Put in - Get out

I like growing my own vegetables and plants and find it relaxing and enjoyable all the way through: Planning, preparing, planting and the last 'P', the produce. I've had failures, done things wrong, or maybe I should say in a sub-optimal way, but generally what I've planted and cared for has thrived. It's a hobby, one of my many, and one of the better ones as I get to eat the results that come from it.

Over the last few weeks I've been eating cucumbers I've grown myself, egg plant, capsicums and cherry tomatoes as well and were they tasty? You bet your ass they were tasty!

Unfortunately I don't have as much time as I would like to spend in my garden, I'm busy with work and other things and have been absent from it for a little while so yesterday I put some time aside to check on it, pull some weeds, clip some plants here and there to promote more growth and produce and generally have a look at how things are going; the images in this post were taken during that time and as you can see it's all looking pretty good.

This year I'm looking forward to a nice harvest of almonds; I did reasonably well with them last year but they weren't as plentiful as I would have liked so it's encouraging to see a pretty decent crop this year and the husks are beginning to dry out and split which means they're not too far off. I'll have more lemons than I know what to do with and a decent haul of oranges coming along too. The apples are lagging a little, but I'll get enough to make a couple apple pies and it'll taste that much better knowing I grew the apples! As for my tomatoes, (Roma this year), there's many of them and they're looking good...they'll ripen up soon and I can't wait!

With gardening a person tends to get out of it whey they put into it whether growing fruit and vegetables, flowers, the perfect lawn...any plants really. It takes continual effort and care which sometimes pushes the boundaries of my available time but I always find the time because the reward of being out there doing it, and the produce itself, is so high.

Feel free to tell me about your own gardening efforts, or even failures if you like; I'm interested to hear what's worked and has not and what you feel the rewards of your gardening efforts are; the produce of process?