Look Where We Live.

Time to get started on this thing , soooooo ,here goes. What better title for the first entry than the actual name of the Blog. Shall I say it one more time....Look Where We Live. We being my wonderful gypsy dance teacher wife,Cheri, and me the wannabe gardener himself "Garden Geezer". Where...being the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina, home of millions (literally) of Fraser Fir Christmas trees, moonshine stills (probably, though I haven't seen any yet) and friendly hillbilly folk who all seem to have a little garden in their back yards.

As a result of moving to an area where it is almost a law to have to grow something you can eat, and being married to a woman who eats more veggies than anyone I have ever met in my life, I became an unwitting gardener. You will find out how unwitting I actually am as this Blog progresses i am sure . When people around this part of America say "garden" they are almost always talking about their food gardens not their flower gardens, although they are "right proud " of their flowers too. Most flower gardens are in the front yard so everyone driving by can see them and most food gardens are in the back yard so that the neighbours don't have to cringe at the sight of you using an old bedframe to grow your cucumbers on. There is an awful lot of "making do" up here, especially amongst the old timers, so you can see some wild and wonderful uses for worn out or discarded objects as they are salvaged and put to use in gardens and yards.

Today's photo is of "the Geezer" himself hoe-ing through his first ever garden, or 400sq/ft of dirt. I suppose it isn't really a garden until something other than your footprints are planted in it ! I must admit I did feel a bit like Neil Armstrong when I looked back and saw all those workboot prints in that virgin expanse of turned and hoed soil. That first garden was last year 2007 and the gardening bug hit Cheri and I a little late in the season so we did not even sow our first seeds 'til the middle of July. Everyone told us nothing would "make" because we started late, but we weren't really bothered by that, we just wanted to get our first years practice in.

I should say at this point that it was MY first years practice, Cheri had of course done all kinds of gardening in her hippy/commune living youth and proved to be a great advisor and prompter for me in my first garden. She is still prompting and guiding me this year too, although I do not mind getting gardening books from the library or chatting with locals to find out what works best where etc. I think that will do for a first Blog entry, what do you think? Yeah , maybe I will continue with this story tomorrow night, either way whether I write it down or not the story will continue. I hope your story is as happy as ours.

All the best

The Garden Geezer