived) crop of broadbeans, a successful but small crop of beetroot, coriander that bolted after a week, second-attempt basil, a few handfuls of peas, a few handfuls of beans and some deformed carrots. In the more prolific pile there is cucumber which is yielding about 3 fully grown cucumbers a day (I have no idea what to do with this much cucumber), zucchini plants which are growing rapidly and have given a few zucchinis a week so far (many more to come I think), six heads of broccoli of which the first was consumed last night (although about half an hour was spent picking slugs off it first) and 21 tomato plants which are threatening to take over the world (the tomatoes are still small and green but in a month I think we will have boxes upon boxes of them).
Every morning after wrenching myself out of bed I stumble onto the back deck and water the seedlings. Then I put my gumboots on and wander around the garden whilst rubbing sleep out of my eyes. I prod and poke all the bushes to see if anything has happened over night. By the time I've finished my garden observation rounds, I'm pretty much awake.
Gardening is a rather addictive hobby, especially when you start to get the rewards. I can't stop thinking about it!
