Space Outside Our Homes

Most of us have a space outside our homes and most of us attempt to keep it tidy, if not easy to look at. Whether it consists of bare soil or whether it is covered with paving, bricks, concrete along with some fancy garden furniture and a barbecue, if left untouched a variety of different plants will start to grow on it. Most of these plants will be weeds, tangled, living and dying and not particularly ornamental.

With only a little help this space can still have a variety of plants growing in it but it can be a chosen variety, colourful, healthy and frangrant. Going a step further it can provide food: potatoes, lettuces and tomatoes, strawberries, apples or melons, flavourings such as parsley, mint and garlic.

However, a good many home owners faced with this space perhaps for the first time in their lives either decide that growing plants on purpose needs too much technical knowledge or that it is going to take more time and work than they can supply.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a great deal of unnecessary fuss made about cultivating plants i.e. gardening so that it is surrounded with an aura of green fingers and double digging. But if you remember that plants are alive, as you are and need food and drink and air, as you do, you are halfway to being a successful and enthusiastic gardener. One way in which plants eat is by absorbing particles of minerals, potassium, sulphur and iron dissolved in water through their roots. Another way in which they obtain the fuel they need to go on living is by making other foods and oxygen out of the air with the help of the energy provided by the sun. Much of your garden is aimed at providing the best possible conditions for both these activities.