by Erin Smyth

Created on: August 21, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

My mother had a garden.

Having spent years in the city, where the only garden was taken care of by both her mother and father, she had greatly anticipated the move to the country, where her new house had a spacious yard and a large and vacant garden. Some of my earliest memories are of her kneeling by the flower beds at the side of our house, working away, either taking away weeds, preparing the soil, which usually would host a wild array of different flowers or even planting bulbs to bloom the next spring. Oh how I marvelled at her patience then, the spring seeming a very long time away, past Christmas, which, even then, felt like it was taking too long to come.

My mother found the most pleasure, however, in puttering away in the large patch of soil at the back of our home. This garden space was much larger than the one she had known in her own youth. It encompassed about a quarter of the back yard, though there was still enough space left over for my sister and mine's play set and play house, one she had built herself for us.

This garden was framed on the neighbour's side by a large and tangled set of raspberry bushes. At its end, was a large and twisting apple tree. Nearest to this tree was where my mother kept another more ambitious flower garden. At the beginning of the soil was where she chose in her wisdom to plant the vegetables she was very successful in growing every year. The vegetable garden's bound was separated from that of the flowers by two rows of corn. I can remember once hiding from a friend we were not in the mood to see among their tall columns with my sister. We lay flat on the well worn path between them as the friend walked back and forth calling our names and luckily never spotting us.

On another occasion, when we were in the right mood, the same friend stood talking with our mother as she planted onion bulbs. At one point the friend watched as our mother sprinkled the bulbs with salt before covering them.

Why are you doing that? she asked, genuinely curious.

Well Marlene it's so I won't need to salt them later, my mother replied.

The friend believed her whole heartedly, not knowing that our mother had heard that salt reportedly kept certain bugs a safe distance away. Our mother never told her this but smiled in that mischievous way she did when she knew she was getting away with a little joke she may only understand.

My mother, no matter how devoted she was to her garden, was kind enough to let us

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