| Tuinkabouter wants you to know: |
- my homepage is: Garden Gnome's Adventures
- The current local time for me is 12:30 AM
- I'm in zone 8b
- I live in 's-Gravenhage,
Netherlands (Zone 8b) - My birthday is May 18
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| A note from Tuinkabouter: |
"Being Garden Gnome means: being only 1.60 meter in heigth but with a huge passion for gardening......
Since 2002 I live in The Hague (The Netherlands), together with husband Harry and cat Janneke.
In 2003 we moved to our own suburban paradise, my very first garden ever. Here I learned the delights of having a green haven of my own. Still in a festive mood, we named our not-much-bigger-than-a-stamp garden: "The Court". Court being a somewhat inadequate translation of the Dutch word "Hof", which means a posh kind of garden that used to belong to royals and nobility. It took me about two months to discover that 50 square meters was absolutely too small for all my green ambitions.
Three years later, in 2006, I finally managed to obtain an allotment within walking distance. 60 extra square meters on which I could let myself go! My enthusiasm faded somewhat when I first saw my vegetable garden-to-be. It took me and my sweethart all winter to remove all the brambles (which grew way above our heads) and to clean up all the rubble. However, when spring arrived the "skeleton" of my brand new garden was finished and I could get started. Now I grow my own fruits but also vegetables, mainly the ones of which we eat the fruits or seeds. That is why we called it "The Court of Sweetness". This is the (again completely inadequate) translation of the Dutch "Hof der Zoetheid", a word play for "Lof der Zotheid". This is a famous book by Desiderius Erasmus, who lived in the 16th Century. "Zotheid" means insanity and that is exactly how we felt when we started clearing the allotment.
Some months later and much to my surprise, the authorities offered me another allotment that bordered the first one. As I was still recovering from laying out the "Court of Sweetness", I first didn't quite know what to do. But as it was an opportunity that would not occur again any time soon, I accepted anyway. I will use it to grow vegetables that need a lot of space, like courgettes and cabbage. Somehow the name "Kitchen Court" (Keukenhof) popped up, and it stuck.....
I like sowing my plants instead of buying them. Not only because it is cheaper, but also because it is so much more satisfactory. From March to the start of June, our attic is transformed into "The Nursery". It is the place where many new plants get to see the light of day, with the help of quite a lot of artificial daylight lamps. One of these days the police will raid our house because they think I'm growing my own hemp plants! A few weeks later, the attic becomes too small and many young plants are moved to the guest room, the sleeping room or the living room until they are big enough to be moved to the gardens to harden off. This is a moment of joy for my sweetheart: finally there is room again for hís hobbies!
From 1 January 2007 on, I keep a journal in which I write about everything that happens in and around my Courts and the Nursery. If you read it, you get to know me quite well! You will find it on: //www.freewebs.com/garden-gnomes-adventures/gardengnomesadventures.htm
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"Garden gnome with green trousers, yellow coat, red cap and knapsack" |
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| Tuinkabouter signed up on Aug 9, 2007 |
