I will try to condense this because I could pontificate for hours on this! My love for gardening came from my father. He was the ultimate green thumb-he didn't have formal training that i know of, but he was a street tree gardener for two of the communities we grew up in, and always had a vegetable garden as a way to supplement our large family's food budget.(Six kids) He was a school music teacher and when summer vacation began he was always found out back tending the garden for pretty much the whole summer. Of all six children I seemed to be the most interested in what he did-and my first memory of my own interest was when he gladly allowed me to plant marigolds around the border of his garden to keep pests away(this was a fairly large plot and now I know why he jumped at my offer to help him!)I was in elementary school at the time. Also eating a tomato whole and sprinkled with salt always brings dad's tomatoes to mind. And asparagus and homemade pickles.... That was my first taste of working in a garden. It wasn't until I was a first-time homeowner that I knew I was going to be a gardener but I chose to go the route of flowers instead of vegetables. The saddest thing, though was that the year before I moved into my new home, my dad developed Alzheimer's disease and everything I needed to ask him for gardening advice about trees and organic gardening was completely gone-he was just a shell of my father-quite sad. Not a day goes by when I'm in my yard and garden that I don't think of Dad and the gift he gave me. I just wanted to share it with him. He passed away two months ago. Just an interesting note; Our family surname has it's origin from Poland and it means 'gardener of an estate' I find that kind of neat. Maybe it's in our bloodline to be gardeners! * Posted by: pkock Zone 6 (My Page) on Tue, May 28, 02 at 2:44 So glad to find this thread - hope it lasts, because it's fun! Honestly, I am not sure what got me hooked. I think it's my tendency to love "scientific" stuff - I never pursued it professionally, but I'll make anything into a science experiment. I got through two pregnancies with that attitude. ;-) My grandma was the gardener in our family. She lived with us, and each year we had to have a veggie garden. My dad wasn't into yard work much, but was "forced" into the labor required, turning over the clay soil with a spade and protesting the entire time. Always basic stuff - tomatoes, peppers, pole beans, but they sure tasted good. We had strawberries for a couple of years, and there was a big apple tree in our yard that grew "cooking" apples. Grandma made lots of pies and applesauce. Then there was Girl Scouts - one year we had a hike with a knowledgeable person who pointed out all the fantastic wild plants along the trail. I absorbed it all like a sponge. This is rare, this is edible, this is a cure for poison ivy, etc. I still remember most of it, teach my daughter, and soon will teach her scout troop too. I was voted "Miss Outdoorswoman" in high school. Isn't that neat? Some things never change. :) --Pam * Posted by: Lucy2 Z7Atlanta (My Page) on Wed, May 29, 02 at 8:23 I love reading these. I remember going to visit my grandparents in Texas every summer. We lived in New Hampshire and would fly down and my grandparents would meet us at the airport. The first thing we would do when we got to Grandma's house was run to her garden. Every year she planted a watermelon JUST FOR US! Oh, how special that was. We would walk into the garden and she would "double check that it was ripe and time to pick it and she would let us watch as she "ever so gently" plucked the watermelon from the garden and we would sit on her front porch all afternoon eating the best watermelon we had ever tasted and spitting seeds as far as we could. Sadly, my Aunt burst my childhood memory bubble (when I was in my 40's but it still hurt!) by telling me that my Grandparents would go to the grocery store the night before we flew in, buy a watermelon and lay it in the garden "just for us", pretending they planted it and grew it all along...I guess I'm in denial because I still tell my children about those fond memories! * Posted by: becki3 z5 IN (My Page) on Tue, Jul 23, 02 at 20:34 Can I still step in here? This is such a wonderful thread, brought back some great memories. But now I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes and a big lump in my throat. One of my first garden memories is of my next-door neighbor when I was very small. She had a gigantic (to me) gooseberry bush that she would make pies for us from, if I would pick the berries. And she also had a thick grape vine that she would sit down with me in the middle of the yard and eat grapes from right off the vine. We always sat on the other side of it so my mom couldn't see us from the window. I don't think she would have minded, but my neighbor made it fun, thinking we were being secretive. She also had about a million plants in her house that she would show me all the time. Thinking back on it now, I realize they were mostly African violets. She was in her late 80's, early 90's, and I thought she