Childhood Memories...the Impact of Gardening on Your Life

We all have those "special" childhood memories which evoke certain feelings in us. Why are you a gardener? Did it start in your youth? Was there anyone in particular who interested you in gardening or inspired you to pursue it? Do you remember any event(s) in particular such as school or home? Please share your childhood gardening.
Gary/Louisville

Gary,

I can remember when I was a kid I used to hate gardening! I came from a large family, eight of us kids, and we grew a huge garden every year. We had to in order to make ends meet.

My brother and I, being the only two old enough, had to each hoe and weed a row of garden every day, and they were long rows! And boy, they had better be done by the time Dad got home from work!

Of course we had to help with the harvest also. We picked and snapped bushels of string beans every year (I hated this the most), had to help with all the canning, dig and store potatoes, etc. All this, you understand, cut into my swimming, fishing, playing time and I didn't like it one bit!

Once I got married, moved away and started a family of my own (3 boys), I started gardening again and have been doing so ever since. Now it's my favorite hobby. I've often wished Dad was still around so I could share garden stories with him and tell him how much I enjoy it, although I'm sure he knows. He passed away at 49 just before his first grandson was born.

Did any others of you hate it when you were growing up, because you had to do it?

It was the only thing in 4-H other than sewing that my parents would allow me to take. Funny that I couldn't have a horse in our back yard in town. Dad gave me the whole back yard to tend to and spruce up. I think that whole back yard was 12 feet by 20 feet but I sure thought I was working hard and long out there. I did get a blue ribbon three years in a row and it got me into caring for lawns and gardens around town which earned me a lot of spending money so I finally gave up our back yard (no pay for that one) and took on more paying yards.

I loved to go to my Grandparents home because Grandma would always make me go out and pick the asparagus. To this day I still LOVE that stuff. yum

The mirliton arbor in my grandmother's back yard was my playhouse. The huge arbor that my grandpa built was divided into "rooms" by the prolific vines. She shared a lot of garden "lore" with me. So every evening, at four o'clock, I would rush outside to see the "four-o-clocks" close up (fell for that one). But burying rusty nails around the bases of hydrangeas did have some basis in fact -- the iron helps promote their blue color.

Every year, my mother would grow beautiful tulips and roses and, although I was fascinated by the flowers, didn't express any special interest in gardening. Everyone in the neighborhood would stop by on Palm Sunday to ask for a front from the huge Sago palm growing in our yard.

My brother, who could accidentally drop a seed packet on a patch of dirt and have a garden grow, was the avid gardener in the family.

At some point, the 'gardening gene' kicked in and I became a garden fanatic. Now that they are all gone, I am trying to include, in my garden, some of their favorite plants, such as brunfelsia, sweet olive, morning glory, orange daylily, old roses, an avocado tree, etc.

Now, I find gardening to be fun, relaxing, sweaty, and productive. Such a feeling of accomplishment when one can put something on the table that you grew yourself. And the garden can be such a peaceful, restful place in which to relax.

I have vivid memories of my Grandmother in her big bonnet, the bill of it had the old fashioned slats in it, watering her flowers way out in the garden from a watering can. I guess she enjoyed carrying all that water from the well. She had a very victorian garden and would sing Mary, Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow? Her large flower garden was always in bloom and the vegetable garden was large also. I was only 4 or 5 at the time and never even had to pull a weed, and was encouraged to pick bouquets to take into the house. This was such a joy as at home my Mother would never let us pick the flowers to bring into the house and I think weeding was assigned at the age of 3!!!!! Ha.

My mom, her sister, and her dad, as well as my other grandma all knew a lot about flowers. Each would trade various plants with others in the community, then share it with each other.

Mom always had something new she was planting. I don't think she ever bought a plant in her life! But I realize now how much I learned from her, and how many plants I can identify, just from the various plants she grew. Of course, she and my dad's mom always had a huge vegetable garden "back down the hill" from our house. My dad would plow it and seed it every year. He enjoyed that part. He loved tractors, cars, big toys. But then he left it up to mom & whoever was available to weed, tend, and harvest the huge crop he planted.

I hated weeding and picking vegetables during the hot, humid summer in GA. But I sure enjoyed the bountiful harvest. Mom never canned, but froze bushels of everything every year, once she got her freezer. Ummmm, tiny green black-eyed peas and butterbeans, fresh sweet corn, tiny pods of okra, yellow squash.

When I was very young, the whole family got together in the back half of my dad's garage and "culled" sweet potatoes for the farmer's market. Huge pile! I thought it was fun--I didn't have to work, just played at it.

I started gardening when I had my own place. Been doin' it ever since. Now do most of it from my recliner or quick stints at the kitchen counter in containers. My DH & a teenager helps me now outside, I just have to teach him and supervise. A new kind of fun. Passing along years of collected plant info to a young budding gardener!

I'll probably have a flower pot, bag of dirt, some fertilizer, and a flat of plants in my death bed with me. Whatta ride!!!

when I was 12, I worked at a farm that grew Christmas tree and a boatload of marijuana...

influenced me greatly.

drew

Some of my most enjoyable gardening memories include a mulberry tree in our backyard - the fruit was great fun to pick and eat. They don't hold up well, and they're kinda watery but to a kid, it's a proud moment to carry in a bowlful to share with your family.

And shelling peas and stringing beans on my grandma's porch with my cousins, aunts, grandma and mom. Everybody had a bowl and we'd sit on a glider or on one of those rocking metal chairs and work together to get a mess of peas or beans ready for dinner.

Was her porch by any chance shaded by big trees?

And we had wild plums and blackberries (ouch!).

Deeproots, I imagine it did. Would you care to elaborate?
(Whoa! in Georgia?????????) Now you know we didn't do nothin' like that!!!

I was raised in hotels in NYC. and nothing was growing except potted palms in the lobbies. But I got to the country by visiting my aunt in Connecticutt. She and my uncle had a large vegetable garden and it was amazing to see vegetables hanging from plants. Uncle Roy grew prize dahlias too. I still have slides (encased in glass)! He won a lot of blue ribbons. Aunt Laura grew roses. One year there was a drought and she couldn't water them so she used her dish-washing water (when there was a lot of phosphates in them). She said they did better than they ever had before and she didn't have aphid problems.
She lived to be 98 and I named my daughter after her.......

judith, wasn't in ga... was in new jersey... most growing in Ga is goverment run :P

Good point!!