Discussion: Was gardening hard to start and get into?
timdavies96
Posts: 2
Hi all,
I'm a final year university student, looking into gardening and food growth at home.
Just wondering your thoughts on gardening in general to start and get into. Do you feel there is a lack of skills and knowledge stopping people getting into gardening/home food growth?
What are your thoughts on this? Did you find gardening hard to get into?
Do you find food crops when growing at home hard to look after, or to manage.
Do you feel as though you're putting in a lot of work for disappointing results and small yields of crops including poor quality?
Does anyone have any tips or methods for anyone struggling with growing food crops at home?
Also if you could take a look at this link;
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/5FKVJ2P
Any answers are welcomed and would be helpful, Thankyou.
Last edited: 19 November 2016 11:21:53
Posts
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/5FKVJ2P
In the sticks near Peterborough
Done
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Plenty of (maybe too much ?) info out there for people who want to know. Many probably don't. I am often stunned into silence by the sheer ignorance of some people regarding plants and natural processes. I can still remember stuff from science lessons over 50 years ago and everyone has to do basic sciences now, but there are people who still don't know that bees pollinate flowers to produce fruit/seeds....
I think the main constraints are lack of space and lack of time/energy. Many modern gardens are so small that is is very hard to give sufficient space for all the various uses: children, pets, utilities like bins and washing lines, relaxation and entertainment, ornament etc, for growing food on other than a tiny scale. People work and have long commutes and need to have family time and a social life as well. And these are the lucky ones who have any land at all to call their own - many don't, or don't want to invest in rental properties.
As far as I was concerned it was a simple, natural process, from helpng mum to having my own patch. I now have more than enough space, still lack skills and knowledge in certain areas (but learning is part of what makes gardening such a rewarding lifetime hobby) and diminishing time and energy.
I find food crops satisfying to look after even if my yields are low, always a risk when gardening in less than ideal conditions, as I do. Keeping up with them is just one of many things I have to do, with limited time and energy, so inevitably they don't always get the care they really deserve.
But I still enjoy it!
Buttercupdays - I couldn't put it any better
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I hated gardening, the first picture illustrates.
Beginning of the year decide to get out there and turn a neglected garden into something a bit more pleasant. I have to say I have really enjoyed the undertakeing. End of my first growing season I felt over the moon. Yes it needs a few years of maturity and it's not spectacular but one feels accomplishment.
The beginning of the first year
Second picture illustrates end of my first growing season.
Did you move to Oz too?
I got into gardening when I was very young.
That you could put a tiny speck of something into the earth and within a short space of time you had a plant. It fascinated me and I was hooked, by the age of about 7 I was going round to the neighbours trying to sell them my produce - it supplemented my 6d (yes,an old sixpence) pocketmoney
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Sorry about that folks. Been trying to find away of editing the post.
Can't understand what happen there. Perhaps the files were to big! The pictures looked OK on posting.
Good neck muscle exercise
Looks like you've done a grand job, quite a transformation!
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Hi nick are you taking pics on your ipad, if so you are taking them upside down, turn it around the other way... I used to do that
well done to you for getting out there, it is so rewarding isn't it, it is addictive....
Tim, i started very young, maybe 8 or 9 growing carrots in my parents garden, they didn't do very well as i kept pulling them up to see how much they had grown....mostly as a youngster i had houseplants, my windowsill was full of them, mostly just boring specimens with the odd experiment, like planting orange pips etc. I've always been obsessed with neatness in the garden, love lawns short and edges strimmed..don't like weeds or colour chaos...other than that just have a go at growing what you fancy...i had never eaten a broadbean until i grew my own....i picked blueberries every morning to go in my breakfast this summer then raspberries, have goosberries and redcurrants to make jam and well ....home grown new potatoes are just the best, so easy to do...sounds like you have got the bug to grow your own, am sure you will love it, even with its up and downs....bad weather,bugs and slugs, pigeons, mice, they all try your patience
)
Thank you for the great responses everyone, some interesting points made, and thank you to those who filled out the short questionnaire, really appreciate it.