
Hi. I’m Nikki, the Southern Gardening Gal.
I grew up working in the garden. My parents were farmers and our vegetable garden was enormous! Or at least in my child eyes, it went on for miles.
Do you remember paper grocery bags? They were LARGE and they held millions of butter beans. And we’d have about 3 of those bags FULL to shell.
I am positive that the strawberry bed was as big as my house.
My Mama grew beautiful flowers and shrubs in our yard.
My Grandmama turned her dining room into an African Violet nursery! You would not believe the beautiful flowers that were born there.
Times have changed. I’m not a farmer, nor a homesteader. But I do love to grow things.
In my early married years, we tried to raise a vegetable garden, but softball practices, and basketball games, and piano lessons, and teenage sleepovers were more important. I did grow a small herb garden but it was totally for looks. I had no idea how to use the herbs.
But when I became an empty nester, working outside became my play time and my therapy.
If you knock on my front door, you won’t get me, but if you walk around the house to the backyard, there you’ll find me.
My backyard makes me happy.
Yours can too! My goal here is to help you grow a backyard you love.
Bit by bit and piece by piece, you too can turn that ordinary lot into a backyard you are proud of and enjoy.
I want you to be able to sit in your lawn chair under the shade of an oak tree, with a mint julep in your hand, admiring the changes you’ve made and planning your next gardening project.
Here’s to new backyard adventures! Cheers!
~Nikki
