Post by bobinthebul on Aug 5, 2010 6:11:59 GMT -5
Hi all,
I actually got started on this forum several months ago but never got around to posting an intro.
I'm an American who's been living in Istanbul, Turkey for about ten years now. Most of this time was garden-less but a few years ago I found a place with a large garden, one of the last in the neighborhood. I grabbed it, but it got expropriated by the city to make a park (read: large cement square with some benches and a few trees they spared). I moved up the Bosphorus and am now in Anadoluhisarı, up by the second bridge for those who know a bit about Istanbul.
I grew up in Iowa, where my mom was an avid gardener and raised both flowers and vegetables, but I didn't really get into it till I moved to Seattle in the late 80s. It's an amazing place to garden though the low heat levels do limit success with hot-weather crops. I grew mostly ornamentals but also had a nice stand of berries.
The climate in Istanbul is very much like that of Seattle in the winter - rainy and gray, usually not horribly cold though we can and do get snow on occasion. Summers are hot and humid; usually it gets pretty dry by July but this year the rain has been much more persistent; it's gray out there and I hear thunder in the distance as I write.
Here I have an ornamental garden as well as a vegetable garden; I grow fava beans through the winter (though lots of them get dug in as a cover crop), sugar snap peas and radishes and tomatoes; during the summer most of the garden becomes a sea of winter squash. There's always a lot of Amaranth as well, both varieties I plant as well as the local weedy ones that are good as a potherb. I usually like to grow vegetables I can't buy here, so this year there are lots of acorn squashes as well as Triamble, Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, Futsu and Bungkan. I'm also growing Seminoles up a dead tree in the upper garden; it practically qualifies as an ornamental as well.
I document my gardening fiascoes at gardenhastasi.blogspot.com, feel free to drop by!
I actually got started on this forum several months ago but never got around to posting an intro.
I'm an American who's been living in Istanbul, Turkey for about ten years now. Most of this time was garden-less but a few years ago I found a place with a large garden, one of the last in the neighborhood. I grabbed it, but it got expropriated by the city to make a park (read: large cement square with some benches and a few trees they spared). I moved up the Bosphorus and am now in Anadoluhisarı, up by the second bridge for those who know a bit about Istanbul.
I grew up in Iowa, where my mom was an avid gardener and raised both flowers and vegetables, but I didn't really get into it till I moved to Seattle in the late 80s. It's an amazing place to garden though the low heat levels do limit success with hot-weather crops. I grew mostly ornamentals but also had a nice stand of berries.
The climate in Istanbul is very much like that of Seattle in the winter - rainy and gray, usually not horribly cold though we can and do get snow on occasion. Summers are hot and humid; usually it gets pretty dry by July but this year the rain has been much more persistent; it's gray out there and I hear thunder in the distance as I write.
Here I have an ornamental garden as well as a vegetable garden; I grow fava beans through the winter (though lots of them get dug in as a cover crop), sugar snap peas and radishes and tomatoes; during the summer most of the garden becomes a sea of winter squash. There's always a lot of Amaranth as well, both varieties I plant as well as the local weedy ones that are good as a potherb. I usually like to grow vegetables I can't buy here, so this year there are lots of acorn squashes as well as Triamble, Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, Futsu and Bungkan. I'm also growing Seminoles up a dead tree in the upper garden; it practically qualifies as an ornamental as well.
I document my gardening fiascoes at gardenhastasi.blogspot.com, feel free to drop by!
