In the Mountains of Serbia :: A Garden Tour with Marina

Ah, today's garden was such a treat for me to see and read about, confirming my feelings that gardening connects us. Despite differences in our geography or language! Finding joy in growing food for our families, and learning patience and mindfulness from the act of doing so - these things we all share in common. I hope you enjoy this peek today.

Welcome to Marina's garden! 

Gardener: Marina
Garden Location and Zone: The highlands (~1000 m above mean sea level) on the south of  Serbia, zone 6.
Garden Size: 20x10 m piece for main garden and 40 trees and plants scattered throughout the full 20 hectare area.

How long have you been gardening? It's the second year after our moving to Serbia and three years of «balcony gardening» before it.

Why do you garden?

I love growing the free food, watching the plants and experimenting. As a child I liked to spend time in the garden of my grandparents, the house of my mother was always filled with flowers,  I can't help falling in love with gardening! A few years ago I became interested in permaculture and then we moved from Moscow to a Serbian village where all my ideas can embodied.

Where do you go for gardening inspiration?

I like to visit our neighbors which have rich experience in growing plants. In Serbia all people love their gardens and many of them are trying to engage in organic farming. All this gardens are very nice and tidy, all vegetables growing in neat rows and a variety of flowers and trees impresses with its diversity.

What are your favorite gardening books or resources? 

I read books and other resources about permaculture mainly in Russian. Also you can find a lot of useful information on gardening forums but most of all I like movies by Geoff Lawton.

What’s your biggest gardening challenge? 

As it turned out, it is one thing is to know the theory and the other is the practical gardening. Here in the mountains is very harsh climate: strong winds from the sea and the difference between daytime and night temperatures can be 30° C (from 40° to 10°). Also we have a lot of cruciferous flea beetles that I'm trying to fight with any available methods. The magpies peck tomatoes and pumpkins, the underground living greater mole-rat eat our vegetables! Overall my fight for the harvest looks like a real struggle but I'm not going to give up.

What do you most love to grow? 

I am inspired by my pumpkin, there are a lot of them, they have a wide variety of grades and grow well. But most of all I love to grow medicinal herbs, collect new varieties and species to study their process with health benefits.

If you have children, what role do they play in your gardening? 

I have two little boys, three and four and a half years old. They like to help me in every way! They watered the plants, transferred the seedlings, plant seeds and of course harvest. One of their favorite books is "How to grow vegetables" and now they know the name of all the varieties of vegetables that we grow. This is a great way to teach them to love there are things like lettuce or spinach :) But most importantly, they know where food comes from and its real price: they see the work for their parents and how the neighbors try to collect wheat or grazing cows.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your garden?

 

My garden is imperfect, when I coped with one problem then next appears and it is a huge challenge for my character. Usually if I fails in something then I stop doing it but we can not drop everything just because I can't grow cucumbers. So my garden teaches me patience and perhaps this is the quality which I need to develop in myself.

 

Can you tell us about yourself?

 

 I am 23 and I'm a mother my whole adult life. I love my children, my life in nature, my garden, I like to cook something tasty, taking pictures and writing. I have a blog http://sunbeam-house.blogspot.com.

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Thank you, Marina, for sharing your garden! 

(If you'd like to share your garden with us this season, send me an email for more details. We'd love to visit!)