Getting started

The fundamentals for gardening for me are not the soil, plants, compost etc the fundamental thing for me is to have a mindset to simply enjoy the journey.....there are going to be great days and not so great days in the garden and believe me none of us are immune to them. Being mentally prepared for this fact gets you half-way there. I cannot even begin to explain how much of the postives and negatives or gardening I have learnt from books, garden centres, googling, tv shows etc and I hope that I will never stop learning. However from where I stand 99% is positive so go for it!

The basic requirements for my type of gardening are pots of varying sizes and colour, depending on what you intend planting, your tastes and whether you have balcony space only or a a larger patio/garden to put them in.

Secondly, some good potting mix and seed raising mix if you are going to start from seeds. When purchasing seeds or seedlings from a reputable garden shop only buy what you will eat. If you are going to grow from seed then some seed cells will be required and some seed trays to keep these steady on and will also allow good drainage. You can now buy over the internet or at your local hardware store peat pots which you can plant directly into and then simply plant the pot into the ground/soil when you are happy with the size of the plant. The peat pot then disintergrates into the ground in time. These are a fabulous idea as it reduces the need for plastic cells and transplanting.

There has been a discovery, however, of something even better than in my opinion peat pots and hence having to buy and use plastic seed cells/peat pots and it is recycling old paper/newspaper and again you can plant the developed seeding straight into the ground without disturbing the roots which happens when transplanting from plastic seed cells. This clever invention (not by me of course)...... truly makes my heart sing......I will show you how to make these later.

Just remember it is madness buying everything you can get your hands on to grow if you don't like eating them. A TIP when buying seeds please read the back of the packet to check the preferred seed sowing times of the year for your area. The experts have put this info on the packet for us to read and take note of, not everything grows all year round (though lots of wonderful things do). Fertiliser whether it be homemade or commercial liquid fertilisers or manure or one of the many available on many organic websites (I say organic websites because I tend to read so much about things that are better for us and the environment but this is only a personal preference) is very important especially for potted plants as they don't have the ground to draw nutrients from and hence will require nutrients to be fed to them via regular fertilising. Oh and a decent water supply will be good too have and if you have any spare please send some to us here in sunny Queensland! Last but oh so importantly you will need MR SUNSHINE.

COMPOST: Now by no means do I profess to be an expert in the compost department though I have commenced my compost bin (60L) and my darling Fob and I nurture it every day with scraps and grass cuttings. It is only 3 weeks old and from my research I need it to be around 6 weeks old before I can utilise it but nevertheless it is very exciting.

The base of my compost is grass cuttings as these are rich in nitrogen which is important for leaf production (I know....don't I sound impressive...I learnt that online!!!) On top of that I throw waste products eg potato peelings, overripe fruit, onion peelings etc etc however NO DAIRY PRODUCTS, NO MEAT AND NO WEEDS so the professionals write....again learnt online. These experts also say that you need an amount of air (space) in the bin for the process to succeed. So all I do is have a layer of grass then scraps then grass then scraps, I don't add any water because the goodies seem to make enough liquid during the process. The photo on the left is my compost collecting bin situated at my sink with the clear information for the family of the does and don'ts. My darling Fob added the NO EGGS SHELLS comment on the bottom. Some people will say egg shells are fine in compost, I however have decided to decline their involvement :)

Now just remember that I am no expert and I am a true student in the field of gardening but I cannot tell you how good I feel saving our scraps and utilising them in this manner....so here is a downward view of my compost about a week ago. Crikey that looks exciting I can hear you say.....Maybe not for you but certainly for Fob and I.