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How did you get into gardening?
Just thinking, when I read the posts here, it's clear about the passion for gardening. However, before I was 20, say, I had no interest whatsoever in plants or anything remotely to do with gardening......oh, except for garden peas . I used to pinch loads from the school veg garden....took so many the headmaster called for the pea thieves to step forward. My red, burning face screamed out it was me but I got away with it. Ah! Those were the days!
I got into gardening when I dismantled a concrete chicken shed and planted a honeysuckle, pyracantha and jasmine and.......they grew!!! I was,hooked.
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I don't remember when I didn't garden.
My mum always gardened, and her mum,my nan, always did. Mums grandad always had a big allotment. So I kind of grew up with it.
I had my first tools and My own patch when I was 5
I had my first greenhouse, a 6 x 8 corrugated plastic one, when I was 10
I started growing tomatos and bedding plants for neighbours, spending all my pocket money on Paraffin to keep the frost out.
I used to put the bedding plants in for them, charging a shilling a dozen. I soon learnt to plant close together at 4 inch spacing instead of 6inch. you get more plants in that way
I got my next greenhouse when I was 14, 16ft x 8 glass and aluminium. I paid for it selling more plants. When I went to Uni, my mum took over the Plant businesss, with me pricking out at weekends.
When I did my finals I didn't have time to do all the pricking out, so I taught Mum how to do it. Dad fills the trays and pots with compost ready to plant up.
30 years later, at the age of 80 , theyre still at it. My mum says it keeps her young.She likes to chat to all the people who come for plants every year.
I really don't know Verdun.
When I was very young, my granddad had a rose garden and pond that I would spend many happy hours daydreaming in but I never ventured into his greenhouse or up to the veg plots.
When I was a teenager, I did the gardening at home but I remember my biggest motivation was a preference for neat and tidy over horrendous weeds.
When I had a family of my own and moved from a flat to a house, I naturally wanted to improve the garden but I guess I could have done this with patios and a neat lawn so I'm not entirely sure how or why I am a keen gardener except that I really really enjoy the creative/design side of it, the beauty of nature in all ways and the taste of home grown veg
I think gardening just ticks so many boxes. The heart, mind and soul connectivity to nature that de-stresses, reinvigorates and heals. The sense of achievement and satisfaction standing in your own little piece of paradise.The sensory overload of taste, sight, smell and even touch. The sounds of wildlife.
I get my kicks where I can find them
I was travel sick,that got me into gardening.
Here nearly everyone has window boxes hanging from their balconies. So years ago when I came back to Switzerland I decided to do the same. Then we had a ground floor flat with a patio and I got some of those large grey plastic boxes and put holes in the bottom and planted dahlias, tall marigolds and anything else I could lay my hands on and placed them around the edge of the patio. It just went on from there, first house, first garden, flowers, then veg, ad infinitum.
Fact is, I just like to get my hands dirty!
I was a late convert and had no interest at all until my mid 30s. I didnt think that gardening was very rock and roll.
My interest really started when we bought our current house which had large gardens but was a right mess. At first I just hacked things and mowed the lawn.
The next step was buying plants not knowing what they liked or what looked good together.
Then slowly started to see that some things looked better in combination than others and that some grew better in some places than others.
It grew and grew and when my first plants from seeds flowered and then i started dividing plants and taking cuttings, I was hooked. Now it is a passion that I cant imagine being without, but I still love the rock and roll.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
When we were children,my brother and I both were given a small patch of garden ,we could grow whatever we wanted and were each given the money for two packets of seed.We got a huge amount of pleasure from seeing whose plants would come up first
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After that I can,t remember being really interested in gardening again until I started watching Geoff Hamilton,and then I was hooked and have been ever since.
Verdun what a brilliant thread. I need to think about this, and rationalise my thoughts, or my input would keep spammers off for days. Brain already in overload at all the old memories and I'm only 27
it just snuck up on me while I wasn't looking. Before I knew it the rest of the world ahd gone away
In the sticks near Peterborough
My parents loved gardening and tried to get me interested , but I never enjoyed it and when I first got married and had our first houses my husband enjoyed gardening and I was happy to leave it to him. Then as the children got older and we got very involved with their sports activities the garden got sadly neglected and for one reason or another OH lost interest and it just got worse and worse.then one day just over a year ago I decided I couldn't stand the overgrown mess any more and started to tackle it on my own, not really knowing what I was doing. As things started to improve I realised that I was really enjoying it, being outside whatever the weather, cutting and clearing and then planting. I read and read and then found this forum which has been a massive help. I've started to grow veg, which I find so interesting and rewarding. I can't wait to get home from work and into the garden and am so sorry I have come to gardening so late at 56. There's so much to learn and still so much to do in our garden ,bot I really am loving it and can't wait to retire and fill my days pottering in the garden.