I was involved in veggy gardening regularly from the time I could walk until a few years into my adulthood. Things started changing after I turned 22. Some years with living arrangements or whatever I could not have a garden. I have grew veggies in containers on apartment balconies because it is difficult to do without fresh veggies plus growing my own food is in my blood. I went through a two year period recently with no veggy gardening whatsoever due to a sewer project that turned my backyard upside down. Literally upside down my topsoil is 20 foot under while the dirt from 20 foot under is on top. I still grew my mint & pennyroyal out front while my wife grew her flowers. I had a decent crop this past summer with the veggies I did grow. It will be much better in spring because I am slowly repairing the soil the city ruined.
How long have you been gardening
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Buff Shallots
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My mom made me help her with the shade perennials all over the property. I hated it, but learned some stuff. And my grandma was a rose gardener.
It wasn't until I had my own property to garden on that I took a real interest. Then I took a certification course which was the equivalent of a Master Gardeners course (but the classes were on weeknights and on the weekends, so working people could participate).
Maybe with most kids forced to help in the garden - it doesn't become an obsession until it's really their own project entirely.
It wasn't until I had my own property to garden on that I took a real interest. Then I took a certification course which was the equivalent of a Master Gardeners course (but the classes were on weeknights and on the weekends, so working people could participate).
Maybe with most kids forced to help in the garden - it doesn't become an obsession until it's really their own project entirely.
patandchickens
Deeply Rooted
LOL -- that is my story exactly!Shallots said:
My parents were always waaay into gardening and I was expected to help carry a kajillion orchid pots out of the greenhouse to the shade arbor in early summer and then back inside before frost. This tended to involve a certain amount of dropping things and getting yelled at. My other childhood memories of plants are things like: a penny per every five japanese beetles is not nearly enough; I -hate- radishes, mom, so why do I have to plant them in "my" garden patch?; and when you are a kid it is not at ALL obvious why you shouldn't be allowed to run all over thru the flowerbeds, when after all, many of the plants kinda spring back on their own after getting squished, sorta, right?
I swore I would never have houseplants or a garden.
Well, when I went off to college mom gave me a little 'prayer plant', but that was ok because it was sort of an antidote to homesickness. Then in grad school I was privy to the really cool things getting divided at the Duke botany greenhouse, for free, or sometimes inexpensive at their plant sale. I had learned enough by osmosis from my parents to realize I'd never see some of these things again, so, I started accumulating weirdo houseplants. Plus I was doing my dissertation work at a site that had formerly housed a behavioral-research herd of goats, so faced with fantastic soil and a grad student's income I decided that veg gardening was really pretty ok. Especially cantaloupes and okra and tomatoes.
This lasted thru a nymber of moves and a number of years, til in 2002-3 I found myself married, unemployed, and with a house plopped down in the middle of open windy fields and lawn, with nothing but a few very ill-chosen trash trees anywhere near it. "Well," I said to myself, "Sure, ornamentals don't interest me at all, but as a purely practical matter I just I have to put SOMEthing in to cut the wind and make this house look less like a trailer." So I read everything I could get my hands on about trees and shrubs. Hm, there are actually some interesting ones...
Predictably, this resulted in a lengthy 'to do' list of spots to plant and species to try.
Then at about the same time my husband suggested that the area right in front of the living room window, which has to be dug up every 5 years to pump the septic tank, could be made a permanent mulched path. But that wouls look weird unless it was facing something like a flowerbed, right? So I read up on flowers, and for the first time in like 40 years actually paid *ATTENTION* to my mother's beds and borders...
...and, uh, a few years later here I am, sheepishly a gardener after all. I guess
My mother, now in her 80s, thinks this is hysterically funny :>
Pat
Buff Shallots
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That's a great story Pat. Funny how having a seed of knowledge, even if it's learned against your will, can sprout into something new and great when given the right conditions.
rooster-red
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My Grandfather started my Mom & Dad growing veggies in the backyard of our suburban Atlanta home when I was 6. He would come over every Saturday at the crack of dawn and we worked til sunset.
