What a beautiful tribute to your Grandfather. It must be wonderful to have those fabulous memories.

My Mother gave me a package of red poppy seeds when I was about 12. She helped me make the bed and from that day on I was hooked. I had lots of house plants growing up but never did any real gardening...My folks were big gardeners though and I think I picked up the love of gardening from them.

all I wanted was a nice salad with all fresh ingredients...

Promise not to laugh. ;) As a kid, when I first watched Mr. Myagi on Karate Kid, I loved the heck out of his back yard and to this day still want one just like it! I was born right next to a massive orchard, so that probably contributed too.

What a beautiful tribute to your grandfather. I love the way you use the same cinder blocks. I grow several of the same varieties of beans and tomatoes my dad always grows.

I got into gardening as a kid -- helping Dad with the garden was part of life. It was something we did because that was what we did. Period.

I garden because its in my blood. Come spring I have to get my hands in the dirt and watch things grow. My teens aren't too interested, but my 9yo is my helper and the 3yo has his very own cherry tomato (sweet 100, like Dad always grew),for the first time.

I was born in 1942, Dad and Mom did subsistance farming in eastern Oklahoma.(With horses,) I'll never forget that, us kids had to do everythig we were big enough to do, and somethings we wern't. LOL

In 1952 we went to Arizona to pick cotton, then later to california to work in the fruit or any thing els we could find.
I went to high school in Lodi California, and in the 11th grade I needed an easy class that I could coast through. (Lazy, or maybe just a typical teenager LOL.) Anyway, landscaping and gardning looked like it would be easy, and to make a long story short, I loved it.

But life being what it sometimes is, as an adult I just never seemed to be in one place long enough over the years to really get very involved in gardning untill I retired.
I've been gardning now since I retired in 2004, both vegetable and flowers, and I can't imagin anything I would rather be doing.
So I feel like I owe my love of gardning to that one class in high school, and my Mother who, while I was in high school got me interested in helping her in her flower garden.(And believe me, as a teenage boy I took a lot of kidding over that.LOL)

I'm a firm believer that every step we take in life will have and effect on our future, some big, some small, some for good, and some for bad.
Someone gave me a sigh to put up near my garden that says it best.

One is nearer Gods heart in a garden, then anyplace on earth.

Bomber, that is a touching story. Can see why your Grandfather will be missed.

My only surviving sister (middle 70's now) and I was talking about this very subject the other day and wondering where she and I got our love for gardening. My sister's late husband was a farmer so I guess some rubbed off on her. I helped him plant as a kid (toted fertilizer and such) so some of him must have rubbed off on me too.

My dad ran a sawmill and mom was a housewife. Most of my kin was either making moonshine or drinking it.

Thanks again for the story.

Shot

bomber that was lovely. What a wonderful memory.

I grew up with a garden but my mom really didn't like tending it and didn't like canning and when Aldi's became popular, she stopped and the garden went to weeds. She could grow ANYTHING though! She once picked a stick up out of the yard to stake a plant in a flowerpot with and the darn thing grew roots! I always wished I had her green thumb, even if she didn't use it!

I started growing tomatoes in pots on my balcony in an apartment and when I got a house I didn't have much of a yard, and still don't, but I started square foot gardening in a little 4x8 bed. It's still my main garden, but I add pots and buckets for the big things like tomatoes and there's just nothing like a fresh salad or home grown tomatoes and green beans. I love my tiny garden. This year I put in three broccoli plants, two cauliflower and two brussels sprouts with my usual lettuce, spinach, carrots and onions and I've already harvested the broccoli - it gets eaten tonight! This year I made a potato bin too. I can't wait to have new potatoes.

I often wish I had a larger, sunny spot to garden. Someday we'll sell this house and when we do, a garden spot will be a key feature we'll look for on the next one.

I don't know exactly. My grandparents had a huge garden with fruit trees and all that, but my grandfather died before I was born and my grandmother died when I was barely 3 so I really don't remember her. I vaguely remember the garden in that I wasn't allowed to go in it. I remember standing at the fence wanting desparately to go pick a dandelion flower, but I was too afraid to go past the gate!

My parents didn't garden at all other than mowing the lawn and trimming the shrubs, except for maybe a geranium in a flowerpot.

But I started growing houseplants as a teen and I was always interested in plants and flowers. As soon as I married and had my own home, I started a little flower garden and a few years after that a tomato plant or two. Both my brothers and my sister are all avid gardeners, however, just like me. So something must have rubbed off on us somewhere!

