Feel The Need To Grow My Own
When I was younger my grandma kept a huge garden. The plot of land that her house sat on was big enough to add another house or two to it, and she filled up that space with every vegetable that would grow in our climate. Potatoes, peas, corn, everything had a row or two growing somewhere. The majority of my summers was spent on my knees digging weeds, picking bugs off the leaves, and dragging the sprinkler to a new patch every couple hours.
There were also several fruit trees growing in the yard. In the middle of the NE section there was a big pear tree that always produced more than we needed, and over by the shed we had a little cherry tree that the birds always got to before we did. My favorite was right out in front, the only section that wasn’t used as a garden was where the big, old apple tree grew. It was huge and gnarly looking, in the winter the tangle of branches was like something out of a horror movie. But during the summer it overflowed with apples, the jumble of branches proving the perfect way to climb to the top and get the best ones. Beneath it a dozen other smaller apple trees fought to take root from the fallen apples that had rotted and left their seeds.
Plum trees grew among the mess too, remnants of a year that we gathered a few baskets of plums from a local farmer. I must have dropped a dozen or so pits out there from the branches of that old apple tree. Uncle Jerry would go in once and a while and clear out some of the over growth, but for the most part that one area was left to it’s own. A miniature forest I could explore just a few feet from the front porch.
Now we buy apples from the store, vegetables frozen and sealed in plastic bags, and I watch nervously when the boys climb a tree that isn’t even a third of the size that the old apple tree was. Grandma’s garden went to waste years ago, old age and arthritis took it’s toll and it became too hard to keep the ground tilled and the weeds at bay. Today I’m feeling a bit ashamed of it all, of the big empty backyard, of my lack of a green thumb, and the life the boys haven’t known yet. It just doesn’t feel right.
Image source – Andrejs Pidjass
Maybe we had the same grandmother. I remember the plum trees especially because so many plums rotted in the lawn, each becoming a slippery blob that could take your feet out from under you. Her vegetable garden was raised above the yard with stone steps leading up to it. She tossed nails in the garden to ensure there’d be iron for the plants.
We spent little time visiting during growing season, so we didn’t help much with the garden. Most memorably: We’d toss rotten tomatoes at each other during the peak of summer.
I hope your gardening efforts have been rewarding enough to keep you going. I can’t imagine a season without growing at least some food. I write specifically about gardening… lots of encouragement to get/keep people going: Your Small Kitchen Garden
cityslipper’s last blog post..Update on Fruit Trees for my Small Kitchen Garden