2 of 140

Write now Article Tools

My love of gardening started when, as a child, I stood in the backyard helping Mom pick snap peas off the vine. I loved to snap them, eating the raw peas inside. Those days washing garden food before eating it didn't seem important. Mom loved flowers as did her father, who had two green houses full of flowering plant in his huge backyard. Burpee catalogs and seed packets with colorful pictures were plentiful in our home.

Grown up and married to a man that kept us moving to different apartments, I satisfied my need to grow with indoor plants. Not having outdoor land to plant didn't stop me from ordering Burpee catalogs. One can always dream. We finally rented a cabin that had a huge backyard. The yard was more like a field and at the edge, about a mile from the cabin, was a forest. The children and I would walk to the woods to pick black raspberries or huckleberries. Some people never learn and we'd eat some while we were picking, not worrying about washing them first. Homemade jams and pies were plentiful. Best of all, my dream came true, I had my first garden!

Preparing a plot took a lot of work. The ground was filled with rocks deposited years ago by the Glaciers. It was a labor of love. Rocks removed were used to create a border for my garden plot. The soil turned and limed, it was time to plant. I loved the smell of tomato plants that lingered on my fingers. No gloves for me, thank you. What a thrill to see the first tiny yellow flowers appear on the plants; watching leaf lettuce, scallions, and cucumbers sprouting and growing! Waking in the morning, much earlier than the rest of the family, a check on the garden to see new growth and pulling weeds was a daily activity. Now instead of reading Burpee catalogs, I was busy reading about canning and freezing vegetables. Dreaming of shelves filled with jars of tomatoes to open on a cold winter day. Having a garden was heaven on earth and I was happy.

One day when I was busy working in my garden, I noticed my husband picking some wild daisies. I smiled as he walked over. We were dirt poor, and I'd often said that I'd rather he pick some wildflowers, than spend money on a store bought flowering plant. We'd never had a place where I could plant them outside and they died indoors. Waste of money, I thought. Now, he'd finally listened to something I said and was going to give me a bunch of daisies. Wrong. He walked over and fed them to the rabbits in their cage.

Sometimes it seems happiness isn't made to last. The cabin was owned by a lady that had a long time affair with my husband's uncle. He broke her heart when he broke up with her and moved in with a much younger woman. The owner's daughter was quite angry. She handed us an eviction notice, with the intention of selling the property. My heart was broken too. All that work on the garden. The owner was sympathetic. She didn't want her man problems to be a cause of strife, so said I was welcome to come tend to the garden after we moved.

My first visit back to the cabin left me devastated. The owner's daughter had ripped out all the plants. Tears rolled down my cheeks seeing the plants with tiny green tomatoes carelessly tossed in a heap. All that remained were happy memories of fun afternoons with the children digging, picking rocks and weeds. They'd argue over who got to use the shovel and enjoyed dropping seeds in holes, covering them with dirt. We never got to eat the vegetables of our labor, but we sure had fun.

Several years later we again rented a house with a huge backyard. I had another garden. There's a happy ending to my second garden, but that's another story for another day.

Learn more about this author, Alyce Rocco.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about True gardening stories: How it all went terribly wrong (humor)?
We want to hear your view. Write now!