I join this splendid initiative sponsored by @riverflows in its post inviting each user of this Community to express in detail what their garden is like, what they expect from it, what expectations they have, how it works, etc., although unfortunately the time of the contest It has happened -I only realized it when I saw the countdown at the top of the post, expired and therefore I exclude myself from the contest although I also want to comment on the topic that interests us all the #hivers that we publish in this Community and to which we intend to give continuity not only with original content but also regularly throughout the year.
It is true that users who live in the northern hemisphere of the planet begin to alternate days of pleasant temperature with cold days, it is the sign that autumn, the leaves that fall, the last flowers that are still erect on their stems and others that do not They will rejuvenate until next spring.
For them the time will come to fertilize the soil to conserve nutrients during the cold and sometimes harsh winter depending on the country in question, prepare some bulbs in the ground so that they are ready to germinate next spring, protect many plants that are outdoors and others, probably, keep them indoors.
For those of us who live in the southern hemisphere, this adventure has been over for over a month and now we are beginning to see the fruit of our efforts. But we must also work hard because summer -like winter- must find strong and healthy plants so that they fully bear their flowers and fruits. You have to be careful of both high and low temperatures since not all plants support them equally.
way.
But I want to go beyond this initiative. In some paragraphs it seemed to me that the activity in #HiiveGarden could decrease since the users of the so-called cold zones would reduce the publication of their contents.
And there we are, the southerners of #HiveGarden to give our support and say that we will continue to publish regularly, giving regularity in the publication of content so that this beautiful Community does not decline at any time of the year.
I don't know what percentage of the Community is higher, but I think there is a part of #HiveGarden users who can continue publishing content with some regularity: in Latin America, central and southern Africa and the southern part of the Asian continent (Philippines, Oceania) we are in the middle of spring and we have a lot of material to publish.
Once these clarifications have been made, I am going to make known what my garden is like.
The dimensions.
Actually, to be an external garden, it is not too big, especially in a country like mine where all the spaces are from large to enormous (it is enough to remember Patagonia). A country whose surface is equal to 50% of the European surface. Do the accounts. In total there will be approximately 70 square meters (10x7 meters) with cement paths, which further reduces the cultivable area.
Despite this, I have two orange trees, a mandarin, which I dealt with in these posts when I talked about winter pruning, since they had been heavily attacked by the plague known as the white cochineal. Seeing them in bloom today, without ants or parasites, full of bees that come to collect pollen to make honey, is a real satisfaction. Visually and mentally, all this repays me amply for the work done.
See how they were before the pruning, how they were after and how they are today two months later in the middle of spring.
I take advantage of the rest of the space to grow some vegetables (I have to grow the pumpkins horizontally so they don't take up the whole lot) such as parsley, celery, chard, spinach, chili, onion and some aromatic plants such as rosemary, oregano and mint -the links are directed to the posts in which I have talked about them- along with the balm that has important therapeutic properties.
I made a small greenhouse at the bottom of the land and I take advantage of the roof so that the anco-type squashes continue to grow without covering more space than necessary and taking advantage of all the available sun - which the neighboring buildings stop me a lot. Inside the greenhouse, in an experimental way, I have begun to cultivate some leg plants, few to tell the truth, simply to experiment with how they evolve, considering that the total area destined for gardens and orchards is limited.
Some plants have had the bad luck that they go to seed. Days gone by, talking to an aunt of Italian origins (her parents were born in Italy) now an old woman, she told me in those talks I'd have you in the middle of the afternoon, that actually in this southern part of the planet so that the chard it does not go to seed, it must be planted in the lunar phase of the last quarter in the month of October. I will keep that advice in mind for the future, like many others.
Parsley has also started to go to seed. In reality, the plant has continuously given leaves for almost the entire year and at the end its cycle also arrives. . It is good practice to cut it -always with scissors or another sharp instrument- throughout the year so that it can rejuvenate and reproduce more vigorously. Once you give the seeds, you have to wait until they are completely dry on the plant before putting them together and putting them in a dark and dry place so that they finish drying.
I remember that my father used a system that many of my friends #hivers in this Community will make them laugh, but it was a time when almost nothing was bought and all the things that were in the house were taken advantage of. Not only parsley seeds but in general all the small seeds were kept inside an old stocking of those that we use to cover the feet when they were already broken, to discard. They were closed with a knot and hung from a plant in the open air to dry since the material in which the stocking was made - usually cotton - allowed air to pass through without problems.
In the middle of the orchard and the garden I am alternating new fruit plants that I am growing from seeds. Especially the navelina variant, extremely sweet that I prune first, has no seeds but from time to time some appear. I take the opportunity to plant it and as in this case I manage to obtain a beautiful new plant as you can see in the photo, already with the tutor to support it. This plant is about a year old. Keep in mind that the growth of fruit trees is quite slow and hardly a fruit plant before 5 years if we buy it in the nursery or 6-8 years if we develop it ourselves from the beginning.