I wish I had been able to share something like you had with my grandparents bomber, but I'm the youngest in the family and didn't get to know them the way my older cousins and siblings did. However, even tho I never knew him, I bought a fig tree and I have to say I think of my grandfather when I look at it - I grew up hearing stories from my older male cousins having to work in the garden and them helping to bury the fig tree every year. Wish I could have gotten some gardening advice from him the way you did with yours!

Lisa

That was a touching story about you grandfather - thank you for sharing it.

I've just started gardening this year! So I'm one month in but the seed was first planted when I was a little girl and would visit my grandmother in upstate NY. She rented a large colonial house that had a sloping yard that then dropped down into the Hudson River. It was a lovely old house and she created the most beautiful terraced gardens on the slope. As a little girl I would sit cross legged in it and just eat the strawberries off the vine. I loved sitting with her while she gardened and I would help her weed.

Her health is failing her - for this Mother's Day I bought her a mini gardening tote so she could still garden on her porch and only have to carry this tiny lightweight bag with miniature tools. She still grows tomatoes in containers.

Alys, that's my hopes also. The house I live in now was left to my wife and my brother-in-law in a trust fund by my father-in-law's parents. Because it is in a trust, we cant sell it until my brother-in-law turns 25, and he just turned 20 last month. I make do w. the space I have now which is the two beds using the aforementioned cinder blocks, and a boatload of buckets and flower boxes. Below is a link to pictures from two weeks ago.

When we finally do move, which my wife is hoping is the day after my brother-in-law's 25th birthday, yard size and sunlight will be HUGE factors when we go house hunting. My yard now gets enough sun to produce decent veggies, but it's shaded by maple trees all around

I'll be taking more pictures tonight. Things are much bigger than they were two and a half weeks ago

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures of the garden (April 26)

bomber - thought I'd let you see my teeny garden. This is from a couple of years ago, but I haven't done more than learn to manage the space better. The tomatoes and peppers now go in pots to make more room for other things, short season things now go on one end to make room for my single zucchini, taller things to the north and beans on the trellis. It's a work in progress every year. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:49448}}

I love it, Alys! Lots of stuff in a little space. Next year, I'm going to be taking the blocks down, levelling the land, and using framing lumber. It's more aesthetically pleasing. As sentimental as the cinder blocks are, I do have to admit they are an eyesore, but at the time they were purchased, much cheaper than lumber wouldve been to enframe the whole area

Thank's for sharing your heart with us Bomber! I can in some ways relate to the special relationship, you and your grandfather had together. While reading through your post, it stirred up in me a longing to be 7-10 years old all over again.

I used to go out with my grandmother in the mornings, and also somtimes in the evenings to water the fruit trees. My grandparents had a couple of Citrus trees, Papaya trees and some other tropical ones in their back yard. For me it was always something to look forword to. Just me and granny going out to water the fruit trees. It sounds like something very boring. But to me it was like entering another world... Just me and granny. The Lord knows how it made me feel, being with granny, while she watered the fruit trees. It was something special and precious to me, I can not explain it, it just was...

Gran is also the one who introduced me to vegetable gardening. And from then on I was hooked on gardening with her. I lost interest when I was in my teenage years, but I'm now back in the vegetable gardening scene. Strange to think about it now, but I was the only grandchild who showed any interest in gardening, and that unfortunately is still the case up to this day...

I can not believe how quickly the time has flown by...? One day I was eight years old helping granny in the garden, the next a fully grown man in his mid twenties...! Life sure goes by fast! Let's just make every day count. Guys what I'm trying to say to you is: Spend time with your parents and grandparents! Have that cup of coffee with your dad man! Because you're sure going to miss him if his not there anymore...

I sure do miss those special times with grandma in the backyard... The two of us just clicked. From the time I can remember, we just clicked!

Thank you for those special times, and special memories, I'll treasure them in my heart forever. But especially for introducing me to JESUS the Messiah, my personal SAVIOUR and LORD!

Gran, with the grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, under the guidance of HIS SPIRIT - I Thomas, will see you one day. Face to face again! And may there be happy gardening seasons up in heaven waiting for the two of us.

I sure miss you gran!

All my love,
your grandson
xxx

I Corinthians Chapter 15

What is it about gardening, more than any other hobby, that we get our roots from the past? It's just beautiful to grow and create in memories of others.