We moved out of the metro area, and I quit gardening for about 20 years.
The house we moved into 4 years ago has more than enough land to garden, and I inherited a basket case 1947 ford tractor that I rewired and changed to 12 volts, electronic ignition, etc..
and want to get back to gardening.
We moved out of the metro area, and I quit gardening for about 20 years.
The house we moved into 4 years ago has more than enough land to garden, and I inherited a basket case 1947 ford tractor that I rewired and changed to 12 volts, electronic ignition, etc..
and want to get back to gardening.
nightshade
Garden Ornament
I have been gardening since the spring after my grandfather's death in 1994 so roughly 13 going on 14 years. When I moved in with my husband 6 years ago the first thing I moved in was some of my plants, not the traditional tooth brush. LoL
I have many plants from "friendship gardening" resulting in having plants outside from all over the north east and ones all over the country inside. Most of my favorites are plants that have been passed down to me. Ones from my grandmother's farm where she grew up 60+ years ago as well as ones from the farm she had when my mother was a child and from her current home. Ones from uncles' and aunts' ect. Unfortaintly I have no plants from the man's who death started me really gardening. My bother destroyed them all when he received the homestead.
So instead I have slowly gathered up the same types of plants he had when I was little. Lilacs , peonies, iris', orange poppies, most the plants you would find on and old farm homestead in NEPA. Every mother's day me my mom and my grandmother all go green houseing and every time I hear the statment about something, " oh my god I had that on the farm" I have to buy it and plant it here.I guess the best way to sum up why I garden really is because plants to make me feel close to people I can no longer be close to.
TO this I have added my favorite woodland / shade flowers the moccasin flower and trillums, roses, lilies and of course a veggie garden, small but growing strawberry patch.
When I moved out of home I had to leave many of my larger plants and trees behind. So I am creating a new orchard finally here in this stone quary as I lovenly call it, this spring. As well as moving my raspberries and putting them on arbors so they are alittle more managable.
I have many plants from "friendship gardening" resulting in having plants outside from all over the north east and ones all over the country inside. Most of my favorites are plants that have been passed down to me. Ones from my grandmother's farm where she grew up 60+ years ago as well as ones from the farm she had when my mother was a child and from her current home. Ones from uncles' and aunts' ect. Unfortaintly I have no plants from the man's who death started me really gardening. My bother destroyed them all when he received the homestead.
So instead I have slowly gathered up the same types of plants he had when I was little. Lilacs , peonies, iris', orange poppies, most the plants you would find on and old farm homestead in NEPA. Every mother's day me my mom and my grandmother all go green houseing and every time I hear the statment about something, " oh my god I had that on the farm" I have to buy it and plant it here.I guess the best way to sum up why I garden really is because plants to make me feel close to people I can no longer be close to.
TO this I have added my favorite woodland / shade flowers the moccasin flower and trillums, roses, lilies and of course a veggie garden, small but growing strawberry patch.
When I moved out of home I had to leave many of my larger plants and trees behind. So I am creating a new orchard finally here in this stone quary as I lovenly call it, this spring. As well as moving my raspberries and putting them on arbors so they are alittle more managable.
barefootgardener
Deeply Rooted
Oh Ann, How beautiful! Your house and garden's are wonderful! Just my style.
