I’ve caved and fallen for the one thing that’s truly middle-age – gardening. I never thought it would happen to me since a) I kill every plant I come into contact with and b) there are obese people bigger than my garden, it’s that small.
But apparently, it’s inevitable.
I decided a few months ago that growing some vegetables would be the coolest thing ever, and the fact that I had a small garden was no excuse since our friend Vicky was growing potatoes in a bucket. Let’s face it, even my tiny garden can fit a bucket. In my head I had a type scenario, where my (pixel) self would go around sprinkling crops and then effortlessly pulling perfect vegetables up.
Of course it wasn’t anything like that. It mostly consisted of me buying baby plants and then going ‘YOU can do it, I’ll just kill them’ to my mum and Joe (I’m really good at delegating 
).
Then came several weeks of worrying ‘Are we feeding them enough?’, ‘Are we watering them too much?’ and then the completely panic-stricken, ‘How will we know when they’re ready???’ All things which seem relatively minor in the grand scale of things, but I absolutely can’t get over the fact that vegetables just don’t act like Harvest Moon in real life and you can still pick them even if they aren’t ready. Mind blowing. It’s a miracle they’ve lasted so long really. As I said to Joe, it would be a lot easier if they could just tweet us when they’re ready to pick.
Anyway, after months of agonising, this is our first crop:
Poor Joe has been trying to eat the cucumber for several days now, only to be met with me barking ‘No!! Not until I’ve taken pictures and proved it happened!’ Because of course I’m taking full credit.
We still have plenty more potatoes, tomatoes and hopefully a few more cucumbers to come, if my stress levels can take it. Possibly the only thing harder than actually being a parent is eating your own children…
Tomatoes in progress
The next batch – baby cucumbers
Even my orchid is flowering:
My parents had a garden for a while, and it was always simply delightful to see the vegetables sprouting out of the ground. The process in which plants grow so quickly is fascinating, and the vegetables just taste so much better.
Your vegetables look great, by the way! It takes a while to figure out exactly what to do to make them grow big and tasty. You’ll do better next year, if you feel like trying again!
Congratulations on your garden! I would be excited to have food grow. We planted some watermelon but they haven’t given us any food yet.
Vege gardens are definitely the way to go, if you can make them happen! I’m not embarrassed to say that it was me who initiated our family’s vege garden, even though I hate gardening, have really bad hayfever, and never tend to it these days… haha. It definitely saves you a lot of money on tomatoes, and you can always freeze them for later
Aww, that is so nice to be able to grow your own vegetables!!!