A dog goes...

Last Easter I finally got my lazy self around to hijacking a section of my Dad's allotment. She's a decent size, so he could spare a little bit of ground for my fledgling gardening requirements. I had helped Dad a fair bit on and off in the past, so I had some clue about growing your own veg, but I never realised just how much care and attention it actually takes to do it successfully.

I actually really enjoyed the process of preparing the plot, planting everything, and in some cases growing stuff at home before transplanting it to the garden. I grew plenty of radish, some lettuce, carrots, peppers, cucumber, chillis, and various herbs; not all were successful however! It was an insanely dry summer, and most of our lettuce died due to the heat and dehydration. Yet despite this intial set back, I now feel even more passiontely about growing my own food. I am in the process of acquiring an allotment of my own, and hopefully next summer this will prove more successful after the learning of this year.

But there are now so many other opportunities that this hobby has opened for me. I've recently found out about WWOOFing - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - which is a great organisation that allows people to visit organic farms all over the world, and gives free accommodation and food in return for some farm work. It seems to me to be a great way to explore a country, find out about places that are well removed from the tourist trail and learn more about sustainable living.

I'm very taken with going to Canada to do some WWOOFing, some friends are moving out there, and they know plenty of people and they have work themselves that needs doing. From what they tell me Canada sounds like an incredibly beautiful place, lots of trees, which is great! For now though, this is just another idea placed along with all the others I seem to be collecting at the moment. For now I'm still happy growing my radish.