No one in my family ever gardened so much as a flower in the yard.

I was with my boy in a big box hardware store when he spied yellow pear tomatoes. They were his favorite color and all of a sudden he wanted to "be a garden man"..Little did I know that one pot would turn into the garden that it is today. Hopefully I'll start the tradition and pass the love on to them.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Corner Yard

Tomes, same w. me! Out of nine grandchildren (me, my two brothers, and six cousins), I was the only one who got the gardening itch.

I will second your thought... ENJOY THE TIME YOU HAVE W. YOUR FAMILY NOW! IT CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU UNEXPECTEDLY!

I have tonight's pictures uploaded to Photobucket, and will post them tomorrow

Having lost both of my parents by the time I was 29 (17 years now you do the math!!! Yikes no don't) I can tell you that at any age there might not be a tomorrow so relish them.

But to the original question. My Grandpa did it for me. We lived in Chicago and they were in Iowa and our entire summers were spent with them. The memory of shucking popcorn in the stairwell is still so vivid. And to this day my favorite odd treat is Fresh Strawberries and Chocolate Ice Cream, which is probably why I just planted another 20 plants this spring! It also helps that I married a man that refuses to live in town so that gives me plenty of space to relive my childhood!

okihobo, like you; I was born in 1942 and retired in 2004. I never had anyone to inspire me to want to garden. I can only remember as a nine or ten year old kid not liking the look of bare dirt. It just seemed to be wasted space. I grew up in a little rent house in Amarillo, Texas. Our yard was bare dirt. I started planting grass in the front along the sidewalk and a garden along one side of the house. I was a little kid but would work every spring with a shovel simply turning that dirt over and planting stuff. I usually didn't care what I planted. I just wanted something to grow and produce. As a young man out of school and out of the Army, I spent a few years in apartments longing for a place to plant a garden. After I married and we bought a house, the first thing I did was plant a garden. Because we moved every few years with my work, I started planting raised bed gardens. (easier to plant and care for).

I think it is a genetic anomaly that I didn't inherit and seem to have passed on only to one of my children. I simply am possessed to insure that everything around me is productive. We now live north of Dallas on five acres of land. I sometimes look around and wish that I had been on this land for forty years. I would love to see it totally planted in productive nut and fruit trees, exotic fruits, and vegetables. I could spend the rest of my life just watching stuff grow.

Ted

What a wonderful story of your grandfather bomber! I was born in 44 and garden was a way of life but the story goes that I was old enough to walk and talk, helping my dad plant tomatoes. I was always there to give him a plant and said "here one daddy". Apparently I was going behind him and pulling the freshly placed plants up to hand him. I never lived that one down. Gardening and canning have mostly been a way of life and in between when I lived where I couldn't garden I had a house full of plants " my jungle" I still need to have something growing around me all the time.

The love of gardening doesn't hit every one but I sure try to give it to my grandchildren in hopes that it will stick with some. They all love to eat the results.

Can't afford the store food. Store food taste bad. So thought I'd try growing my own.

I was always into fish tanks and then developed an interest in aquascaping with live plants. That grew into having house plants and then when my first child was born I developed a desire to have a garden. I come from good farm stock, though. My grandparents on both sides were farmers and my mom had a vegetable garden when I was really young. My aunt always let us pick strawberries and raspberries when we visited in the summer. Now I'm trying to cultivate a love for growing things in my young daughters.

That's one heck of a tale Bomber!

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather taking me to his allotment in Bolton, Lancs and getting the first smell of tomato plants. Our family moved away to Perth in Scotland so I never got the chance to have the same experiences as you... but I'm making REALLY sure my grandchildren do! They all live within half a mile of me in St Ives, Cambridgeshire and love coming up to the allotment with me. I bought four chickens and let each of them (I have four grandchildren) pick one each, so they have lots of reasons to enjoy being there.

As I've got older the final lines from a the book called 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Month_in_the_Country' by

Bomber, I recently found an "old" picture (from about 1976) of me working in the garden with a teenage boy. Then, I realized that teenage boy was my 29 year old father. I couldn't believe how young he looked.

My grandfather and I have done all sorts of tinkery things together. He is so good with his hands. I was tickled last year when he was having problems with his rhubarb. "every time it rains, it wilts!" he complained. I looked out the window and started to laugh. I told him he needed to move the rhubarb to the front yard. He told me I was crazy, that he'd beeen growing the rhubarb there for 50 years and it'd been just fine. I said, "Yes, Grampa but the black walnut tree in the neighbor's yard has been growing for 50 years too." I explained to him about juglone, and he got the neatest look of pride on his face.

