Who would have thought that a girl who lives in a fashionable and lively city of Dubai could start a garden in the middle of a desert. It all started with the kids’ life cycle project at school, which was trying to grow a bean. My boy was so excited, as his bean was the tallest of all. After this, he convinced me to plant something in our garden.
This idea came out too late for Dubai – it was just a beginning of summer. For the rest of the world this is exactly the time to do some gardening, but not in UAE. The heat at this time of the year is killing and this is definitely not the time to plant the garden. But during this unfriendly time for planting I made some preparation work. While we were having holidays back in our home country in Vilnius, I went to my favorite gardening shop and asked for interesting vegetable seeds that I could grow with my kids. My hand reached for some melon seeds, but the experienced shop assistant recommended not to buy them, as the Lithuanian climate is too cold to grow this plant. In a minute I explained to her that I am not going to plant seeds there, my little garden is going to be in a hot and humid country. Her eyes sparkled the moment she heard the word “hot” and she started to give me seeds of strange pumpkins, melons, eggplants and many others that never grow in the harsh Baltic climate. I was caught in a gardening mood and I ended up buying a huge pile of seeds’ packages.
After some time, exactly at the end of November, my boy gently reminded me about growing some plants. So I got to work. I chose a spot in my garden, that had both sun and irrigation and replanted plants from that area freeing up the space for our little garden. Then came a layer of rich garden soil, as it is hard to grow something in sand.
The planting process occurred on the 6th of December. When everyone was in the mood for snowmen, we were in the mood for gardening. Kids loved the process and we had lots of fun.
A couple of months later with lots of nice winter sun, fertilizer, daily water and some love we can enjoy the first results. Of course, we should wait for tomatoes, pumpkins and melons a bit longer, but radishes, lettuce, and dill are already making us proud. Proud of starting a garden in the middle of the desert and turning impossible into possible.
With love from my garden,
Ausra