I had my first experience with Gardening when I was about three . My Grandpa had a tobacco farm but he also had a vegetable/potato patch. I remember my mama and us four siblings would go out to Grandpa's farm in the spring to help with some of the planting and I would follow behind grandpa and mama while grandpa would go down row's with the potato planter, and mama carried the basket with the tubers and I would reach in the basket and grab a tuber and put it in the potato planter while grandpa pushed it into the ground with his foot. Of course being only three, I only lasted about 2 long row's before my attention span gave up, after that I started to throw the potatoes instead of putting them in the planter, to which mama took over the duties. LOL! Grandpa also grew fantastic tomatoes, watermelon and corn and collard greens etc...Ahhh...The Watermelon.... Grandpa would take us out to his watermelon patch and proudly show us his huge watermelons. He would select a melon he thought was ripe, and then thunk it with his knuckles. He took out his pocket knife and would cut into that melon, cut himself a piece , took a bite while letting the juice of the melon drizzle down his face. Then proceed to show us how to spit out the seeds. LOL Then he would cut us kids a small chunk to sample, to which he would also have us do a seed spitting contest. What memories. That was a little over 40 years ago.
Mama and Daddy moved to the north/Midwest, where daddy's family was from. Bought a house with lot's of acreage in the country, had 2 more kid's and had 3 huge garden's, a raspberry and strawberry patch,. I loved being out in the gardens with the sunshine on my back and in my face. Loved being in the strawberry patch and picking the luscious sun ripened strawberries and popping them in my mouth. What I didnt love was all the weeding and picking we HAD to do. Not only did we have to make sure the strawberries were picked but also had to help mama hull them. We had to go down to the rapberry patch and pick raspberries in the hot sun and proceeded to get scratches all over our leg's and arm's. Watch out for the snakes and spider's! Daddy was a surveyer and his job took him away from home during the week and came home on weekends. First thing he did was check the garden's. Well let me tell you...if you missed one weed he would notice it..and boy was their heck to pay. Mama did lot's of canning and freezing to help feed our large family. Daddy's idea of fun for our family was also to go out in the wood's to look for wild morel's. To which we were in the mosquito laden wood's for hours on end until our huge brown grocery bag's were each full of morel's. To then which when we got home we also had to help mama wash them and trim the ends off. When I went to bed exhausted all I saw when I closed my eyes were those dang mushrooms.
Ahhh...and how about going cherry picking....We went to an orchard miles away and had to hand pick the cherries which meant climbing up tree's and ladders to reach them. Daddy was never happy until we had whole trees picked clean and had bushel baskets full. Once we got home we had to deseed the cherries. We sat outside on a blanket and each of us got a Bobby-pin which you inserted into the cherry and would pull it back out bringing the seed out also. EACH cherry had to be done this way.
Or how about our rare vacation of the summer. We got to go camping in the wild's to Canada. You think Yippee...Right? Well we got to do some fishing (got yelled at for snagging a line etc....) but us lucky kid's also got to pick wild blueberries for hour's on end...my daddy must have known where every single wild blueberry patch was in that area. He knew the area well. We Had buckets full! We were miles and miles from civilization. Nobody else was around for miles...or so dad thought. He heard a car coming and yelled for us to get down and hide. He didnt want anybody to discover where HIS blueberry patch was. LOL We camped next to a huge lake which was extrordinarily
beautiful.
Mama left daddy and went back home to her family..Mama had to work full time to support us six kid's. No time for gardening, which was fine for us. I was a teenager and wasnt interested. Gardening abuse overload.
After graduating moved to midwest again where I met hubby got married had kid's and lived on the hubby's family farm. Where you guessed it....I Have vegetable garden's, flower gardens, herb garden and fruit patches and small orchard....It's sizes are just right for me to take care of and enjoy it my way. My husband takes care of his pumpkin patch. I grow lot's of heirloom vegetables also. I can and freeze. I love gardening and also my chickens. LOL
I had my first experience with Gardening when I was about three . My Grandpa had a tobacco farm but he also had a vegetable/potato patch. I remember my mama and us four siblings would go out to Grandpa's farm in the spring to help with some of the planting and I would follow behind grandpa and mama while grandpa would go down row's with the potato planter, and mama carried the basket with the tubers and I would reach in the basket and grab a tuber and put it in the potato planter while grandpa pushed it into the ground with his foot. Of course being only three, I only lasted about 2 long row's before my attention span gave up, after that I started to throw the potatoes instead of putting them in the planter, to which mama took over the duties. LOL! Grandpa also grew fantastic tomatoes, watermelon and corn and collard greens etc...Ahhh...The Watermelon.... Grandpa would take us out to his watermelon patch and proudly show us his huge watermelons. He would select a melon he thought was ripe, and then thunk it with his knuckles. He took out his pocket knife and would cut into that melon, cut himself a piece , took a bite while letting the juice of the melon drizzle down his face. Then proceed to show us how to spit out the seeds. LOL Then he would cut us kids a small chunk to sample, to which he would also have us do a seed spitting contest. What memories.
