Where did you get the gardening bug??

I know without a doubt I got the gardening bug from my father and my grandpa(God rest their souls).
My grandparents had a huge farm when I was little and growing up we always had a garden. My dad had every type of veggie you could think of. Of course, I hated having to pick blueberries, he made me crawl under them so I could get to the ones he couldn't reach, but loved picking peas, used to eat them right off the vines. Yum.
So does everyone know where they got their gardening bug??

From my mom's side of the family. They are Polish and I always remember Grammy and Popper having a vegetable garden. I remember Popper having huge gentle brown hands. He showed me how to plant marigolds in his garden.... My Mom and I have never been as prolific in the vegetable dept., but we can get the flowers to grow. My Grammy used to can everything for the winter. I remember when I was pregnant with my first, I had some of her canned green beans - they tasted like they'd been just picked!

I've only picked it up in the last couple of years. Basically, our yard was a huge mess of weeds, brush, etc. I got tired of throwing the frisbee for my dog and watching him dive into the weeds to get it when the wind blew it in there. Once I started ripping them out, I realized that our yard had real potential. My Father in Law helped me a lot to get things going and explain how things work.

Hey Noreaster!
Where in Wells are you? We spend most of our weekends in the summer on Drakes Island!
Tamberlin

On my own when I moved into my house. My mother had some indoor plants in her apartment but that was the extent of it. I had no idea at all I would get into it in such a big way.

Mostly from my mom. She has been doing it for as long as I can remember. However I was only able to try it myself once I got my own house which was a few years ago. Everytime we visit one another we "MUST" go and take a walk around the yards before the other one leaves LOL It is tradition now. Mind you her gardens are much more pretty but she makes me feel good about my little gardens :) Moms are great!

Another checkmark in the Mom column. She wasn't the best of gardeners but she didn't have a lot of time to devote to it as she had 4 kids to raise on her own. Funny how things change though. 15 years ago I called her with garden questions, now she calls me. And whatever she lacked in garden skills she made up for in Mom skills :)

I have gardening bugs.LOL

Probably my parents - I remember having my own garden back when I was 10 or 11. Since then I have always had a few plants as space permitted.

I got it from Moms side of the family. My Grampa and Great grampa were both master gardeners. My Great Grampa had one of the very first garden centres in Oshawa, where I grew up.
I remember when I was young Mom would let me stay home from school to help Grampa in the garden.

Like victorgardener, I developed this passion on my own. . . grew up in Southern California (a terrific growing season, but too easy!) in the 'burbs but never had any gardnening mentors. My parents had "landscaping" but nothing special. It was only when I moved to the NE that I discovered the exquisite pleasure of seasonal gardening. Probably had something to do with being retired, too.

Love that CCG - So Cal is too easy! No challenge.

Not sure really. My aunt had a small garden off and on when time and money permitted that she would let me dig in and ask questions when I was a kid. Always liked watching PBS's Crocket's Victory Garden when I was a teenager more than some of the usual stuff. Liked an English gardener Thalasa Cruso (sp). She was fun, rip it out of the pot and shove it in the dirt. She took no prisoners. For a family that didn't really have money for a garden when I grew up, all the kids are garden bugs at one stage or another, must be genetic as well as learned.

Victor, that bug must have bit you real hard for you to have gotten into it as much as you are.

When I was a teen, the man next door planted beautiful gardens that bloomed with different plants all year. He would let me help him, and I would water when they traveled. I come from a large family, I loved the attention. They also let me sit in their air conditioned house and read their Hardy Boys books (grinning). I don't know if I liked the books or the air conditioning the most!

My grandpa grew veggies, I loved holding the big basket as he picked the produce. My first memory of eating a tomato right off the vine was with grandpa. He was the best, I still miss him.

What a nice question, it brought back happy memories.

It does make you remember even more reading these great stories. My maternal grandma had a huge garden when she lived in Edmonton. The neighbors called her the flower lady. I remember picking peas and having her cook them up for dinner. Those are the 1st cooked peas I actually ate and liked. I also remember the wonderful lilac she had.

Yes Jen - being a real NYC kid, the only gardening I was expecting to do when I bought the house was mowing the lawn and growing tomatoes and basil (requirement for an Italian).

I think I in my case it was from my grandmother and grandpa who lived on a farm when I was a kid. My grandpa had about 30 acres of which he grew just about every veggie possible. We used to spend many weekends sitting around with my aunts and cousins "shelling" peas and "snapping" beans. I used to hate it as a kid but now miss those days dearly. When I tell my kids about those days they just roll their eyes at me lol.

My grandmother was also great at gardening too had so many beautiful plants. I didn't really catch the gardening bug until I finally moved into a place of my own.

This message was edited Aug 3, 2007 12:30 PM

I think these stories are great! I think we all caught the bug from someone in our families!

My dear, sweet, now departed neighbor from long ago, the real PIRL, Mrs. Loeffler, was my inspiration. I had never seen lupine, phlox, delphinium, yarrow, cosmos, coreopsis or digitalis. I'd work with her in the garden between our two houses (her extra parcel) and she'd tell me what she was doing, why she was doing it that way, the benefits for the plant, etc. For twenty years we gardened together until arthritis in her knees made is so difficult for her but she was 88 by then. She continued to garden until she was 95 and died at 102.

Great honor for you to use her as your screen name.

