PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Gardening can be such a varied topic, e.g. from keeping your own vegetable patch to growing unique prize blooms; to small and large scale horticultural endeavours. Even communal gardening schemes such as an allotment or community landscaped gardens.

A local allotments I used to live near; was, seventeen years ago, attended by just one elderly gardener only. However, with the prevailing economic climate; more people have returned to gardening to support meager wages and the rising cost of food so the allotment is now fully allocated.

When I was growing up around this local area I remember the fields of the surrounding farms; full of wheat, corn and barley etc., all harvested and stacked standing upright in the fields. The local farmers also grew vegetables and some fruits. An increasing ammount of their fields; have been over the years developed into housing projects.

I loved my grandparents garden: when I was very young both my sister and I would help my grandmother make fruuit pies, cakes and tartlets. We used to go out into her back garden, where there was a vegetable garden and a herb garden, also fruit bushes. My sister and I would fill two coullanders full of berries from the fruit bushes. We would pick red and black currants, blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries.

The strawberries we would pick from the strawberry beds; the rhubarb my grandmother would cut with a large knife. Laiden with home grown fruit we would take them to grandmother who instructed us on how to make pies, cakes etc and even some home made jams and sauces and also elderberry tea.

Included in all these domestic and commercial endeavours, I also noticed that flowers were always grown near the crops.

I asked my grandfather why flowers were grown near the vegetable, salad and fruit crops. My grandfather replied that the flowers attracted the bees; who collected pollen from the plants and took the pollen back to the bee hives to make honey. Often the bees also help collect pollen from all the crops grown and so it helps the fruit and vegetables to grow, which is useful to us and such as farmers.

At home I would help my younger brother tend the vegetable and salad crops he grew. I wanted to have a small patch of my own in order to grow herbs. However, my brother argued the garden we had was not large enough!

My sister in Australia has a large house and "grounds"; but she enthusiastically grows her own vegetables and salad crops. My sister has also filled the grounds around her  house with native Australian flora and fauna and trees, some of them fruit trees.

I have recently moved, the new garden was over grown this year and so late in the season, it now being Autumn; so I have only been able to sort out the lawns. My neighbough advised me that the soil where I  live is not very deep: so I have had to ammend my plans a little and will fill planters and containers full of herbs in the back garden, instead.  For many years now I have wanted to establish a herb garden. 

Herbs are so versatile: they have always been used to flavour and preserve food. The herbs are also used themselves as medicinal remedies and are included in many other types of synthetic medicines.

The medical properties in herbal teas are also well known and are created for various types of maladies.

It is good that horticulture has been modified in order to support the increasing number of populations in the developing world.

Improved environmental and anti-pollutionary measures can but improve agriculture globally and the quality of horticultural produce worldwide.