by MonetteH

Created on: May 10, 2010   Last Updated: June 07, 2010

I have loved gardening since the time I was a little girl. I was born in a small Ohio town where everyone, including our family, had a garden. My grandmother, who lived across the street from us, had the most beautiful flower gardens. Our own garden consisted of a small plot of land across the alley, where we grew primarily corn, beans, tomatoes and peppers. I was quite young at the time, but still I liked to go out with my Dad to plant the garden, take care of it, and then sit on the backyard swing and snap beans when it was time to put vegetables up for the winter.

By the time I started school, we moved. My parents bought three and a half acres of land and built a house. My dad bought a tractor, and we tilled up a much bigger garden. Although my mom and brother helped with the garden, it was primarily an activity enjoyed by me and my Dad. Every year in early spring, we would spend hours looking through the seed catalogs, planning what we would grow that year. In May, we'd drive all over town looking for the best tomato and pepper plants. We'd still grow primarily corn, beans, tomatoes and peppers, but we'd also experiment with things like kohlrabi, melons, radishes, potatoes and carrots. We also had an asparagus patch and rhubarb bed, which were Mom's domain. I remember when it was time to harvest, we'd pick paper grocery bags of yellow and green beans, snapping them on the porch as my mom blanched and froze them for winter. Corn was husked, cooked and cut off the cob for the same purpose. Mom's goal was always 52 pints of corn and 52 quarts of beans in the freezer every year for winter.

Eventually I grew up, got married and moved away. For years I didn't live where I could have a garden, but I'd still come over and help Dad with his. When we finally moved to where we had enough yard for a garden, I tried the "square foot gardening" method. I found a man to till up a garden space, then my Dad came over and we carefully measured everything out, laying down newspapers and straw to make the rows. My little garden was a big success, and by the following year, I was starting my own tomato and pepper plants from seed under lights in the basement. My Dad was a machinist his whole life, and could build anything out of anything. To support my seed starting efforts, he built me a greenhouse box, complete with a hinge that would open and close the lid based on the temperature inside the structure. Instead of buying plants at the local greenhouses, I was now growing

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