Another of the varieties that I have discovered that develop very well is a variant of spinach, of creeping development, that is, it spreads a lot on the ground and for that reason I am forced to control it. Its leaves are not very large, but they are quite fleshy and are used very well in salads or by grinding them very well with a mixer and making a paste that, then mixed with the flour, allows us to make any type of homemade pasta genuinely with spinach, such as for example noodles.
Another white that goes into flower (and seed) at this time of year is arugula, my favorite to mix into salads, add to pizza, and eat any way possible. Its taste between bitter and slightly spicy makes it unique to season with any type of meat. At a certain moment it stops giving leaves to begin to grow tall, just like chard, it gives beautiful small white flowers that later turn into seeds.
As in all cases, I try not to buy seeds in stores, but rather take advantage of the seeds generated by the plants in my garden. Especially in those species that give a large amount of seeds such as chard, parsley or arugula, just to mention the most common examples. Many of the seeds fall to the ground before we can collect them and nature is wise as they are not lost and new seedlings will begin to grow within a couple of weeks. The problem is that they will grow in the order that the wind deposited them, sometimes all together, sometimes separated in some other distant place.
Some seedlings with recently sown parsley and Swiss chard complete the picture, although now comes the most difficult task, identifying the true garden plants and eliminating the weeds that grow alongside them and sometimes with greater vigor.
Only when the seedlings are over a month old can this work be done because it is only then that it is possible to identify them and remove all the weeds that surround them. In a delicate work, very carefully, with the soil moist but not too wet so as not to stir it up so much that we also uproot the seedlings.
The aromatic plants so used in the kitchen also say present in my garden. Rosemary, mint, the same parsley and the inevitable oregano contribute with their presence giving a different touch to the flower and garden plants that alternate here and there according to the possibilities of cultivable resizing that the land allows me. They are also plants that need to be pruned regularly in order to grow with greater vigor and rejuvenation.
Oregano is a very noble plant since apart from its known and qualified properties as an ingredient in countless foods, it has the particular virtue of being easily reproducible since it extends its roots horizontally and develops like a bush. It is enough to cut one of these roots, leave it in water for a few hours so that it hydrates well, and transplant it. Success will undoubtedly crown our efforts and soon we will have another beautiful oregano plant in full development.
The garden.
The part dedicated to the garden is interspersed with the same orchard, alternating dahlia plants - the bulbs begin to germinate at this time of year and are practically one of the last flowers of summer back in the months of March-April, before the cold of autumn . We will closely follow its growth and development until we reach those splendid flowers that, not by chance, represent the national flower of Mexico.
The geraniums in their various shades, especially red and white, begin to give the first colors to a garden that, suddenly, seems to have recovered all the magic it had a year ago, a universe of colors and resplendent perfumes on a surface that, Not being too big, it contributes to enhance all its spectacular beauty.
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The tapestry of white flowers is a variety that grows without problems although I don't know the scientific name. They are excellent flowers to cover certain spaces that spread very easily and that from time to time have to be removed so that they are too invasive and drown other plants.
Some aloe vera plants -they are in bloom at the moment- contribute to give it a different touch. Lilies and a couple of roses complete the panorama of flowers in my garden along with some "ladies of the night" because they bloom precisely at night. I would like to have more plants but space does not allow it.
Succulents complete the picture.
A wide variety of succulents complete the landscape of my garden. The limitation of space forced me to sharpen my ingenuity and arrange them vertically along the entire length of the wall that divides our property from that of the neighbor.
I used some old pallets that I got from a person who had transferred from abroad and had brought all the things in a container.
We painted them with my wife and prepared them to house all the succulents we had and to which others are constantly being added. Some of them even bear small and beautiful flowers. They even adorn the wall.
What does the garden represent in my life.
It is evident that in order to dedicate ourselves seriously and with a certain professionalism to these tasks, we must have a good amount of time available on a daily basis. We must discard the idea of growing a little plant in a pot on the edge of the window and forget about it. Those who live in apartments have no other alternatives. But those of us who are lucky enough to have a piece of arable land should take advantage of it and take things seriously.
And the biggest problem is our own work. If we are busy full time in a job as dependents eight hours a day, it will be difficult for us to take care of the garden and the orchard as we would like. It has been my case for years. Always busy in my personal life (marriage, small children, older children, work, etc.) I have had little chance to dedicate myself fully to this beautiful task.
Only when I reached old age, as it is called in some parts of the world (the age at which one retires and ends an active working life and greatly diminishes personal and family obligations) have I been able to fulfill this dream: dedicate myself to plants, so simple. Of flowers or orchard, it does not matter, the important thing is to see the plants grow (never buy them), take care of them, fight pests, see the fruits ripen and the flowers shine.
It's another job, there are other hopes, other illusions that keep me busy in this new phase of my life. And I am fully grateful to life for it.
