garden guilt

I love gardens that provide, gardens that wander and overflow with produce, gardens that have meaning in their confusion, gardens that run in everywhich way. I love them. My heart feels happy when I see gardens not lawns, gardens that run with mint, chamomile, dandelions, then layers of dense but plentiful bits and pieces. I love to pick for every meal, to be creative with abundance to honour heritage and heirloom, to challenge and delight.

But, I must declare I feel like since we have been here I have failed in this vision. True we are only renting and have lived in two places in the last two years but it is more than that. I feel like I am so out of touch with how things grow here, last year I planted as I would in Sydney and although I had prepped the beds I didn't realise how depleted they were, my seedlings remained seedlings and then shot up to seed. Not to mention my ignorance at the big lemongrass sucking my garden bed dry.

Hmm, I tried again but to no avail. Finally before heading to Malaysia I gave the beds a serious talking to and hit them big time with all matter of manure and compost and glorious seaweed concoctions followed by layers of newspaper and sugar cane mulch and let it work it's magic for a couple of weeks. I also decided to plant a lot earlier than I previously had, it seems to have worked, kind of, but it's just starting. We are now getting deliciously juicy tomatoes that smell and taste amazing, wonderful glorious sweet potatoes, almighty brilliant Kale, a multitude of herbs and a few other bits and pieces (I didn't want to go too crazy in case I failed again). 

In other areas, I have pulled up a whole lot of plants that look like ginger but are in actual fact one of the many varieties that look like ginger or even galangal but are in fact neither, I plan to plant a whole lot of turmeric and actual ginger there instead. There are a few plans afoot without going too crazy, keeping in mind this is a rental. The kids have their own garden, filled with herbs, flowers and other random vegetables. 

I want an overflowing garden, even within our small confines, I want big leaves, hidden gems, many morsels of goodness. This makes me so happy, happy in my bones, my heart. But I feel like I still stab in the dark, in Sydney our small permaculture garden was a delight and produced a lot, here I find that mulching does not work it's magic in quite the same way, I am tempted to go a bit Biodynamic and expose my soil to the elements. 

Anyway, I feel like I have owned up to a dirty little secret, my failure (over and over) as a gardener, but I will try again and again, I will ask more questions, observe more and do my darndest to make what we have of a garden a snippet of my fantasy. 

Another thing I love about gardening is the passion that I feel afterwards, I have more of a spring in my step and smile on my dial, after this particularly fun session with Ilo, we hopped off to the kitchen to whip up some muesli, anzac cookies and a whole lot of nut butter (full of almonds, cashews, pepitas and hemps seeds), yum. Yes, it is true that after all this baking, dinner came a poor second, as we ended up having a bit of a slap dash baked bean nachos meal, albeit complete with guacamole, salad and yoghurt, hmm, it seems my baking mojo got used up prior to dinner, oh well, it was so worth it.

* update - I love nachos, like really love it nachos and all things mexican. 'Slap Dash' is more indicative of the depletion of said cooking mojo, basically you sneeze and nachos is cooked (well not exactly sneeze and definitely not over the food but you get the picture).