Although I haven't always been able to garden due to the places I've lived, gardening has been a part of my life since I was very young. I remember playing near the garden while my mom worked. One of my most vivid memories of the garden is the snake that lived near the small patch of corn. It would scare my mom to death as she tried to weed through the garden. The snake never hurt us and I learned the importance of letting other living things exist as they were meant to exist. In other words leaving the snake alone and "he" in turn left us alone.
When I was a teenager I spent several summers with my Great Aunt in Minesota. She had a huge garden filled with everything including raspberries. I have found that the taste of home grown vegetables and raspberries cannot be found in any local supermarket. So in every place I have lived I will seek out the local farmer's markets, orchards, or any other place that I know is selling home grown produce. My hope is to have my own big garden someday. For now though, I grow herbs in pots and I have plans this spring to plant tomatoes in the small flower bed surrounding my house.
What are your favorite memories of gardening? Have your tried starting a garden in a small area? Was it successful?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Alissa,
ReplyDeleteI started a garden when I was a teenager. I grew lettuce in St. Paul, Minnesota. I did it on my own as no one in my family garden. The few bits of lettuce we got was not encouraging.
I ended up not gardening until I met my future father-in-law, who had a spectacular garden on a very small plot of land in London, England.
Now I need my garden to center myself. Even in the winter, going out to compost helps me notice things like bulbs coming out of the ground and birds and deer and foxes.
Sabrina
Hi Alissa,
ReplyDeleteGardening has so many benefits. My family had a very large garden when I was growing up. We also had nut trees (pecans), grape vines, and grew strawberries in the garden. We rarely got to the strawberries in time--the other species sharing our land with us always seemed to get those before we could. We grew lots of different vegetables. We would go to the local, public cannery and can many of these vegetables so they'd last us almost through the entire winter.
Currently, my immediate family has a small garden which we plan to expand this spring to include blueberries, peas, and green beans this year.
Hi Alissa
ReplyDeleteI have many wonderful childhood memories of our family garden in northern Minnesota.
Soon as the “Burpees seed catalog arrived in January Mom and I would start planning our
garden. We made a list of the seeds we needed to order- carrots, green beans ( bush, pole and yellow),
snow peas, radishes, corn, pumpkin. squash, rutabaga, cucumber and of course zucchini.
Northern Minnesota is in zone 4, one of the counties coldest zones , so whatever was planted needed
to be hardy and grow fast. Never the less, I always tried to persuade mom to order cantaloupe seeds and
one year she did but said we would have to “start” them inside. The cantaloupe seeds arrived in March and
dad helped me fill 10 little pots with “special soil” from the sheep pen to plant our special seeds in.
All those seeds only produced two tiny little cantaloupes- but were they ever good!
One of my jobs as a child was to “pull weeds” in the garden. I remember sitting in the garden
on many a beautiful sunny summer morning with my toy trucks “grading” roads between the plants
and picking and eating snow peas, tiny baby carrots, warm sun kissed tomatoes and radishes as I played.
There is just no comparison to the smell and taste of vegetables fresh off the vine!
As the vegetables ripened in our garden “canning season” began and that meant that grandma would come to visit.
Grandma would tell me great stories of when she was a little girls while we sat and “snapped” green beans
to fill the waiting “Bell” jars.
I live in England now and I have tried many time to grow a garden but the rabbits are relentless.
When I do move back to the states I’m looking forward to gardening again… This time I am going
to plant blueberries and set some asparagus plants!
Terri
Making memories and looking forward to each spring.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago, I had a load of work for the weekend, but I was so glad that I made time with my 10 year old to plant some seeds in pots to put on the window stills. Now we have carrots and sweet peas and snow peas and peppers. The snow peas are already six inches long and I asked my girls to get some sticks from the yard to prop them up. There is something really nice about seeing seeds grow...Is it the promise of spring?