That was a little over 40 years ago.Mama and Daddy moved to the north/Midwest, where daddy's family was from. Bought a house with lot's of acreage in the country, had 2 more kid's and had 3 huge garden's, a raspberry and strawberry patch,. I loved being out in the gardens with the sunshine on my back and in my face. Loved being in the strawberry patch and picking the luscious sun ripened strawberries and popping them in my mouth. What I didnt love was all the weeding and picking we HAD to do. Not only did we have to make sure the strawberries were picked but also had to help mama hull them. We had to go down to the rapberry patch and pick raspberries in the hot sun and proceeded to get scratches all over our leg's and arm's. Watch out for the snakes and spider's! Daddy was a surveyer and his job took him away from home during the week and came home on weekends. First thing he did was check the garden's. Well let me tell you...if you missed one weed he would notice it..and boy was their heck to pay. Mama did lot's of canning and freezing to help feed our large family. Daddy's idea of fun for our family was also to go out in the wood's to look for wild morel's. To which we were in the mosquito laden wood's for hours on end until our huge brown grocery bag's were each full of morel's. To then which when we got home we also had to help mama wash them and trim the ends off. When I went to bed exhausted all I saw when I closed my eyes were those dang mushrooms.
Ahhh...and how about going cherry picking....We went to an orchard miles away and had to hand pick the cherries which meant climbing up tree's and ladders to reach them. Daddy was never happy until we had whole trees picked clean and had bushel baskets full. Once we got home we had to deseed the cherries. We sat outside on a blanket and each of us got a Bobby-pin which you inserted into the cherry and would pull it back out bringing the seed out also. EACH cherry had to be done this way.
Or how about our rare vacation of the summer. We got to go camping in the wild's to Canada. You think Yippee...Right? Well we got to do some fishing (got yelled at for snagging a line etc....) but us lucky kid's also got to pick wild blueberries for hour's on end...my daddy must have known where every single wild blueberry patch was in that area. He knew the area well. We Had buckets full! We were miles and miles from civilization. Nobody else was around for miles...or so dad thought. He heard a car coming and yelled for us to get down and hide. He didnt want anybody to discover where HIS blueberry patch was. LOL We camped next to a huge lake which was extrordinarily
beautiful.
Mama left daddy and went back home to her family..Mama had to work full time to support us six kid's. No time for gardening, which was fine for us. I was a teenager and wasnt interested. Gardening abuse overload.
After graduating moved to midwest again where I met hubby got married had kid's and lived on the hubby's family farm. Where you guessed it....I Have vegetable garden's, flower gardens, herb garden and fruit patches and small orchard....It's sizes are just right for me to take care of and enjoy it my way. My husband takes care of his pumpkin patch. I grow lot's of heirloom vegetables also. I can and freeze. I love gardening and also my chickens. LOL
trevaland2004
Sprout
I LOVE your gardens!!! I just got married in June of last year and moved into my husbands house... Needless to say not much landscaping was done in the backyard! I have 2 dogs back there too (a black lab & a Husky mix) that I will have to compete with as well... I have been looking around on this site trying to get some ideas! I will hopefully be putting a picture on here and if anybody has any ideas please let me know!!! I love to garden and would go out into my grand-parents gardens and help them as a child! I had a very small veggie garden last year but I did get lots of veggies!Betsy
Leafing Out
I've been gardening ever since I can remember-I'm 24
