by Sherry Law

Created on: November 18, 2010   Last Updated: December 03, 2010

MEMOIRS: MY FUNNIEST GARDEN EXPERIENCE

I was not raised to be a gardener.  It’s not that I didn’t like plants; I went to sleep on summer nights surrounded by the fragrance of the honeysuckle under my window and helped water the pots of ivy that filled our home.  My grandmother had beautiful beds full of rose bushes and irises.  The shade of the pecan trees made the patio a heavenly place and we grew up eating fresh vegetables from her kitchen garden.  But me, a gardener?  No way!  I was going to be a singer or raise race horses.  I couldn’t be bothered with grubbing around in the dirt pulling weeds ...

Even after I got married, I wasn’t interested in gardening.  My new husband and I bought a house with a bed full of what we nick-named “can’t-kill-it-if-you-try” Purple Jew by the front door.  Occasionally I actually remembered to water it - most of the time I ignored it.  It grew anyway.

Three years later, I had two toddlers and was on a do-it-yourself kick.  I made my own baby food, bought a meat grinder so I could turn roasts into ground meat and had dozens of books on cooking, canning and, of course, raising your own vegetables.

That’s when I decided I wanted a garden.  I searched seed catalogs for months before ordering the perfect seeds and the last week of April, I decided where my plants should go.

“This is perfect, Matt,” I told my husband.  “The dirt’s great - I mean, look at it.  You haven’t mowed in awhile and the weeds are over my head.”

“Uh, yeah.  Whatever you say, babe." My husband, raised on a dairy farm in Ohio, smiled indulgently and spent the weekend building a fence to keep inquisitive toddlers and bouncing dogs from the soon-to-be garden.

Matt owned his own business and it was mid-May before he finally had a chance to rent a tiller.

I watched him churn the hot, hard Texas soil into what I knew was going to be a fabulous place for the seeds that had arrived weeks before.  He made several trips around the bed with the tiller, finally grinding in some goat manure that I had located and hauled home in plastic bags. Then he looked at the dirt and scratched his head.

“I don’t know, honey.  I didn't help with mom's garden, but this soil looks like it might need some more work and the weather’s going to be getting hot soon - you might should have started this project

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