He has said to me before, "For a girl, you sure are handy!"

I loved the part about the catalogs and sunflower seeds. I sing at a lot of funerals and am always curious to know the significance of items placed in caskets. Recently, I went to a funeral and had to stifle a giggle when I saw that the man had a remote control firmly clutched in his hand. I ended up spending quite a bit of time with the family, and then I asked about the remote control. After they laughingly explained about Dad's possessiveness about the remote control, I asked, "How you will run the TV now?" They burst out laughing, it was a spare...but the thought that Dad would take the remote with him to eternity was entertaining to them all.

Sorry about the incomplete post above... here's what I meant to say.

That's one heck of a tale Bomber!

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather taking me to his allotment in Bolton, Lancs and getting the first smell of tomato plants. Our family moved away to Perth in Scotland so I never got the chance to have the same experiences as you... but I'm making REALLY sure my grandchildren do! They all live within half a mile of me in St Ives, Cambridgeshire and love coming up to the allotment. I let each of them pick a chicken to buy, so they have lots of reasons to enjoy being there. I also keep a record of things we do together on my blog below, including recording their voices to hear again what we talk about in future years... click the 'Grandchildren'label on the blog to see what we get up to.

As I've got older the final lines from a book called 'A Month In The Country' by J. L. Carr mean more and more to me. The book was also made into a film. It's a gentle tale of two World War 1 veterans coming to terms with their experiences against the backdrop of an English village church. The book closes with the lines...

We can wish and we can wish
But we can never have
What once seemed ours forever

Here is a link that might be useful: An English Allotment

this is gonna be long and emotional so be ready,1840s my irish family settles in east central illinois jump ahead 4 generations to my dad as a 47 year old bachelor he marries and haves me.he works his butt off puts me thru college and turns 600 acres over to me to farm,during my youth we have planted 20 some apple,pear and peach trees.he has more time on his hands so after we get out of the cattle buisness he after 40 years of no gardens wants to turn the barnyard into a garden.he can remember some of the tricks his mom n dad did in their garden puts studys n studys old practices.he had some problems and had huge successes thats gardening,live n learn.my boys and i help on weekends ive lost half my acres that we rented so we move to indiana for other jobs,not enough left for two families to get enough income.he is up at 5 am. works till heat of day rests then goes back out after supper,he produces 5 times more than our families can use ,he loves to give it away, he gets a kick out of widows getting fresh veggies.hes well into his eighties now still going strong i help him he tells me pick out landscape plants he pays we both plant.we really had fun coming up with things he remembered as a kid.i take the master gardener program thru purdue university we try new ideas on things.i still remember picking strawberries with him my boys sitting in the patch eating ten one in container he loved it.skip to fall of 2006 one saturday he asked me and the boys to dig his potatoes for him he said his side and back hurt when leaning over new something was up he would have asked for a lil help but not the way he asked,he was taking chemo for his third round of prostrate cancer he did well the other two times not this time.in an out of hospital all fall early winter it had spread into his kidneys and stomach,he ate very lil,christmas dinner he skipped dinner only managed part of a piece of cherry pie for the day not himself,he relished having his family around him.that next weekend he passed away on morphinelabored breathing hardest thing ive ever seen.87 years old wow.so my tribute to him is i keep things going i still live in indiana,garden is in weeds now so ard to garden big on one day a week effort,tried it failed.he left things to my mom but i get the house and two acres free and clear and he left 200 acres of farm ground to my three boys to go to college on and come back and build a house on if they choose.mom gets income in her lifetime then i get it to help the boys then when i pass on boys get full title,wow roughly a 8000000 gift to my boys wow what a blessing in life.so here is the rest of my tribute im gonna expand the old garden its 90x100 now can probaly go 120x120 raised bed lasagna beds full of veggies,meet all my needs my boys needs and give all the rest to my local food bank.i want 0 income from this.if someone wants something specific as my dad did grow it give it away.god has truley blessed my life with great parents,fertile land,healthy kids,my future destiny is to pay back my blessings.no rewards,i dont even want people to know where there fruits and veggies come from god is keeping my scorecard.its what im supose to do.so a quick summary my dad has taught me everything about gardening and lifeand god has provided the means to do so.ty 4 your time