Hello! I'm new!

[nkhourigan]

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

My name is Nikki and I'm a 37 year old high school teacher, and I live with my husband and our two daughters, aged 9 and 10, in suburbia just north of Brisbane.

I've been small-scale fruit and veggie gardening since I was about 22, when my husband and I bought our first house. I had a HUGE yard and therefore a huge garden.

Now the girls are here, that house was too small for our needs, and 2 years ago we moved about 4 streets away (as we love the area and community) but although our block is bigger, so is the house, so the yard is smaller.

We added a pool as well because all love to swim (especially good to cool down when I overdo it in the garden, and get overheated, which I tend to do a bit, oops), but this means we have a medium-sized yard.

Still have room for the chooks (7 chooks and 2 Muscovy ducks - don't tell the council!) And we also have two English Mastiff dogs.

I have some citrus trees planted in the front yard, and a smaller veggie garden (fenced) with 4 raised beds. I don't have room for pumpkin vines or watermelon vines any more, unfortunately, but I manage to grow quite a bit in my veggie garden, and although I'm sad it's smaller, I had to be realistic with myself about what I had the time for, going back to full time work, as I had worked part time for 8 years after I had the kids.

I love to hear what others have to share about gardening, I've gotten a lot of good ideas from here already!

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Welcome to the forum Nikki @nkhourigan ,

That sounds really lovely. And fully understand needing a bigger place with 2 girls, especially at that age.

I hear you, I overheat a lot too! Wish I had a pool, haha. But I don't think I'd enjoy the upkeep very much. Maybe I should repurpose one of the old bathtubs...

I have seen people grow pumkin vines upwards, over a trellis or the likes. Might work especially well in smaller spaces as you can grow upwards instead of out. 🤔

Myself, I currently do container gardening. All my plants are in pots on and around the patio. Yes, we do have more space, but I am still trying to reclaim the land from all the weeds and plants. It's very overgrown. An area I recently reclaimed near our septic tank has gotten overgrown already as I haven't been able to keep up with it because of the rain. It's very frustrating, not going to lie. But one day I'll put in raised beds and grow bigger and better (hopefully.
Thankfully, lots can be done with small spaces, if managed right. I've seen peole create whopping urban jungles with tiny backyards. I suppose, so long as sunlight can hit the area, you can do a whole lot.

I would love to see what your garden looks like (though the forum might temporarily block you from uploading pictures as you're a new member. It'll pass with activity - it's to protect the forum from spam) if you were willing to share