Welcome to the new home of Heavy Petal. Please update your links and bookmarks.
I’m hugely excited about how pretty this new site is (thanks, Industrial Brand Creative!) and to celebrate its launch, I’m having a contest!
The fine people at CobraHead have agreed to give five lucky Heavy Petal readers one of their tools.
How do you enter? Easy. Just leave a comment telling me about how you got bit by the gardening bug and I’ll draw five names at random. Here. I’ll start you off.
My first “garden” was a half barrel. I was probably six or seven, and my sister and I each got a barrel to plant as we chose. I remember planting peas, potatoes, snapdragons and marigolds (ah, the days before annual snobbery!). My mom bought us little gloves (mine were a floral print trimmed with yellow) and one of those three-pronged hand tools. I remember running down to my “garden” and literally measuring how much the peas had grown from day to day! The next summer, I decided to expand. I cleared a patch of lawn about 6’x6′ and planted rows of peas, beans, carrots… interspersed with marigolds. Questionable flower choices aside, it’s no wonder I love to mix edible plants along with the purely ornamental.
How about you?
Contest details: Win one of five CobraHead Precision Weeders and Cultivators. Retail value USD$24.95. Contest closes April 7, 2006 12am PST. No purchase necessary. Winners will be drawn at random.
Huge thanks goes out to Industrial Brand Creative for the energy, creativity and brilliance that went into the creation of this website. Their award-winning blog was the original inspiration for starting my own. Thanks, guys.
Puget4 says
Hello Andrea,
This is wonderful! Very nice, very attractive and very well laid out. So, from Puget Sound, the view is great!
Alison Brownrigg says
Howdy – I’m an Herbalist who got bit by the gardening bug a few years ago when I squeezed a little veggie garden into a teeny side yard. Now I have a house with a HUGE yard and just finished turning over a 12ft by 8ft plot for a medicinal herb garden. Despite the fact that my body is a-aching – I am super duper excited for this growing season. My husband has gone to town on raised beds and has researched all sorts of cool stuff like lasagne gardening. Everywhere we go we spy new plants to put in our yard. We are crazy obsessed!
Tracy says
I didn’t oficially get bit by the gardening bug until just over two years ago when I moved in with my fiance. We bought a mobile home, of all things. I decided it was time to spruce up the neglected lot and make it feel like more of a home.
I had never really gardened before in my life. My mother always had gardens, although more of the traditional suburban mulched-to-perfection garden. So I had no idea what I was doing, but decided to pick up the shovel and figure it out along the way.
This will be my third season gardening in the trailer park, and I’m proud to say that we have the best garden in the whole place! (Of course, I could be a tad bit biased.) My fiance has gotten involved in the gardening process, which surprised me. We enjoy all of the wildlife we’ve attracted to our tiny lot. I’ve even noticed a few neighbors starting to garden around me, which makes it all worthwhile.
Sandi says
As a young child my family lived in a new subdivision in south Vancouver created to house returning veterans of the Second World War. It was pretty bleak. I guess the clearcut offended my senses even then, and I set about trying to do what I could to enhance our corner lot. I remember planting nasturtiums and revelling in their riotous colours as they tumbled down the steps. A large vegetable garden kept me busy even though I don’t recall any special loads of topsoil or compost to get it going. I raked that barren, rocky soil and planted scrounged seeds of carrots, peas and pole beans. While the neighbours’ boys reaped most of the crops, I remember the great pleasure derived from my small attempts at creating a garden.
susan says
Absofrickinlutely gorgeous is my review. Good for you.
I got into gardening because my mom was an avid gardener, just like her own mother back in Iowa, and her love was infectious. Also, I got to spend time with her, even if it was just weeding with her. Later, when she no longer had a garden, she’d ask to come visit me here just to do some weeding – I know the feeling.
girl gone gardening says
Awesome new look!
How did I get into gardening? My familay has always gardened. My mum grew giant cabbages in Alaska where I was born, my grandparents were avid gardeners and so were my grandparents. I got to play in thier gardens growing up, tasteing, testing, learning. My first plant that was trully mine was a sweet william- which went on to produce plants all over the garden as the years went on. I sure was proud of that plant.
jenn says
Wow. I’ve been gardening since I was about five or so, ‘helping’ my mother weed the border. I was really good about not pulling up the daffodils. The tulips, however, were another story. Ouch. My poor mom.
Everywhere I have gone in life, plants have gone with me. Houseplants have been carted from one apartment to another; and whenever I could, I was putting some kind of plants into the soil.
We bought our first home a few years ago, and I’ve been collecting and planting a bit more every year. This year I may hit critical mass and have something interesting to look at, even!
Kasmira says
My foray into gardening just sort of “happened” last spring. I’ve always been a plant lover, but hadn’t had the opportunity to grow things until my husband and I bought our first house, in Nov 2004. That winter, I got a bug up my butt to create a cottage garden. That led me to the GardenWeb forums and then I was infected with the enthusiasm I found there.
I quickly found gardening addicting. I finally had an excuse for lazing around in the yard all day! I was lucky that I just “happened” to find my true calling.
Emma says
The gardening bug didn’t bite me as a child growing up with parents who grew nearly every vegetable we ate. It didn’t even nip at me when I played hide and seek in my grandfather’s lush rose garden. And it definitely ran the other way when I was editorial assistant for a gardening magazine.
It bit me when, to accommodate our growing family, my hubby and I bought our first real house on real land last year. More than anything I want to give my preschooler and toddler a magical place in which to play and from which to learn.
Heather says
Ohh, I’ve been wishing for one of those cobra heads since last fall!
My grandparents had a small farm but being a kid and not much of a veggie eater, I was more interested in their animals. The gardening just seemed like a lot of work. But I’ve always loved flowers, and I’d tried some patio gardening when I had an apartment but just didn’t have the time or patience that I have now to devote to it. It wasn’t until we moved into our 3 story urban house here in Houston with our tiny 35×25 yard that it bit me HARD. I guess this space was small enough that I could see it being manageable to grow my own flowers!
So I started out front with a few bulbs between the landscape plants the builder put in. I enjoyed that so much, I ripped out the landscape plants and started putting my own favorites in. No room for shrubs, sister! And last spring, my birthday gift was having a landscaper come in and put in a large hardscaped bed in the back yard. It’s been nonstop since then.
Your new blog looks gorgeous! Congratulations!
dad says
I first got into gardening as a gopher. Our family lives on a half acre rock pile. My spouse and kids decided to turn the yard into a gardening oasis. Hence my life as a gopher began–get rid of the rocks after careful screening–take the rocks to the landfill.Replace with topsoil carried in our trusty pickup truck (many loads and stops at the DQ when the kids were along for the ride). Lastly, endless visits to the garden centres to find that elusive “best new plant” one must have.
What started off as honey or dad we need you( and your strength}turned into an enjoyment not only of gardening ,but of spending quality time with family.
Congrats on your new sight — great beginnings!
Nelumbo says
Love the new look!
I got bit by the gardening bug early on, too. My parents bought me a little indoor greenhouse kit for Christmas when I was ten or so. (One of the best presents ever) I grew little zinnias, tomatoes, etc.
Annie in Austin says
Although the contest is over, I just want to say my husband bought one of those cobra things at our local Zilker Garden festival and he loves it. It makes the greatest trenches. We bought one for our son-in-law, too. Heather – have fun with your new toy!
Annie
[who gardened with her grandmother on a narrow city lot in Chicago.]