Garden Stories ...

What - or who - in your life sparked your interest in gardening? What are the stories that bind us together in our interests? What did you or your neighbors grow and harvest? Which seasonal activities related to your gardens?

"At my childhood home, if you wanted to eat it, you grew it. Planting a vegetable garden in the spring was not an optional pastime; it was as necessary as doing the laundry on wash day.

Our garden was large with a huge pear tree in the centre. Having a large garden kept us busy all year- tilling, planting, transplanting, thinning, weeding, harvesting and canning.
Each season had its own rewards. In the early spring, chives and rhubarb appeared with no effort on anyone’s part. As the days grew warmer, gardening activities got into full swing. The tilling and planting was soon rewarded with fresh lettuces, crisp radishes, and tasty herbs. Onion, garlic and carrot beds needed to be thinned. These tiny plants became flavorful additions to our springtime meals. And between meals, one could always visit the garden for a handful of strawberries or raspberries.

The summer harvest was diverse and plentiful - green beans, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, parsnips, beets and corn. By late summer, we started to harvest turnips, and cabbages and cauliflower.

At our house, if you wanted to eat it in the winter, you preserved it. Tomatoes were turned into sauce, juice and pickled green tomatoes. Cucumbers became dilled pickles. Cabbages were preserved whole in large barrels. Carrots and parsnips remained fresh for most of the winter in bushels filled with sandy, dry soil. Potatoes and apples were kept in a cold dry cellar. Everything else went into sterilized jars. Now, there was a hot, labor intensive job before dish washers and air conditioning!! The kitchen was filled with steaming kettles of water for sterilizing, bubbling pots of fruit for jams, large vats of syrup and brine for preserving sliced fruits and vegetables, an endless supply of jars and bushels of produce. After a few weeks of steady work, our large fruit cellar was well stocked for the winter.

As a youngster, I helped, not always willingly, with all aspects of gardening and preserving; therefore not surprisingly, after leaving home for college and career, I took an extended break from gardening. Recently, my postage stamp size vegetable garden expands each year because my daughter gives me plants that she hopes will find a home in my garden since her apartment does not include land. Worse still, she is buying books on canning!! Could there be a gardening gene?"

-with thanks to KGray

When I suggested this idea for group writing at a meeting, winter 08, a member told me a story that I feel free I can share here. It was about her husband - who, when their kids were little - was inspired to make crabapple jam. He had the family pick up the many crabapples that had fallen from the trees - and went through the laborious process of preparing the juice with which to make the jelly. Sterilizing the jars - the whole day long process.... only to discover the jelly did not jell. Persistently, he emptied each jar back into the jelly pot to boil it down again... and still no jelly... boiled it a second time... with no luck... only to hear from an experienced jelly maker that the mistake was using the crabapples that had fallen on the ground.

When I was nine years old we moved into our new home in the middle of an apple orchard. My Dad made sure the contractor saved as many of the apple trees as possible. It’s not hard to imagine that my sister and I spent late summer days and fall afternoons picking apples.

Mother was put to the test of coming up with creative things to do with our abundance of apples. Of course there was apple pie and cake, crisp, dumplings, apple brown betty, baked apples and apple sauce. She made apple jelly, spiced apples, apple ketchup and she even dried apples. Paring, coring and cutting apples was a family affair; even grandmother and aunts were pressed into service when they visited. Apples that remained after all of Mother’s efforts were put in cold storage or made into cider.

We loved apples (and still do), but it’s fair to say that as some of the trees came down to accommodate Dad’s passion for gardening, we enjoyed our apple memories but did not miss the work they created!

-with thanks to DRoy