Growing up with a grandmother who is a promoter of gardening, I was completely influenced by her lifestyle.
It's a beautiful morning here in Nigeria at the moment. Greetings, my dear ladies of Hive. I feel excited to participate in this week's prompt. The two topics presented to us are quite amazing; however, I will love to discuss question one, which is all about gardeningš”.
My second son in my little garden,watering my fluted pumpkin leaves
Iāve recently renewed an old interest in hobby gardening in growing flowers, fruit, and vegetables outside my home. I may not save much out of my food expenses, but this is more for personal satisfaction as well as relearning old skills. Do you have a garden? Or wish you had one? What would you like to grow in your own little paradise? Here is the contest link
Practicing gardening in my little corner at home is primarily for personal satisfaction because it's such a small garden. Yes, it has been saving me some money, but not like my grandma's large farm. It's usually handy whenever I need to prepare some kind of food that requires vegetables. That feeling of harvesting something so fresh straight from your farm to the kitchen is usually heavenly.
While I was with grandma, I practiced different kinds of farming. At a point when the boys were all away from home in search of greener pastures, I even started cultivating in our large farmland other than just planting, weeding, and harvesting. Grandma will make you do all manner of chores, whether you like it or not. I saw it as a punishment at first, but later adapted to her way. Hardly will grandma buy fruits and vegetables from the market. She didn't even have lots of money, but she is blessed with lots of farmland, and she is the most industrious woman I have ever met. Even at her old age, she has refused to rest to date; she still nurtures both her garden at home and her farmland outside her home. Aside from veggies and fruits, she grows food crops such as yam, cassava, local beans, and corn, while buying the rest from the market.
My grandma and I
This practice not only saved her lots of money but also made her consume freshly harvested food and veggies always. When I got married, she didn't hesitate to emphasize the importance of growing my own vegetables if possible.
So far,I have grown pumpkin leaves as shown above and curry leaves in my little corner at home. Pumpkin leaves can be used to prepare vegetable soup/stew, porridge yam,etc.
Fresh curry leaf
Curry leaves are an amazing ingredient with a good flavor suitable for preparing tomato stew for eating white rice. I plan to add water leaves to my garden soon since the rainy season has started. Water leaves and pumpkin leaves are great combos for preparing vegetable soup.
This is all about my experience growing my own little paradise at home. I hope you find it interesting.
Thanks for reading through and do have a relaxing weekend.
All images are mine