Howdy!

[Ambear]

I rarely say howdy but I thought I should say hello that way since I'm a Texan lol. My son and I love watching Mark's videos on Youtube. My son is 11 years old and we are homeschooling and I'm trying to get him interested in gardening. At least he's interested in learning about indigenous plants or weeds that are edible. It's been so hot here in Corpus Christi Texas but we live by the coast so it's a bit cooler. The humidity is crazy in the summer so we wait til about 7pm to go outside which leaves about two hours of sunlight to do stuff. I know our seasons are different here than in Australia, but I feel like I could prolly learn and put to use the advice Mark gives; it seems like our climates may be similar.

We have little dragon fruit sprouts coming up and I definitely want to build a good support for those once they grow big enough. I will prolly watch Mark's video on that again when we are ready. Our grocery store sells the dragon fruit that are the red and yellow ones which both have white flesh. However, we bought some red flesh fruit from someone we know and I sprouted from those seeds. I don't know if I would try sprouting from seeds in the store bought ones here because the sticker said they were irradiated. That's got to mess up the seeds because I know it messes up nucleated blood cells when they irradiate red blood cell units. The fruit in the store comes from Mexico so they must irradiate to rid them of bugs.

Anyways, we live in the city in a small two bedroom house with a big back yard. We don't have a lot to spend on supplies so we try to be creative. We also have two awesome dogs who get bored and dump my smaller pots of fruit trees out or poo where I don't want them to or get wrapped up in my pole beans lol. Basically we have to protect what we grow or they will destroy/poo on it. At least they calmed down from their puppy days of ripping open a bag of pea gravel and flinging it over the back yard.

I look forward to reading advice everyone has to offer here. Have a great day!

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Gidday @Ambear !
Sounds pretty tough but also exciting. I think for kids, they often just don't have patience. So growing plants that grow quickly and/or have bountiful fruit are more fun to grow for them. Perhaps even a scavenge hunt in the garden could be fun; if he can identify the plant he can eat the fruit. Turn it into a game.
Mark gives many handy tips that work for any climate type. What season are you currently in? It's Spring here in Australia.

Ooh! That's pretty exciting. I loved how he used his tumbler to get rid of the spikes on the dragonfruit.

If you have any neighbours you can always ask them for seeds. Most would be most happy to give you some, or give you a fruit from which you can harvest yourself. Other cheap options could include buying seeds online, or harvesting what you can identify and find in nature.
Naughty pups, haha. My dog Bella once tried to eat my spinach plants but I saw her and told her no. Left a beautiful row of front teeth on the leaf though, hahahah (not that I have an issue with her eating spinach, I just don't want her to eat from my pots, and if I let her once, then... well...).

Feel free to ask any questions you may have
There's also a fair number of members who keep a garden-diary on here. It allows for them to track their progress, show it off and get tips

 

[Ambear]

We are in late summer right now. The humidity is a bit down. This week we will be in the mid 90s Fahrenheit, but at 100 for the past couple of months. Our first day of fall is in a couple of days which is really just an extension of summer lol. We do get some fronts that give us a bit drier air which feels nice. Those should start happening hopefully in a couple of weeks.

I'll check it the garden diaries on here. I'd like to post also. Thank you for your kind and helpful reply. Have a good blessed day

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Ahh yes, so opposite seasons, give or take. Which can be great as you can see ahead of time what Mark is growing, and thusly plan what you want to get ready for when the season arrives for you.
That's quite warm! We're in the first month of Spring and temperatures have been 35C already (probably around 95F).

Some good diaries to check out would be @DThille 's and @Lunai 's. Though there are many more. Those are just the names of what came to mind. Dthille lives in a much colder climate and has to battle the snow, and Lunai lives in Germany.
I've updated my diary twice too, though I think I'm way due for a third, haha. My garden had been a little neglected for the past couple months, but I'm working on fixing her right back up again.