Kathy at
Cold Climate Gardening asked
Why Don't More Older Gardeners Blog ? It seems to have sparked a lot of
discussion, along with the question where are the under 30 gardeners? Being under 30 myself, (I'll be 21 in a couple weeks) I started running through my list of friends and trying to recall if any of them enjoyed gardening. What I came up with was that the friends who go to college don't have time for gardening, while the ones who don't go to college tend to have more interest in and time for gardening. It doesn't seem to make much difference if their parents are gardeners - it appears to be more of an individual thing.
As long as I'm blogging about young gardeners, I figure I might as well share my journey to becoming a garden blogger. Up until my family moved in January 2005, I didn't do a lot of gardening. I did have two little beds though; one was a perennial/annual, and the other focused more on herbs.
After we moved, I still didn't have much interest in gardening - I kind of wanted my own flower bed, but in my opinion (at the time) all the good spots had been taken by my Mother and Sister. You'll be glad to know my opinion has since been revised. I did tend to a couple of tomato plants and some garlic from the old house. The tomatoes were a success, but the garlic was too old. That fall, my Grandma offered us some plants, and I asked for a few figuring now I would
have to have my own space. That was how the perennial garden got started. I planted a bunch of pinks, and the few bulbs I brought with from the old house.Also that fall, we got an note in our newspaper box from 'The Plant Lady' who was having her annual sale. We went, and I got Valerian, Yarrow, Bee Balm, and some seeds from her. Next I needed a garden space. I chose the area under the tree, and my Dad helped (ok, he did most of the work) me dig up the area.
The next July (2006) I finally decided to keep a garden journal. I don't really remember why, but I'm thinking it had something to do with needing an excuse to buy a really cool
Cars notebook. The notebook was a good idea, because that year my seed collecting hobby took off full swing. If it had seeds, I gathered 'em. My experience up to that point had been limited to garlic, Cosmos, Calendula, Cleome and Salvia. As a result, I grew the same plants over and over since I knew I could get seeds from them. The previous year I had grown and saved seeds from an heirloom tomato; that was how I got started growing and saving tomato seeds.
By Spring of 2007, I had picked up
Patricia Lanza's Lasagna Gardening Books at the library and the veggie garden we'd been talking about became a reality. In April I started this blog with hopes of eventually connecting with other gardeners. I now enjoy reading many many many gardening blogs, and interacting through comments.
As for why older gardeners don't blog, I came up with a few answers;
- They don't have/know how to use the internet
- They're too busy
- They aren't aware that blogging is something they can do.
Well, that's my 2 cents worth.
~Sarah
Flowers for my birthday! My grandparents sent me this lovely basket of flowers for my 21'st birthday. The above picture is the front and the one below is the back. It's pretty from all sides! Thanks Grandpa & Grandma!
After
Plants from left to right: Parsley, Zerbina Wandering Jew, Mother-in-Law's Tongue, Pothos, Thanksgiving Cactus, Aloe, Mother-in-Law's Tongue.
This one is a little hard to do from left to right, but I'll give it a try. Basil, Lemon Balm, Coleus, Jade plant, Catnip, Amaryllis, Christmas Cactus, and the pot on the floor is our herb pot. I might have missed a few plants, but the list above contains all the ones in the picture.
I've been meaning to photograph this tree for quite a while. There was no tag on it when it was planted by the developers, but one of our neighbors thinks it might be a flowering pear tree. Whatever it is, it has beautiful flowers in the spring, and has lovely fall colors.
The Canada Geese decided it was time to start flying south. In this picture they're actually North. Our theory is that they all congregate at Marketplace Mall before flying south. They were flying over our house for about 3 hours the morning I took this picture.
We finally had a really hard frost last night. This volunteer Sunflower survived; also among the survivors were a Gerbera Daisy and Mom's Lavender.
The Japanese Maple was so pretty with the frost on it's leaves; it was just begging to have it's picture taken.
As I was searching the yard for something to photograph for GTS I found this little Dandelion that is obviously very confused about what season it is.
I also discovered these pretty Cupflowers that are blooming profusely.
When I checked the weather this morning I noticed that the temperature was supposed to get down to 31 tonight. Tomorrow night it's supposed to be 33. In fact, the nighttime temperature for the next week doesn't even make it out of the thirties. With this sad news in hand I decided it was time to start winterizing my garden. First I picked all the tomatoes and peppers and filled a half-bushel basket.
After lunch I helped Mom and Dad move one of the Russian Sage plants. It was very hard to get out of the ground - the roots were really strong. I had to break a couple, but I think most of the roots are strong and healthy. It should survive the transplant pretty well. The picture was taken in August when the Sage was a honey bee magnet.
This is a picture of Sweet William; we started some in a pot 2 years ago. As you can see it has left the pot and self seeded itself in a new location. In fact, it has spread all across the front gardens. Next year it'll probably be in the lawn. In the meantime I'm enjoying the bright, perky blossoms that keep blooming as everything else dies.
This is from June, so you can see the changes I made. (The pictures are not taken from the same angle. The picture above is the front of the garden and the one below was taken from the left side of the picture above.)
My Horehound:
And last but not least, my 'supervisor':
Farewell~
