The Beacon
Volume 3, Issue 6
June 2012
Suburban Gardening I have a passion for gardening. I would like to start a garden club for Rivermist and use this newsletter to help share what I’ve learned and continue to learn. I would like to discuss how we can grow our own flowers, vegetables, fruits, peas, and nuts in the limited space of our backyards. As an individual I’ve never touched soil, dirt, or clay until I was 35 yrs old. I didn’t have any knowledge of gardening or eco systems until I started gardening 2-3 years ago when I was living in an apartment on medical drive. Over a period of time I learned a lot (still learning now…) on gardening. I do grow lots of veggies, trees and fruits in our backyard which was set up for under $900. My hopes would be to start a Rivermist garden club to have a forum for the community to share the joys and benefits of gardening. Three years ago, I was offering free yoga class at my medical drive apartment. I always encouraged students to live on good foods. I prepared and provide healthy breakfast to my students and one of my student’s was impressed and gave me a curry leaf seedling and holy basil plant. This kicked off my gardening journey. I learned a tremendous amount from my first seedling and plant. As I poured water onto the curry plant all the water was draining out and I was puzzled. Trying to be eco-friendly and vowing to never let water go to waste, I didn’t understand why water always Copyright © 2012 Peel, Inc.
needed to be drained for any plants or trees. I learned quickly that if the water is not drained from the plant, unfriendly bacteria’s and fungus would start to build. I killed my holy basil since I kept inside my apartment due to lack of sunlight and the plant sat in water because the plant did not have proper drainage. The lessons learned were plants needed adequate sunlight and water to grow but water needs to get drained. The Curry plant came out pretty good and my wife used it couple of times in our cooking, but I was not impressed that much. But the inner fire for growing veggies was starting to become a passion of mine. The next year, I planted tomatoes, hibiscus, thyme, parsley, basil and jasmine in my apartment. The third year I planted Egg plant, Jalapeno, Tomatoes, Fenucreek, Bottle Gourd, Snake Gourd, Bitter Gourd, Strawberry, Cucumber, Yellow Squash, Summer Squash, Brussel Sprouts, Asparagus, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Radishes, Tomatillos, Broccoli, Okra, Indian Spinach, Corn , Parsley, Cilantro, Neem plants, Mango plant etc., to name a few. After spending nearly a thousand dollar I would say that my investment is rewarding me back with a garden of fresh veggies which are unmatched with any super market. In future newsletters I will share some tips and tricks that I learned along the way. If you are interested in the Rivermist Garden Club please email me at Rivermistgardenclub@yahoo.com. The Beacon - May 2012
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