When you caught the gardening bug....

[Breanna.link]

I caught the gardening bug back in 09, joined a failing commune, became a traveller instead, bought 1200$ in seeds, got stolen a week later at a rainbow gathering. Got a job as a florist, loved it then a relationsh** caused me to walk away from the job, and my apartment and I started travelling again, met my husband became a housie, and now I wake up before dawn so I can do all my housework and spend as much time doing garden related research, and working it as I can. It is starting to get serious already, dude was like you told me this much for a garden budget, I said I don't have a budget, what I asked for in April was just for seeds. (spent $100 bucks yesterday on garden stuff). Now he laughs when he sees me looking for acreage on landwatch.com. I told him I need a food forest, I will have a food forest!

[imafan26]

I have been gardening since I was 10 and never really stopped. I belong to two orchid clubs and I volunteer at two public gardens. I take care of the herb garden at one of them. I have an 800 sq ft community garden as well as a jungle of a yard at home with a small vegetable garden that was a sad remnant of a rock garden when we bought the house. It is an 8x16 ft oval. I literally have a thousand plants in pots, about 300 of them are orchids, maybe less now, I haven't cleaned out my orchid bench in awhile.
I know about the garden budget. I used to spend $200 a month on the garden. But, now I don't have that kind of disposable income. I eat more of what I grow. I used to grow it mostly for fun and not much for eating, but I gave a lot of it away especially hot peppers, since I cannot use a whole lot. My budget is a lot less and I save more seed , exchange seeds and plants with other gardeners. I recycle pots and I take my old potting soil to the garden and have it steam sterilized so I can reuse it. I did a few soil tests and found out I really did not need much fertilizer. All my gardens needed was nitrogen, they are high in everything else and I have some complete fertilizer for the potted plants.
I spend everyday doing something at a garden.

[Allyn]

I grew up gardening. It was the norm. I thought everyone had a vegetable garden until I was old enough to visit my friends who lived in town and saw they didn't have a garden (and who looked at me like I had two heads when I asked why they didn't). My father and grandfather grew tomatoes for Campbell's Soup on 5 acres that abutted our property and we had a quarter-acre garden for ourselves. We shared an acre of property with my grandparents and I remember many a-day helping out with the garden work and the harvest. I remember how hot my grandma's kitchen got during canning and how the corn silk stuck to my arms while prepping the sweet corn for the freezer. I've only recently moved to a piece of property on which I can have a proper garden, and I am eager to get things rolling. It's been a long time since I've had a proper garden. I remember doing it, now if I can just remember how to do it. I almost feel like a newb.

Grandpop in the tomato field.

[Breanna.link]

neat pic^