Okay, I don’t have a Secret Garden, but it is the name of one of my favorite books! Faye is the hostess for Fun Monday this week and her topic is ‘gardens’ — The most I have now is a potted plant that has lived throughout my hospital stays. Poor thing. My mom has repotted and transplanted regrown the silly thing for years. I don’t know that I really know how to take care of it other than water it, but it’s been the only that couldn’t do for itself that I’ve managed to keep alive in the intervening years. One summer we did grow some hot peppers (still have the dried pods waiting for my husband to use them in something, wonder if he ever will?) and some cherry tomatoes and those came along fine.
However for years I helped my mom here and there in the garden or with garden related chores. I must admit, I am more of a gatherer than a planter, though. I love to pick berries, asparagus, and go hunting for mushrooms (albeit not gardening, all the same), and the funny thing is, I don’t even like most of what I enjoy harvesting. Doesn’t matter though. I can still remember my mom asking me to go pull up a few onions or find some garlic out of the garden and I just KNEW we would be having homemade pizza or spaghetti sauce for dinner. YUM!
I am a pretty reliable green bean snapper, haven’t had much practice at shelling peas, but I wasn’t very good at it. I did spend a lot of time a couple of years ago helping my mom cut corn off the cob. When I was at home, I did begrudgingly, or in later years, happily, go out and help. The best year was when they had some magic (heavily bad stuff laden!) pesticide that killed EVERYTHING critter wise. Man I volunteered to help EVERY day. No spiders! When I was a kid, I used to squish tomato worms (much to the delight or dismay, not sure which, of my parents’ friend) and wait patiently while potatoes were dug up and popped through the ground.
I still remember how RICH I felt when out of some miracle we had a bumper crop of red and white potatoes and that fall and winter we had potatoes every night. I’m sure mom got tired of cooking them, but I couldn’t get enough.
I still jump every now and then if I get a bug on me, hey, I have good reason to not get poisoned now! But I do certainly enjoy the fruits of my momma’s garden. Every now and then some canned tomatoes and green beans sneak their way into my cupboard and we eat them in record time, saying thank you very much and returning clean jars…so far I haven’t been denied anything if I really wanted it. I hope it stays that way for a long time. And that I can get some time to help this summer, it’s been 2 years since I was able to do anything significant to help her out, and I wish I had the time and availability to do so this year.
Hey Jill–I’m so sorry I messed up your link in the FM signup. I’ll correct it right now and ask people to try you again.
I think you’ve guessed that even though you don’t consider yourself a gardener now, you’ve been indoctrinated by momma with helping out in the family garden as a youngster and getting to eat those yummy fresh veggies and fruits–who could resist new potatoes and berries harvested by your own hand. And I have friends who still to this day can enough green beans and freeze corn for their grown children–provided they return the clean empty jars!
“Reliable bean snapper” sounds like it could go on a resume! I love it.
You have a lot of gardening experience. I bet one day you will have a veggie garden of your own
I can remember picking potatoes when I was a kid at the farm across the street. I got $10 bucks a row. Then, after we were done picking bushels and bushels of potatoes, the farmer would cook us “dinner”. It always consisted of potatoes. It truly was a memory I will never forget.