Garden Memoires
It's spring planting time, and Kathy and I are infected with
“garden fever.” The dog-eared seed catalogs have been tossed, and the cobwebs have been dusted from our rakes and hoes. We are itching to get our hands dirty.The source of this passion can be traced to our Grandma Flood.
Grandma was always busy in the kitchen.
When our family would drop by to visit, we would usually find her at the stove
with an apron snugly tied around her waist. Everything she cooked was either
raised or grown on the farm.
Every year, Grandma planted a good-sized
garden in her backyard. The garden was a place of family pride, and Grandma was
particular about how it looked. The rows were straight and the seeds were
carefully sown. This was serious business. These crops were not only for fresh
produce during the summer, but also to be canned and stored in the root cellar
for the winter months.
We loved to sit on the front porch in the
evening with Grandma drinking sweet tea from pint jars and snapping beans. When
the bushel basket was emptied of beans we were allowed to take a salt shaker
and visit the tomato patch. Picking a warm red tomato and eating it in the
garden was wonderful. A tomato never tasted better.
Grandma has been gone many years now, but
the memoires she made gardening with two small girls will last a life time.
garden is an emotional, at times painful, experience. My grandma has been gone
seven years. So are the rose plants and jasmine