Where It All Began

My love for gardening, goes back as far as I can remember.

As a little girl, I have fond memories of always having a garden, whether that be my own or not. My mother, for a handful of years, kept a vegetable garden in our backyard. It wasn't to big, just a few rows of this or that, mostly tomatoes, squash, beans and peas. I would always eat the peas just as they were ready, or before, for that matter. I don't think my mom ever really had a chance to eat them.

My Mom's backyard Garden, Richmond 1976

My earliest memories always go back to when my Grandma Elsie would come over for visits, I could always find her, ice cream bucket in hand, out picking the raspberries. She would make raspberry jelly, I loved her raspberry jelly. God, what I wouldn't give to be side by side picking raspberries with her again. Come harvest time, Grandma would be at the kitchen table, cutting up the beans and bagging the beans for the freezer. Mom told be a story of when Grandma was in the hospital, having just given birth to her. It was in August, and someone had given her a beautiful bunch of fresh sweet pea's, another of her favorites. I guess that's why we always had them growing in the garden. Even to this day, in her memory I always plant some in the garden.

We had other things growing in the garden to like, roses, sweet William's, a rhodo, 2 lilac's a purple and a double white one, late dutch honeysuckle, yellow allysim, and a big blue hydrangea to name a few.

One year when I was old enough, or perhaps after I begged enough I was given my own small garden plot, along the back of the house. It wasn't that big, maybe 2ft by 10ft, but that was enough to get this green thumb going. Even in that space, I grew potato's, radishes, sage, catnip and other things I can't quite remember.

In my teen years, I can remember I would spend countless hours outside in the garden, which by now I had, for the most part, taken over from my mom. Although it wasn't just the vegetable garden, I had my hand in, but I also enjoyed cutting the grass. We had a old reel mower that I got working again, I loved the way the grass looked after I cut it with the reel mower.

After moving out when I was 18, I was always longing to have my own garden again. Every place I have lived since then I have always tried to garden, successfully or not. Riping up grass and making plots at rental properties, I've had a community garden plot or two over the years. Balcony gardens, light gardens, any garden. I have the uncontrollable passion to grow things. I can't live without gardening. I get so excited about it. Going to garden shows, garden club meeting, talking to other people about their garden, going through seed catalogue's, reading local gardening magazines, watching home and garden TV. I got to have it.

For the past three years, I've been living in a townhouse that has some ground to work, a space to create my next garden, and this time it's right out side, no travel time evolved. With hoses at arms reach, and a place to store all my gardening tools. I've started my next urban garden, the journey continues.....