To be fully honest, I've been asking myself this question in the last few months :)

Now this journal post may come to you as a surprise, but I am indeed a gardener. Some days, a happy one, some other days, an annoyed and irritated one, lolol :) This year was actually my first real one as due to the high prices, driven by the inflation and the war in Ukraine I decided to go more organic and bio. Also, the low quality of the imported fruits and vegetables made me do more gardening as well.

But first of all, can you guess what's that on the first photo? ;) Perhaps the second photo would give you a hint:

This is our very first harvest of saffron! :)
Almost a month ago my uncle gave me as a present about thirty bulbs of Saffron and I planted them in the middle of October. Watered them once and to my surprise, a couple of weeks later, we're picking the Saffron spice!

In my country, this is the most expensive spice available for sale in the stores. I searched online and the usual price I found was about EUR 7.50 for 0.5 grams.

WOW !!!

That makes a whooping price of about EUR 15,000 for 1 kilogram!

Of course, with this humble harvest, I am not thinking at all about selling, as it's not worth it and as I have never used that expensive spice in the kitchen before, I am going to test it. I am so thrilled! :))) It smell divine! Have you used it before?

What I learned here is that those red miniature ribbons have to dry up for 2-3 days before being stored and I plan to use a small glass jar to keep them during the winter.

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We have two lemon trees that are very old, somewhere between 40 and 50 years but as our winters are very cold, with temperatures sometimes dropping down to -20 degree C the only choice we have are huge pots.

A single frost can kill them forever, so in October, we have to watch the weather forecast closely. This autumn is quite weird though, the last few days were like a summer! However, in the next few days I'll have to call for help to get them lemon pots indoors as each of them weights around 50 kilos :)

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In the spring I planted about ten rosemary plants. Here by planting I mean I've cut young branches of about 10 centimeters and stuck them in the watered soil directly. The most of them survived and have already tripled their height. Last year we had one big rosemary bush but it died, probably of a decease. It was great that I managed to save the last few green branches of it. Quite a rebirth and I hope those new plants survive much longer!

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Our garden has one huge problem - we live on a hill at a place with hot and dry summers and there is not enough water for watering the plants. Tap water is expensive and not good as it is too hard and has a lot of chemicals, like chlorine.

So generally, I can't plant too many things, especially vegetables and fruits that require a lot of watering.

I love cherry tomatoes though :) And it is awesome there are still plenty of them.

In June I planted about a dozen gherkin plants and I have to tell you, we've been having a fresh gherkins and cherry tomatoes salad every other day!

Currently there is only one gherkin left, that turned to a giant, bigger than a cucumber, that I left for the seeds. I am not sure when it is the best time to pick it, I know it has to be before the first frost and logically, before it starts to rot.

Now's probably a good time?

Here is how pathetic the gherkins and tomatoes garden looks like at the moment :) Sorry for the crap phone photo!

There are still two rows of plants and a good lesson I learned is two rows is good, three rows is terrible. Ask me why! :) As before October there was a third one with popcorn maize.

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A family tradition in our household is to grow these chilly peppers we call "bells", you see why ;) I don't know their real botanical name, no one around plants these either. Each year, we plant seed from the previous years and Nature does its magic ;)

They are very delicious, crispy, the small ones are not very hot, while the big ones can bring tears to your eyes :) Very specific for them is they are sweet and not hot at the periphery but their middle part and the seeds are killers :D

Also, the plants grow quite tall, sometimes about 1.5 meters high.

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Another spring present from my uncle were two cucumber plants. To my surprise they also continue to blossom and "give birth".

However, I don't think I am planting cucumbers again as they need so much water. A clear sign of under-watering is when the cucumber are bitter. That happened quite often, I have to say...

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Here is another snap of the "bells". By the way, here in the background you may notice the black composter that we received after applying to a EU-funded project. I have to say, it reduced our garbage a lot and really does wonderful job!

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I almost forgot about the first thing I planted in the garden. Onions and garlic!
Unfortunately none of the garlic survived but we had green onions during three of the seasons. Onion leaves are wonderful for salads too :) I love them as onion is also very good for the health, preventing a lot of viral deceases.

Here are the fruits of the only one plant of Aronia we have, I planted it three years ago but I almost always forget to water it. Bad LightCaptured :)))

Last but not least, here is the harvest of popcorn maize :)
It is not good as I made the mistake to plant the seeds too close to each other. I should've plant less, instead of using all the seeds in small area.

They still need to dry up a bit more as I picked the corn heads in late September. I don't think I am planting corn again, as it also need a lot of watering.

Perhaps I have to think of some watering automation during the nights as in the summer, I had to spend at least one or two hours every day to plant all these. Not to mention the decorative plants we have in the front yard :)

If you stayed up to this point... HUGE thanks for your time! :)

If I have to make a conclusion... well... I am not sure. Some of my plants seemed happy to live in our garden, others did not at all. I still cannot tell gardening is my plate but I really love to pick a veggie or a fruit I've taken care of :) They are always the most delicious, aren't they? :)

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