During the summer I always read a lot of books. One of the books I read during my last holiday was a book from Carolyn Steel with the title that translated means "What are we going to eat?". I think the English title is Sitopia.
The book is about food, agriculture, pesticides, organically grown food and much more.
Reading this book inspired me to look into growing my own vegetables and fruits.

And then I thought that there must be a community with likeminded people on Hive and so I found HiveGarden. And here is my first garden update. I hope more will follow....

Our garden

Since we have moved a couple of years ago we have have quite a large garden (for this urban area that is). It's approximately 80 square meters large. When we bought the house the backyard was a real jungle. We removed a lot of bushes and plants and paved a part of it.
We did keep a big square in the middele and borders on the sides with plants.

About two years ago we thought it would be nice to have some fruits, so we bought a raspberry bush and a plum. The raspberry is a real succes. I didn't know it was such an easy plant. It grows very quickly and gives us loads of raspberries each year.
The plum didn do very well in the first year (4 plums), but last year we had over 20 delicious plums.

After the holidays

Before we went on a three week holiday we had a few plums that were almost ripe. I read somewhere that you get a load of plums every other year and the year after just a few.
I put a net around it to protect the plums from the birds.
Unfortunately it had been very hot and dry during our holiday. I didn't have anyone to water the garden, so it took quite a beating.
All the plums were gone even though I had a net around it. I think they must have fell off and been eaten by birds or insects.
Our raspberry plant was full of brown leaves, so I think it got a bit dried out.
The herbs I had in some pots hanging on my fence were completely dried out.

The current situation

When we returned from our holiday we first watered the garden. As I mentioned before; the raspberry is such a strong plant. I removed the brown leaves and it revived completely. After a few days it already gave us raspberies again. And there are more to come.

I even noticed it had found it's way under the terrace and a new sprout emerged in between some tiles.

The herbs were completely dead, so we went to a gardening center to buy some new ones.
Whe have basil, rosemary, parsley, lemon balm, thyme and chives.

We also bought some broccoli and lettuce. I've planted the broccoli in a box because I'm afraid the snails will eat them if I don't. I still have to find something to put the lettuce in.

We also had some hanging baskets which had beatifull flowers from which I cannot remember the name. Only a few of them survived the dry summer, so I tried to rescue the rest of them by planting them in a pot. Let's see if I can bring them back to life next year.

What's next?

I'll try to keep my plants alive and hope that I'll be able to harvest some broccoli soon. If anyone has some tips for this garden-newbie, please add them in the comments!
We still have to figure out a place to plant the lettuce.

I've also found a nearby green house that rents plots of land to people so they can grow their crops indoors. Unfortunately there is a waiting list for that, but that gives me the time to learn some more about gardening.
I think this community can certainly help me with that!