My childhood garden

My children haven't been very interested in the garden, and my mom really laughs at how enthusiastic I am about this green stuff. Not at me, so much, but just that I've never shown any interest in gardening before - as I didn't have my own space to try it out.

I have such fond memories of the garden as a kid and have grown to love this yard of mine...that I really want my husband and kids to feel the same way I do about it. I just don't know how to get them involved and teach them unless they want to be taught, and want to know about what's happening in the garden. Yesterday, my daughter wanted to look at the tomatoes growing, but didn't see any from outside the fence. I took her in and showed her to look under the leaves and see where they are. She says she's excited to be able to pick them right off the vine and eat them...but currently her fear of bugs (both flying and crawling) as well as aversion to getting hands dirty is keeping her from entering into the garden. At least she's beginning to ask about the veggies. She refuses to weed with me, but loves to spray water on the plants.

My son also has an aversion to bugs, but was willing to be with me as I work in the garden. Sunday as I dug through the deep weeds in the heat of the afternoon with long sleeves (I've learned a thing or two about my battle scars on my arms) and gloves...he sat on a blanket beside my work area and had a snack and played with Barbie (the little mermaid, Ariel, actually) and G.I. Joe. On another day in the sun, as I was pulling weeds from the veggie garden, he put on a pair of oversized gloves, grabbed a trowel shovel and helped me pull out crabgrass from around the Blushing Beauty Bell Peppers that we hope to have soon. This 4 1/2 yr old didn't really do that much weeding, but he was willing to dig in the dirt alongside me. That was sweet.

My kids love to eat vegetables - and probably love to eat them raw most of all. He'll be very excited to see peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers getting bigger and bigger. He'll be even more excited when I show him how to pick them and eat them.

When I was growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs, my parents tilled the back half of their rather large subdivision yard and planted a small farm - a very large garden. The backyard space was about 50 yards wide (yes, think half football field) and 12 yards deep. A little sod and trees stood between the house and the garden, but mostly it was garden. They grew everything from asparagus to zucchini, a small potato patch, small strawberry patch covered with cheesecloth, and even 4 stalks of corn. We had pumpkins, small watermelon, several varieties of beans, peppers, and tomatoes.
My dad would help mom in the garden, and then at harvest time, all three of us kids (elementary to jr high aged) would help pull the strings from the beans, clean the tomatoes and get them ready for canning, and pick dill for the cucumbers to be pickled.

My parents were frugal, and did a lot of their own things. My mom sewed clothes for all of us until I had to have brand-named items or be put to shame by my classmates. Oh, as I look back, how crazy that was - but how important it was to me then.

The massive garden was later sodded over as I went to high school and they grew tired of caring for as much as they did. My parents were having marital trouble, and getting wrapped up in themselves, it was hard to find time or energy for a garden.

So...my mom still owns several dozen mason jars for canning - both quart and pint sized. I pulled them out of the basement storage area and could obviously see they haven't been used in 30 years. (There are even a few jars with pickles still in them - so those few are getting tossed out.) I found a dozen of the jars were still in the original box. Another dozen had one nickle-sized spider in each jar - dead, intact, like some experiment from a long time ago. Lids are nowhere to be found (good) and the bands are rusted and tarnished. It's good to know that some things like glass jars are still useful so many years later.

But, again, my mom finds it amuzing that I'm interested in anything like canning my own tomatoes. She's got a few pointers for me, but most of this job I'm going to be researching on the internet. I don't have a lot of room in the freezer, but she's got a large upright freezer in her basement from garden times. Perhaps I'll find some good recipies and be able to freeze veggies and meals for the winter.

Thank you, Mom & Dad, for teaching me the value of being frugal. Although it's taken me many years to learn this lesson...I'm grateful for the memories to guide me and my family now.