Outperformed By Nature
This is my third spring gardening outside. I decided to get into growing some of my own edibles starting with fruits; berries mainly, and vegetables. I had been growing flowers in flower pots indoors prior to that, but I figured it wouldn't take that much more effort to grow food instead. I used to have a tiny little farm when I was very young. I grew yam, maize, leafy vegetables and tomatoes. The land was so fertile, however, so I put absolutely zero effort into it. I basically put the stuff in the ground and it grew. I still remember the pride I felt when we had my yam for breakfast after my first harvest.
I have learnt quite a lot about gardening in the last three years. The first year was a complete disaster due to the weather issue. It wasn't just me, it was a lot of people. I remember seeing things in the news about the lack of rainfall and high temperatures affecting harvest that year. Last year's harvest happened in lockdown which meant I had a lot of time to tend to the plants. The weather was also pretty great.
This year has gotten off to a good start. The plants are looking healthy and vibrant. I'm looking forward to another good year of berries. I have already been eating my spring onions even though there aren't that many of them. I will consider planting more of those since they seem to be able to survive under most conditions.
I have introduced new plants this year, including tomatoes. It's the first time since I was a child and already I can see the climate in England is not kind to this very delicate plant. I will do a separate post showing all my plants if I can muster up the energy. I have also transplanted some of the berries since they became too successful and started to dominate the bed. Fingers crossed they will take to their new location - so far so good.
I need the space, so I've only created a narrow bed along one fence. Who knows, maybe one day I'll turn the entire space into a little farm. I'm not even sure the council would allow that. If so, I wonder why nobody does it. I can't be the first/only person to have considered that surely.
I've also refreshed the soil this year with some high quality compost soil. I had to buy that of course, I don't have the capacity or knowledge to create that much compost. These are all acidic plants as well, so I've been pouring coffee residue into the soil too.
The birds and the bees
I seem to have attracted some interesting new guests with my sweet smelling plants. I've noticed a lot more bees for instance. Bees are always here, but a certain variety of digger bees have taken a liking to my yard, especially the soft compost soil. I've looked into it and they seem to be benign and non-threatening 'pollinators', so I'm inclined to just let them be. I have seen some other opinions, however, of people warning of their tendency to multiply exponentially and become a nuisance. I'm currently of two minds about what to do with them.
The squirrel population also seems to have bloomed this year, I see way more of them running up and down the trees in the neighbourhood. I also noticed a more than usual amount of debris left falling from the trees this year as the squirrels munched on all the leaf buds on the branches.
Birds have also showed up in higher numbers and in more variety. There are at least twice as many robins in my neighbourhood this year. There are also a few that I don't even know what they are. There is one I saw that was so colourful it resembled a tropical bird. I believe it's the birds in particular that have caused an explosion of the variety of wild plants in my yard this year.
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This is my theory; I have observed them landing on the fence and pooping into my yard. Because the edge of the fence is safe from my feet, the plants there, even the grass, are more lush and are able to flourish. Normally it'd just be grass and some weed, but this year I've seen an explosion in the variety of plants there. This includes wild berries. I basically thing the birds are pooping the seeds of fruits they've eating all over the place and inadvertently sprouted a mini garden along the other fence. This is actually how some plants propagate in nature; by having seeds that are undigestible by birds.
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Now when I compare my work on one side of the yard to the one nature did, I'm slightly embarrassed to say that nature has done a slightly better job! Not only is there more variety on nature's side, they plants look a lot more lush than mine. I'm not looking forward to some wild berries too, as long as they're not poisonous :)
A similar thing has occurred in my crypto portfolio. At some point I split an amount of cash into two. I bought and HODLd crypto with one half, and day-traded with the other half. It's been nearly a year and the HODL portfolio has far outperformed my day trading!
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Peace & Love,
AdeΜ
As time goes on I leave my garden more and more to nature. She feeds my rabbits beautifully and I've more onions than I know what to do with!π
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CommunityIIDiscord
Wow that's amazing! Thank you very much.
Yes indeed, haha. My garden is looking more like a meadow than a lawn these days too π
Man I hope you buy soon some cool small farm land :) ... you can make some cool blog posts there every day and also lot fresh food :)
That's a dream haha. When the crypto billions come rolling in, I'll buy land somewhere nice in the sunshine. π
Lets hold head up and lets hold dreams strong and soon we have what we want.
Hive not go end here also not the other coins also :)
What the birds bring is perfectly adapted to our areas because it is already growing in abundance in the area. Ask me how I know about being outcompeted. We want to grow one thing ... the birds are bringing what is ALREADY doing well.
Tomatoes ... a tough grow in a cool maritime climate ... see if you can get cold-hardy varietals from Eastern Europe ... they will adapt better to a cooler climate.
π₯π₯π₯π₯π₯π₯π₯ Makes total sense!!
Actually I have a lot of contacts in Eastern Europe. Maybe I'll get seeds posted or something. Thanks for the tip.
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Thank you, much appreciated π
Birds are notoriously horrible gardeners.
They take what they want and they never plant in the boxes. LOL
The solitary bees (digger bees) are good to have. Most worry about the big fat carpenter bees, because they will dig holes in wood, hence the name.
Good luck on your garden, may your harvest be bountiful!!
Hahahahaha so true!!
Thankfully I don't have any carpenter bees (yet?). Thank you very much π
Well, nature does do that better and I also get embarrassed a lot. I often fail in gardening. The wilderness gave me some delicious fruit while in my garden I was still working on it.
:). We can't compete with nature π
When collecting wild herbs and checking for the plant genus, i do observe at how good nature is. I love the comparison with your crypto portfolio.
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