Remembering

[robbyjoe01]

Reading all the new growers first seasons got me remembering my first season. Like to say I remember my very first one but I was probably about four (1964). I do remember 1968 and earning my keep on the farm by tending dads jalapenos. I remember that well cause I was mad that dad didn't pick out the new pepper in the seed catalogs that year the Habanero. Dad always said stick with what works and well at eight I didn't have a vote. Dad always had his Italian sweet peppers for cooking and jalapenos to sell along with a few other veggies. Mom had flowers, Dad had veggies, and I dreamed of being somewhere other than the farm. Yet here at 50 I can't think of any thing else worth my spare time. Embrace that first season-log and learn every season. Work with mother nature it's easier than fighting her. Every year I learn more and probably forget more than most will ever learn about our green earth. If I had a penny for every seed I've placed I'd be a billionaire. No real question here just let me die working the garden mad that I didn't get that new pepper for the year.

[lurley]

As kids, my siblings and I called it "slave labor", now I would rather be "playing" in the dirt than doing anything else. Of course now my kids call it "slave labor" but I know that while they may never garden when they grow up, at least they will have the knowledge and skills to do so if it no longer becomes a choice and becomes a necessity.

[TZ-OH6]

I had a friend that couldn't stand the sight of snow peas because his mother always made him pick them after school.

Growing up I always though that gardens were pretty neat things but even though we had the land my parents were not big into doing things the right way if it took physical effort (that's what slave/kids were for). One year (for my mother?) my father had a friend come over and plow up part of the back yard, leaving behind moldboard plow furrows in the rocky clay sod. We kids were sent out (unsupervised) with shovels, and probably a broken rake, to deal with it, not knowing the first thing about what to do (so we didn't do much). I remember some sickly radishes and a good crop of ragweed (you couldn't run the lawn mower over the area because the ground was so rough for the next few years).

I'm gardening on the same property now 30 year later, and had to start fresh with just a shovel, pick ax, chainsaw and elbow grease. The spot in the yard that got plowed up in the old days probably wouldn't have grown much even if the soil was worked well because of the soil structure, and it would have been impossible to protect from the deer. I ended up cutting my garden out of the wilderness next to the yard-lawn, and found all of the junk we threw into the weeds/woods as kids. I remembered shooting a lot of those broken bottles with a BB gun way back when.

[robbyjoe01]

I wrote this not only to remember but to spark others to remember

[habitat_gardener]

So did you ever get to grow a habanero? Is it in your garden every year?

When I was a kid, my mother let me dig up a little square toward the back of the yard, partly shaded. On planting day my cousins were visiting, so my mother gave them some of the seeds. One of my cousins ate the lettuce seeds instead of planting them. (These were the cousins who also ate raw rice and toothpaste, sitting under the dining room table in our grandparents' house.) I think the radishes eventually came up, and we dug kitchen waste into one corner for a while. But that garden plot never turned into much. And I can't believe I never grew a jersey tomato while I was living in NJ! I think it was because it was so easy to find produce at reasonable prices at local farm stands before suburbia paved over the farms. There was even an organic apple grower in town! The best part of that yard was the raspberry bushes growing in the leach field of the septic tank.

One of my aunts had a big garden, mostly flowers and shrubs, and it was a treat to visit and get a tour of the garden. It always felt like magic when she reached into a tangle of plants and pulled out a cucumber or picked a handful of currants. That's where I got my image of what a garden looks like: everything grows jumbled together and there's always something edible to pick.

The one thing I always wanted was a garden, but I never owned land and moved around a lot. I finally got a community garden plot 8 years ago (on my birthday! -- best "gift" I ever got), and now I eat something from my garden every day of the year. Somehow I've found space for 30-50 tomato varieties a year, plus lots of beans, monster perennial kale plants, cucumbers, squashes, berries, tons of herbs, lots of wildflowers and native perennials for pollinators, spring bulbs, mints in pots, and lots more, but I wish I had more space.

[jamie_savoie]

Growing up my parents owned a store and we had not one square feet of dirt on the property. Call it weird but because of that I always loved to mow the lawn for my grandparents, splitting logs for my uncle and gardening with my grandfather.

He died when I was about 10 but I have avid memories of me and him harvesting potatoes in the fall, taking care of the tomatoes in the little greenhouse he had, picking cukes for grandma who would pickle them.

I wish he’d still be alive, especially since I’m into gardening now, I could’ve learnt a lot from him and maybe have some seeds if he was saving his seeds.
But he gave me what’s more important; the spark for growing your own food and I thank him for that

[robbyjoe01]

So did you ever get to grow a habanero? Is it in you garden ever year? Habait gardener


Yes I have and do grow White habanero currently. Getting sent the Trinidad scorpion (Butch T) what will be the hottest pepper in the world. I'm planning on crossing it with my white habanero and hopefully creating a white scorpion. What was called only habanero in the 60's has grown to many varieties now a days coming in every color and size. Life gets better with age