Probably my grandmothers. Both of them use to garden. My paternal grandmother taught me the beauty of the old fashioned flowers like petunias, snapdragons, hollyhock, etc. I also remember the her favorite geraniums were Martha Washingtons. My maternal grandmother loved peonies and low maintenance gardening, shrubs, and a few annuals.

my grandmother on my mothers side & grampa on dads side... my grandmother lived in the same house with us growing up came from Poland and grew her own veggies & flowers till the day she left us... always made bread from scratch, washed her clothes with the washboard even though we had a washing machine ...things like that... she was 93 years old I came home from school one day and she was chopping down a tree in our yard with a small hand ax..... she was truly amazing

my grandpa always had veggie gardens too... when we were little and stayed with my grandparents at their seaside house, jersey shore.... my grandpa always took us to a cove to swim and he collected seaweed to take back to the garden for compost... and he made the best homemade/home grown pickles.... ah... good memories.... now my dad grows some veggies but nothing in the large quantity of garden size i felt like i "needed"

quite frequently i walk around my yard and the thought jumps in my head.... if they were still with us they both would have been proud of me

Isn't that sweet! I feel the same way and I'm sure others who got the bug from anyone they loved feel the same way.

I'm inspired by all these stories of people actively gardening well into their 80's and even beyond! Maybe after my back, knee, elbow and shoulder replacements, I will be able to as well.

I don't remember much vegetable growing - but my parents always planted fruit trees at any house we bought. I do remember selling the "saucer" peaches at our first house in a stand on the front lawn when I was 5 or 6 years old. Also about that time I remember my Mom paying us a penny for every three ladybugs we would catch in the backyard and bring to the front yard to put on her roses - the beginnings of my "organic" gardening bent, perhaps. At one house I owned with an ex - I had chickens and goats - until the neighbors dog killed the chickens and other neighbors complained about the goats. I also put in an asparagas bed there and grew peanuts in a stack of old tires filled with hay. But I really started gardening when, like CapeCod, I moved here from So. Cal. It was a huge culture shock and I found out - once I bought a house - that the neighbors actually spoke to people who gardened - so I started gardening! And then there are daffodils and tulips that come up in the spring - they sealed the deal!

I thought So Cal was supposed to be a gardening paradise!!

Me, too!

I try to pass along the gardening bug all I can. My kids like or not do some gardening every year and neighbor kids will want to help from time to time. They usually get a little bored with the maintenance part of gardening - wanting the glamour job of planting instead.

My first gardening job was to weed for the convent. Unpaid and a good thing, too, since I didn't know a weed from a plant.

You know, it's a really interesting question as to why some of us--Yankee Cat and me--really started gardening when we moved from the "gardening paradise" of California to the NE . For me it had a lot to do with the constant shortage of water in my previous home. Most of California is arid or semi-arid, and drought is a constant problem. Any responsible person is reluctant to put in a lot of water-needy plants, which include so many vegetables, annuals, and perennials! But here, my water-bill is low enough that I don't feel irresponsible putting in the plants that I like. And as Yankee Cat notes, here gardeners talk to each other! It's a lovely social thing. Finally, I'm convinced that the enforced NE seasonal lay-off from outside gardening creates a gardening frenzy during the spring and summer.

Good points CCG.

I would have to say it came from in me. I had no idea I would get into it so much. But 11 years ago, when I finally had a house I thought I could be happy to stay in, I got into it. Ironically, we moved 5 years later to a house my DW liked better

Pirl, gardening at a convent can be habit forming.

CCG, I try to emphasize drought tolerant plants in my garden anyway. It's not only more responsible, but less work! I also have rainbarrels and sometimes use pond water on the plants. I would LOVE to be able to sink a huge tank in the ground to collect lots of rain water.

Dave, looks like you copied my experience! Including getting a house 11 years ago. I love how you find it ironic that your wife has the last word. You'll never learn, will you?!!

"Habit-forming," oh that's a good one.

Victorgardener, you are so good to emphasize drought-tolerant plants. I am with you on the rain barrels. I have four of them at present--my ideal is to set up several more. Now if it would just rain to fill them up!

Yes - we have not gotten much this Summer. We're in a weird pocket because all around us, including NYC, the totals have been much higher.

There was flooding last weekend an hour west of us.

Even our T-storms, like the one last night, have been big on drama - wind and lightning, but low on rain.

Bridgeport missed all the rain last Saturday - not one drop. I've been doing a lot of watering since I put in a bunch of understory trees and shrubs this year. Hopefully they won't need this much babying in the future. Have one rain barrel working and finally got almost all of the parts together to get the next one going. I will end up with a couple more - eventually.

i have an add on that crossed my mind this after noon... it was soooo long ago in my life and it's almost like a fleeting memory... my moms sister passed when i was only 8 or 9 years old.... but she had the coolest backyard... used to make me feel like it was a fairy garden ... a place where my sister and i played hide & seek.... amongst the bird baths, garden globes, figures and beautiful flowers... her house is where my love of snapdragons started.... my sister and i always played with the buds... like they were real dragons running after each other growling ... i still get the urge to pull them open now and then

:)

I think I got the gardening bug from my grandmother and mother it was dead or dormant(?) .... BUT it was Laurawege that woke up the bug last year....

I hope to garden for the rest of my life... but don't tell my body... it's really protesting today... my feet are so sore... my heels are burning... I gardened all day... oh it was so good... I cleaned soo much.... but I still have 3 beds to weed.....can't believe so much weed....

Nice stories, onewish & Kassia