Achievement has no colour

As I am sat here writing this in my little office (more like a cupboard!) the Ayegardening team are coming to the end of a two week project. I am so proud of them all- they have worked extremely hard with a back, side and front garden makeover for the past two weeks.

Here are some of the before and after photos:

 Thinking about the team made me realise how far Ayegardening has come. My husband started the business in 2009 as a sole trader and now nearly half way through 2012 Ayegardening is a limited company with 4 employees! We have had self-employed contractors every now and then but this year we had interviews for permanent positions. Having had a few 'false starts' with employees with two lads only lasting 4 days each we now have Aidan and Sam (who starts next week). It's early days, but Aidan has a fantastic attitude to his work and we are really pleased with what we have seen. Looking forward to Sam joining us too.

Finding someone who matches my husband's endurance or at least has the aspiration to, is difficult. Aye has been brought up with a mentality of 'working hard'. From the age of 5 he was selling fruit and vegetables before and after school on little village streets in Burma. I admire my husband more than anyone in the way he is so focused on driving the business forward and his passion to 'better' the way we work.

Did you know that the average age of our team is 22!? Sometimes we meet prejudice because of that. It can be hard working in this industry as a young looking business. I do get upset sometimes at people's judgements just from a skin colour. Why should it make a difference what colour skin they have? Another point that upsets me is that Aye's english may not be perfect like someone born here- but not being able to get grammar exactly correct does not mean that there is a lack of knowledge in gardening matters.

I started writing this blog post yesterday and then stopped after feeling emotional about what we sometimes go through (only a small minority of people) and then I started to chat with 'Stacey' (from Stacey's admin solutions) on twitter. I read her blog post about how twitter is all about supporting each other, communicating with each other and not just about numbers. I thought it was fab and it gave me the push I needed to finish this blog post. Stacey is a fab support to businesses on twitter, she really cares and does not judge. Take a look at her blog here: http://staceysadminsolutions.blogspot.co.uk/
 
Despite all the issues we can face we are determined to keep going and growing as a business. We are just so passionate about growing, learning and improving our services.

“Achievement has no colour”  Abraham Lincoln

Ayegardening - A quick look at the family run business

A little video about Ayegardening (made whilst it's raining!!) Have a look at the family behind Ayegardening. We will always be true to our roots and a family business built on working hard, playing hard and most importantly always striving to be better! No matter how big the business gets we get we will never lose our 'family' feel.

Life in Burma

Gardens in Burma

While talking about our crazy weather in this country, this week, my husband and I started to reminisce over our time in Burma and my husbands idea of a garden in Burma. In Burma, most the year is warm or hot, cooler times tend to be in the rainy season and early morning. Where my husband grew up the scenery is filled with lush green foliage of mango trees, palm trees, coconut trees and rice fields. As a child my husband thought that the trees that lose their leaves in winter must be dead!

In Burma, where my husband Aye is from, a garden is mainly for growing vegetables and for animals to live in such as cows having a rest from working on the rice fields. When I talk about Burma I am talking about the remote village where my husband grew up, not the city which is more westernised. In the main cities there is evidence of landscaping, particularly along main roads, parks and hotel gardens.

In the villages gardens are used for practical reasons rather than for relaxation. Aye grew up with his garden being the endless fields, lakes, rice fields, sandy paths and roads. In fact, in the villages it was possible to rent land from others, and if you weren't happy with your house there, you could just take it down (made from wood) and build it somewhere else!

There weren't really any boundaries too, I used to ask my husband- who's that coming through the garden and it would turn out it was just someone making a short cut home. You could walk through most people's gardens and they wouldn't mind! Only ones I avoided were the ones with guard dogs!

In my father and mother-in-laws house they had a guard dog- a really soppy thing when I stroked him. There are no gates or locks on doors..just a dog for security at night! Well this one dog was lovely. There was a similar guard dog next door- I would see him lying on the next doors steps when I went out to the well. He would growl straight away at me and show his teeth. One day I said to my husband- "I am scared of the dog next door, it keeps growling and looking at me, nothing like the dog you have in this house!" He stopped for a moment and then broke into hysterical laughter- turns out it was the same dog!! He would protect the next door neighbours house in the day!

 Fruit and vegetables

When we lived in Burma, I remember telling my husband I would really like to try a fresh coconut- the next thing I knew he was scaling 14 foot up a coconut tree with bare hands to 'pick' me one! Same thing for mangoes too!

Mango trees alongside the rice fields

Every morning ladies would walk around the village to each house with baskets crammed full of vegetables, herbs,spices, fruit etc that they have picked that morning from their garden. My husband would choose a few items and then they would be cooked with rice and meat that day.

Aye in the ride fields,checking a device that is placed under the water to catch fish.

It would be quite easy to write hundreds of pages on our life in Burma and Thailand (my time was relatively short there compared to Aye) but here are a few photos to give you a glimpse of life in Burma.
In another blog entry I will go into more depth on rubber sapping and rice farming (my husband's expertise)

With Aye's niece in the rice field.

New year in Burma - 'Water throwing festival'