Gardens are a wonder! I love their variety of flowers, mini bugs, and personality (related to habitat and gardener or farmer).  I was married in a botanical gardens and grew up with a gardening PNG Mum.  She used to grow raspberries, banana passion fruit, corn and sometimes try to get tropical fruits to grow in Tasmania.  It was my job to do watering and weeding.

  I loved my Mum’s gardens although sometimes when I was tiny I was a bit mischevious and picked her flowers and pulled them apart out of curiousity.  I wanted to see how the flowers were put together, decorate with them, and check out their scent.  Mum’s displeasure soon put a stop to me pulling out her flowers!

We’ve attempted vegie gardens here in North Queensland but you have to be good at keeping out rodents and other animals who like to munch on whatever you are growing, how much respect do I have for Farmers!  They grow so much of our food and without them we would starve.

In my Mum’s village in PNG the women are the farmers – sometimes the men have to go to the city to work and send money home so the women stay behind and farm.  I want to find out more about this and come back to this theme of the farmer women in the world.  It’d be cool to interview my Mum, although farming often leads from plants to livestock and it’s then I remember her stories about being caretaker of the pigs.

So today’s wonder is gardens, but I am also thinking about farmers, farming women, vegetables, fruit and culture.  This year it is the International Year of the Farmer. So another wonder has to be all the farmers and their families making  primary produce for the world.

What is your favourite wonder in the garden?

(c) June Perkins, all rights reserved.