Before I lived where I am living now in QLD, my partner and I were living in NSW, and I had been working with my previous company for around 6.5 years in what I found to be quite a stressful job as a Service Coordinator for a duct cleaning company.
After being let go from my position, my partner and I made the bold decision to completely change up our lives and move interstate to QLD.
The plan had been quite simple; move states, get jobs, buy a house. Sadly, this was at the very beginning of the whole Covid pandemic and things didn’t go quite to plan. We actually ended up being unemployed for over a year and during that time pretty much lived on our house deposit.
Of course, there were times that I was upset about the situation, but I would often remind myself how grateful and lucky I was that we even had that money to fall back on in the first place.
I’m still grateful to this day for that. I think 2020 would have been a whole different experience for us had we not had that money.
Although 2020 was quite a stressful year for most, I actually ended up having one of the best years of my life.
Although there were definitely a few moments where I did experience mild anxiety over the uncertainty of our future, lockdown really did give me a chance to take a nice, long break from reality and reassess my priorities.
I really enjoyed having so much time to myself to do anything that I felt like doing (within the confines of my house and yard, of course).
Luckily, first and foremost, I had organising a new house to keep me busy for a while, which I found to be very therapeutic.
I’m actually quite grateful that I got to take my time making decisions as to what lived where in the house and due to the fact that I wasn’t working, I didn’t feel like setting up the house was eating into my precious free time.
I also used all the free time that I found myself with to pursue many of my interests: reading, writing, cooking, decorating things with glitter, spray paint, and rhinestones, and scrapbooking, as well as making a point to get some fresh air and exercise each day.
Eventually, I decided to further pursue my interest in healthy eating and studied a course in Holistic Nutrition during my time off too.
I originally had plans on possibly becoming a nutritionist, but after going to see an actual nutritionist, I was advised that if her husband didn’t have a really well-paying job, that she wouldn’t really be able to afford to do it full-time.
Although this discouraged me from pursuing a career as a nutritionist initially, who knows if I may still decide to pursue a career in nutrition in the future?
During my time off, I was also lucky enough to discover an interest in gardening. My partner and I were at Bunnings nearly every other day buying plants and seeds for our (borrowed/ rented) garden.
When we first moved into the house, the yard was in pretty bad shape. The grass was brown and patchy, the garden beds were devoid of vegetation and the soil was dry and hard.
As well as fixing the soil and planting many varieties of flowering annuals (ornamental), we also ended up growing tomatoes, strawberries, sweet potato, a mango tree, mulberries, blueberries, fig, pineapple, kale, purple broccoli, chives, parsley, peppermint, spearmint, basil, coriander, and a few avocado trees that I grew from seed.
Unfortunately, a lot of these plants didn’t survive – I really just bit off way more than I could chew by buying more plants than I had time or knew how to care for.
Our first lot of Pentas flowers that went into the garden didn’t have a great time. Being the newbie gardener that I was, I prepared the soil by digging a LOT of fertiliser into the ground before planting the flowers.
In my mind, if a little bit was good, then surely more must be better? How wrong I was. What I didn’t realise was that too much fertiliser actually kills plants. My poor little Pentas never stood a chance, and all died of fertiliser burn not long after being transplanted.
Of course, I was upset at the time but looking back now, the old saying is so true, and you certainly DO learn from your mistakes - I won't be doing that again!
Although our flower garden didn’t survive, it is now the beginning of 2023 and we do still have a few of our fruit trees and a few new sets of herbs and tomatoes growing around the yard, not to mention the mulberry, blueberry bushes, avocado trees (a set of grafted trees that we bought from a nursery as well as the ones I grew from seed) and our mango tree.
The mango that we ate from our own tree the year before last was honestly the tastiest mango I’ve ever eaten in my entire life (and I’ve eaten a lot of mangoes)! The same can be said for the tomatoes, strawberries, and blueberries too.
This is another reason that one of my goals is to grow the majority of my own fresh produce. I really enjoy the idea of being able to go outside into my own yard to pick healthy, delicious, fresh, organic fruit and veg that I grew myself and enjoy eating with the seasons and being one with nature.
Not only is gardening a great way to unwind and destress, but eating home-grown produce is one of the best (and tastiest) things that you can do for your health (and the planet!).
Be sure to check out my next post where I will go over some of the reasons that gardening is so good for your health and wellbeing.
What about you, have you ever tried your hand at gardening before? If so, what type of plants have you grown or cared for? Have you ever grown your own fruit or vegetables?
If so, I’d love to hear about your gardening experiences and/ or any lessons you may have learned along the way. 😊
Or maybe you discovered a new interest or hobby during the Covid lockdown? Let me know in the comments!
Happy to have you here and I hope you have a great day/ night!
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Hope to have you back soon. Thanks for reading.
Lisa. 😊 xx
You are very brave! Moving interstate is no easy task.