by Lisa Federico

Created on: November 05, 2009

Memoirs: The Garden

The garden, my family's garden started almost 100 years ago by my grandparents when they migrated to the US from Italy, was and still is, the center of our family's attention, and I suspect it will be for years to come.

It's not just any garden; it's the garden - well known in the community, envied even for its unfailing lush crops of fruits and vegetables every year. It's the main food source for four families and always yields more to share with friends and neighbors, and the local food pantry.

It's not magic that makes this garden special though; it's hard work, dedication, commitment . and a lot of love!

Until I moved across the country for work I regularly tended the garden with my grandmother, my father and mother, and a couple of cousins. It was certainly understood that not everyone in the extended family enjoyed gardening, but everyone knew the difference between vegetables picked and on the dinner table an hour later and vegetables commercially picked, transported, stocked (not to mention insecticides, coloring, life sustaining additives, and who knows what else) before eventually being displayed for purchase in the grocery store. If help was needed, nobody complained.

Our garden was fertilized with cow manure and fish guts, and the soil was deeply churned at the end of every season. We made old fashioned scarecrows that really helped, used water from the family well, and weeding and picking were done daily.

Approximately one acre on my grandparents land is dedicated to food: 2 apple trees, a peach tree, several blueberry bushes, 2 grapevines, and the garden with three kinds of tomatoes, peas, corn, carrots, beets, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, peppers, cucumbers, green beans, yellow beans, summer squash, zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkins, and potatoes.

I am all grown up now; my childhood is gone. I live 3,000 miles from my family and the garden, but my memories are vivid and sweet.

I feel a tinge of envy talking to Mom and Dad every Sunday. There has never been a conversation without some focus on the garden what crops are bountiful at the moment, how delicious the peas are this season, how tender the spinach is, oh the carrots are nice and straight finally not an easy feat if you don't have sandy soil.

My sister's children are helping harvest the butternut squash, potatoes, and pumpkins now not me any longer. They are old enough to help Grandpa load the old pickup truck with the autumn bounty, and will

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