Frugal Living and Horticulture - Do you love gardening?
The figs last year
Horticulture and Frugal Living
It's pretty cold still here in England and it's dark by 5.30pm
So I wanted to share some photos of my love of all things gardening!
Spring is on its way and I'm itching to get out in the garden and getting growing again!
I hope you enjoy this blog.
All photos are my own and taken on my Huawei P10.
As well as being a musician, songwriter, keen photographer and tutor, I have a real passion for all things horticulture and nature.
We live in a rural village Derbyshire UK and like to grow our own fruit and vegetables. We have a small polytunnel greenhouse in our small garden, planters and raised beds too. I've become a bit of an Eco Warrior this past few years and like to recycle a D compost what I can to help sustainability and our beautiful plan.
Our humble polytunnel
“People will always try to stop you from doing the right thing if it is unconventional.”
Warren Buffet
“The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.”
Wendell Berry
They always say "charity starts at home". We'll, sustainability starts at home too... No matter what size space you may have, we can ALL collectively do our bit to help make a difference.
Bees are so important to us humans!
I lead horticulture enrichment sessions at the school where I'm employed. It's a very urban area in a large town where children don't get the chance to learn about horticulture or where our food comes from.
I'm teaching my own children the value of sustainable living and how we can do our little bit to help... This life skill is priceless and they'll hopefully keep this close to their hearts as they grow!
Here are some pictures of our horticulture journey so far.
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The apples were very tasty
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Our school growing beds
We compost everything we can at home and school - This is called permaculture
Compost is one of the permaculture gardener’s most potent tools. It recycles “waste” from the garden and the home and turns it into a material rich in nutrients, which soils benefit from immensely. Composting essentially means the decomposition of organic matter by enzymes and microorganisms. This decomposition releases nutrients from the material that, once the compost is added to the soil, become available for plants and soil organisms to use. There are lots of different things that you can put into your compost pile, including vegetables and fruit scraps from the kitchen, pruning's, leaf litter and grass clippings from the garden, and even dead animals.
Source - https://www.regenerative.com/magazine/12-things-put-compost-pile
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A pear from our tree
The Iceberg lettuce were brilliant!
The pumpkins ended up in a competition! I was very proud of my effort!
I hope you enjoyed this blog.
Go and get growing in your own back yard,rooftop garden, kitchen or allotment! It's fun, healthy and good for the planet!
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
I live in Chicago and we just had another snow storm yesterday...I seriously cant wait for spring and to start thinking about my garden! I dont have much space to garden, I use containers that self water but I had some really great crops in the past couple years. Your iceberg lettuce looks amazing! I might try that this year. Spring seems so far away :(
Hey @emmyem84
Oh that's harsh that you're still getting snow there! It does keep trying here but it misses us!
Our cottage garden at home is only small, so we use old pallets as vertical planters, you can grow strawberries and tomatoes quite successfully in them as they like to tumble.
The Icebergs turned out really well in our school allotment this year! I started them indoors early march and planted out after April!
I promise you that spring really is just around the corner!
Kindest
Darren
You have a very nice garden there and I can fully understand you. I can't wait for the gardening season to start!
I agree with you, composting is a good and necessary thing. My father has a recipient for composting and we use it in the garden.
I'm following you and looking forward to seeing your gardening season here 😉
Thanks @erikah
I'm getting all of my tools sharpened and ready for the impending growing season!
I've noticed some bulbs appearing today whilst pruning my larger shrubs.
Oh, looks like I'll have to post more gardening blogs then, if people are interested.
Many thanks.
Darren
I'm most definitely interested in seeing other people's gardening post. And I'll be posting about my gardening because I think we have to make people aware of the benefits of home grown fruits and veggies. So if you're a partner in this, that's fantastic! 😊 🍇 🍅
Nice post. We got about 5 inches of snow here in NJ last night, but they are forecasting spring-like temperatures for later this week. Your post is making me look forward to gardening soon. We have lots of deer, so we're currently confined to growing herbs and other plants that won't get eaten up. Thanks for the post!
Hey @popsoz
The snow is still hovering around across the pond isn't it?
We've had the odd few inches here but nothing too disruptive.
Do you have a greenhouse or poly tunnel? That will let you gain a month or so on the growing season and intern, protect your seedlings from the hungry animals!
Thanks for checking out my post.
Darren
No - nothing that elaborate - may have to check it out...
It's great that you have a garden at your local school. What happens with the harvest afterwards? Do the kids get to cook with it or take some home?
Hey @daan
When we harvest our fruit and veg, It's shared out to whomever would like some to take home.
The rest is cooked in the school kitchen for everyone at lunchtime.
It's a new initiative that I've been championing for a year now.
We've bought a huge poly-tunnel which will allow year round growing too.
Thanks for reading my post!
Darren
nice to be acquainted with you. first off, yes we share much in common. you did the pumpkin carving really well!
i'm so encouraged to see you teaching school kids-- that's one of the most important works, in my opinion. great rundown on all of these different options. thanks for sharing. following for more :)
Thanks for reading my post.
It was just a brief whistle stop tour of what I'm now doing to promote growing food in our school.
The students are really buying into the whole permiculture and sustainability water of life.
awesome! if you ever decide to do a full post on that and really dig in, please tag me in case i dont see it :) thanks!
Of course! It's just finding the time for all of my passions! You'll see from my blog that I flit between music, photography and horticulture!