Little Urban Farmers starts blogging

Here I Go...

So as I venture into the world of blogging, it is with great excitement and some trepidation that I do so. I'm not an author of anything and I'm probably not the worlds greatest wordsmith. I'm just a mum who had an idea to create something for my family and hoped that somebody else might like it too.

Let me tell you a little bit about me.....

I am a stay at home mum of 3 young, gorgeous boys and a wife to a fabulously supportive husband. My three boys are 11, 9 and 6. They all light up my world and inspire me to be the best that I can be. We are a family that believes in looking after our planet and ourselves and we all love getting our hands dirty with a little  bit of gardening. All the boys love to be involved,  but for my youngest son, this can be a logistical nightmare! You see, my youngest baby was born with a very rare genetic disease that makes him profoundly weak. He cannot sit, stand or walk. He is ventilator dependant 24/7 via a tracheostomy and is fed via a tube in his stomach. He is completely reliant upon my husband and myself for all aspects of his daily life. However, despite his obvious, physical limitations, he is cognitively like any other six year old boy. He attends mainstream school with his brothers as well as special school. He loves to read and watch dvds that involve any kind of superhero and he can actually talk past his trache and loves to boss his brothers (and me) around and loves to be around family and friends.

 

Light bulb moments

As you can imagine, getting boy 6 into the garden can be incredibly difficult. We do our best to have him involved and I, like many other "special" parents, am always looking at ways to adapt situations to better suit my son's special needs. One day, when we were outside gardening, boy 6 was inside watching TV and I remarked that I wished he could be involved more. I wished that I could somehow bring the garden inside. I have often heard about "light bulb moments" and wondered if they were true and would I ever have one of my own? This was that moment, I thought, what if I COULD bring the garden inside? What if I COULD have a garden that boy 6 could enjoy too? What if I could grow fresh produce inside on my kitchen window, so that we could all enjoy? And so, Hanging Gardens was born. Born on an idea that everyone should be able to grow fresh produce, wherever they live, work or play and whatever their capabilities.

That afternoon, my head was buzzing with ideas and my husband said "You have to do this NOW! Before someone else does and you regret not following a dream." He was right, I couldn't let this idea pass and I certainly couldn't bare that thought of letting go of a dream. After a few weeks and some further investigations, I had contacted a manufacturer and started collaborating with them to come up with a design that I hoped and believed would work.

There were many criteria that had to be met. Hanging Gardens had to go inside on my kitchen window, they had to be accessible for all of my children and me, they couldn't leak on my window, they had to be lightweight but strong and they had to be flat packed so that I could post them to others and, most importantly, they had to be made from a sustainable material and be Australian made.

The story so far

An opportunity arose for me to enter Hanging Gardens into the Kevin McLeod's "Green Heroes" competition and after some stiff competition from around Australia, Hanging Gardens was chosen as a top ten finalist (it turned out that we would all win). This was such an honour and I can't tell you how excited I was to be set among other, such fabulous designers, but also to be hand chosen by Kevin himself as a finalist - I couldn't believe it. I was just so thrilled that somebody else believed in my product too and thought it was a great idea.
It was well received by the public and I took so many orders from the Melbourne show, that I had to place my first stock run of 2,000 units and managed to fill them all. Since then, my little idea of bringing my garden into my kitchen has grown into a small, but slowly growing business. I sometimes find it hard to juggle family life and business life, but I'm fortunate that my business is also something that I'm passionate about and it brings me so much joy whenever I see that someone has placed an order and therefore, they too, believe in my idea. An idea that everyone should be able to be a Little Urban Farmer.