Published on 12, July, 2020
I feel like I really should change my name on here so it no longer comes up as a number. Problem is I really don't like nicknames very much and don't want it to be anything to do with my actual name. How do people come up with their names? Some of them are so clever.
i chose my name because:
I look forward to seeing the name you decide on!
I used to grow sunflowers for many years at my previous house.
People can be very cruel to anyone they perceive as being different in any way. This is terrible to have to endure. We should all be able to live somewhere where we feel accepted by those around us.
These photos are truly beautiful. The bottled gherkins look so vivid I can almost smell and taste them! The aerial view from your bedroom is so beautiful. I can see Lavatera, a pear tree and hydrangea which I also have in my garden.
It is good to be part of this online community surrounded by people who do not have such ignorant and unkind attitudes.
The best thing about sunflowers is that they keep the zombies off your lawn! :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy86WS7pzoM
Final set of photos. Of our gerkin harvest in 2004. And photo from my bedroom window showing about 20% of our garden.
BTW most of the neighbors on our street completely shunned me and my family. We were the persona non Grata of the neighborhood.
Their nicknames for us cannot be printed here.
View from bedroom window. And some sunflowers.
Gerkin harvest.
Some were eaten fresh as they ripened. Others were pickled in jars to be eaten over winter.
So sorry to see the photo with the shed door hanging off... nice to see the photos of the produce.
I'm like your mother was in that I would rather look after the garden than the house. My happiest time was living in a basement which was like a cave at the back (bedroom had no windows). It was then I started growing plants in pots on the steps.
A garden like you describe is a lot of work. Mine is semi wild currently due to my ankle problem. I console myself because it is good for wildlife when overgrown.
Sometimes it is good when life moves on and you get different surroundings. I could not imagine moving away from our last house until the neighbours from hell moved in next door! Constant swearing, loud machinery and fumes. Intolerable.
I'm in a first floor flat now. With no green space of my own.
And i am not going to grow sunflowers indoors.
I've had enough of gardening.
My late mother was the real Gardner, caring more about the garden than the house. We grew our own potatoes, onions, apples, cucumbers. Berries. The house was on a corner with a very large garden. When my father passed away, the two of of just managed. Then when my mother got much older and weaker I did everything on my own. Not just gardening but dealing with nutty neighbors, burglary attempts and everything.
Our garden shed one morning.
Apple harvest
What amazing photos - thank you so much for sharing these. How lovely that you managed to capture bees feeding on them!
Your sunflowers were enormous - my tallest is only about 10ft (still can't do metres!) but it has an amazing head. I have left it so the birds can eat the seeds.
I have been looking at photos of my mum recently. Bittersweet memories. I am starting to wonder about the reason we've never been that close. Perhaps autism was a factor. Seems likely.
Do you have access to any outdoor space where you could grow sunflowers now?
Beuatiful pictures Robert, or should that be BOB Lol.
Sunflowers are great fun to grow, I have never grown any, but my sister used to grow them, the seeds were harvested to feed my dads exotics, he had many large avery’s, mostly budgies he bred, he used to breed them and sell them to pet shops and anyone who wanted to buy one, The mist he had was around fourty, we had chickens , little bantams, rabbits, guinea pigs, a minor bird that had a very good selection of words and a cough, love birds, red rumps, , zebra finches, .
Your mum in the pictures dressed like my mum,,, lovely pictures though, thank you.