My gardens now.
I have a small vegetable garden of 300 sq.ft., 13 fruit trees and a Koi pond in back yard and flower beds in front (My wife's favorite). I grow all kinds of veges all year round and fruit as well. Loquat in spring, blue berry & grapes, persimmon, pomegranate etc in summer, figs in spring & fall.
How I share my love of gardening with others?
Sharing is most fun to me in the fruits of labor, knowledge, and time shared with family, friends, and neighbors. My neighbors' young kids thought I have supermarket in backyard. See sharing is good.
Who or what inspired me to garden.
My father had a small garden when I was a kid. I watched and worked there. We also lived nearby an agriculture research center where they did crop work. I was amazed by their growing seeds into crops we can eat or see. Same soil grows various things, just different seeds. How amazing a process and how amazing the seeds are.
My father taught me that hard work will bring you the luck and joy. Gardening has been a most satisfactory thing for me. My wife is a good partner for working on my garden. We share sweat and happiness just like my father's garden, the whole family worked on it. It is family tie!
How I learned to garden.
I learned gardening from my father first, and then I learned most from the internet. I found many video lectures (some 3 hours each) on University of California at Davis, Texas A&M University, Minnesota University website and others. They are systematic, professional courses. They cover almost every aspects of gardening because that is designed for master gardener training.
About.com/garden is a site I visit most. I find it is very helpful and informative at this site. Especially Marie Iannotti and Scottblue, they are kind and dedicated. Their members are very kind and willing to help. I can not help to say it publicly. I learned many practical tricks there and they work. Discussion with friends who do gardening is another way for me to learn.
Learning and sharing go together.
Lessons learned
- I paid dearly on gardening for lessons: Summary here only:
- Do not plant too crowded?
- Watering is a key in hot summer;
- Feed soil not plant, Compost and mulch are golden rules;
- Sharing with insects and wild animals is fun also;
- Do not fight for perfection in gardening, just do the best & hope the best;
- Plant more than you want then share with wild animals;
- Build perma cultural garden;
- Plant more varieties;
- Always try something new each year.
