Growing green thumbs

As someone who had never gardened before, moving into a house with both a front AND a backyard to manage was fun, but also a bit intimidating.

I could kind of bluff my way around the backyard because it was full of veggies and herbs, which I didn’t know much about from gardening, but I knew plenty about from eating!

The front yard was a different story. It featured loads of pretty (if slightly unruly and unloved) flowers and plants, many of which I still don’t know the names of.

To paint a picture of how little we knew about what was going on in our front yard, during one of our first gardening blitzes there was an emergency photo SMS to Mama G (aka TG’s mum) where we asked something along the lines of: “Um, is this a weed?”

Besides being our on-call gardening hotline, I learned two very important things from Mama G about looking after flowers.

1. Pruning is just cutting

I know there are techniques involved in pruning that take into account important things like seasons and flowering patterns. But at the end of the day, pruning is just a fancy word for cutting, so snip away! After all, as tip number two says….

2. Don’t worry, it will grow back

When I first started pruning – no wait, cutting! – I would approach each plant nervously, making timid little trims. I was so worried about getting rid of the wrong branch, or cutting it too far from the bud, or taking it off at the wrong angle. There was so much to think about!

The thing to remember is it’s very hard to prune your plants to death. So get your Edward Scisssorhands on and go nuts with the secateurs. It’s super satisfying, and just saying “I’ve been pruning my roses” makes you feel something close to a real gardener.

Rollercoaster riding

I’m a big wussbag when it comes to roller coasters. And by roller coasters, I mean pretty much any amusement park ride that goes up and down (and up and down and up and down…) One time, I even bawled on the pirate ship. Seriously.

But every day this past week – thanks to Melbourne’s out-of-control heatwave – I’ve been on a crazy roller coaster ride with our garden that TG and I have dubbed the roller coaster of EMOTIONS. (Deep eh?)

The emotional roller coaster ride goes a little something like this.

It starts off nice and calm every morning when our herbs and veggies are looking pretty happy. (Those are zucchini plants at the front).

Then by late arvo when TG gets home, and after the veggies have been exposed to hours of 40-degree heat, I get pictures like this sent to me and my heart goes crashing. OMIGOD we killed the zucchinis!

But then, hurrah, I’m back on the up thanks to the amazing life-giving power of water. A good soak and they start perking right up again. Take a close look at this clip. These plants have just been given a good drink – can you see how the leaves start to move, straighten and fatten up?

With the cool change, thank goodness our emotional roller coaster ride is finally over (for now at least). And I’m definitely happy with how our garden looked yesterday morning after its first cool night’s sleep for the week. Look – our first zucchini flower!