was the best neighbor a girl could ever have. (still do) :) Then there was my grandpa. When he was a teen in the service, he had come home to visit his mom just before being shipped overseas. He took ONE little segment from her Christmas cactus, which had been a wedding present 25 years before that, and put it in his wallet. He then drove all the way across the country (took a few days), all the while sitting on this wallet. Just before being shipped out, he stuck this one little smashed, dried up piece of Christmas cactus and stuck it in a little pot of dirt from the ground outside his barracks. I'm not sure what happened to it (where it was, who took care of it) while he was in the war. But I do know that when he died in 1994, that Christmas cactus was not only alive, but very, very, VERY big. He had built a planter for it on wheels so he could move it outside in the summer and back inside for the winter. He also had a ramp leading up to his patio door, which he had to remove to get it through. This "planter" was 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. Filled all the way with soil and thick, long roots. And the plant filled every inch of the top of the soil and hung down to the floor all around. He had to give it a "haircut" every time he moved it in or out so he wouldn't run over it with the wheels. I now have a pretty good size pot of this same plant in my husband's office, where it sits in front of a huge window all year long and blooms from Oct to around May every year. I ask about or stop by to check on this plant about once a week. I'm always terrified I might lose this plant, I feel like somehow I would be losing my grandpa all over again. Or that he might be disappointed in me for letting his precious plant die after having survived 4 generations in our family. But my all-time favorite childhood memories (of any kind) come from my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. They had a big farm in Missouri with a couple horses, a coop full of chickens, and about 300 head of dairy and beef cows at any given time. Along with the usual couple of dogs and a barn full of cats. And I remember one time my Aunt sent me out with the horse to get a few apples from the big tree out in the east pasture to make a pie for dinner. She told me to get a sack out of the barn to carry them in. Well, being about 8 or 9 at the time, I had no idea how many apples it took to make a pie. So I took 2 big gunny sacks, and me and Ginger (the horse) set out to find that big tree. Ginger was so patient with me as I stood on her back on the blanket that I rode with (never used a saddle) to pick all the apples that I could reach. I tied these two gunny sacks across her back and filled them up full. (poor horse!) When I got back, I didn't think my Aunt and Uncle would ever stop laughing. Instead of a few apples for a pie, I had just picked enough apples for an entire week of non-stop canning, freezing, and baking everything we could think of that contained apples. Then there were the times that Aunt Julia and I would pack a picnic basket to take out to my Uncle Bill when he was working the fields. We would sit under a big tree and just watch him disking the field, or baling the hay until he noticed us in the distance. Then he would come get me and let me drive the big tractors for a while before we ate. But one of my most vivid and comforting memories is of me and Aunt Julia sitting on the porch swing snapping beans or shelling peas. I can't remember who picked those beans and peas, or what she did with them afterwards. But just sitting there snapping and shelling, not even having to speak, but feeling like the most loved person in the world. I just started to garden seriously for myself last year, and this year I had to have those green beans and peas. And I think of my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill every time I go out to the garden. I almost started crying when my daughter (5yo) asked me the first time if she could help me shell the peas. She had so much fun with them I didn't even mind the ones that kept flying across the kitchen to land under the cabinets or off in a corner with the dust bunnies. And I can just see my Aunt and Uncle smiling now (more like giggling probably). Right now I think I need to call them (they live in Arizona now) and tell them how much I love and miss them, and maybe thank you for teaching me about all the things I love the most. Then I think I will sit down and start crocheting an afghan for Aunt Julia (she taught me how to do that when I was 6). Luckily I learned to crochet a lot better than I learned how to milk a cow (sorry Uncle Bill)! Thanks for letting me take this stroll! Becki :) * Posted by: Mirri 5 (Finland) (My Page) on Fri, Jul 26, 02 at 3:06 My first attempt to garden vegetables was when I was 9. I loved peas, so I wanted to grow them. My father formed me a lot saying it would be too hard for me, turning the thick soil. Then I sow the peas and watered them for about 2 weeks. Then my first dog - who died of old age a few years back at 13- had a friend over. They were just puppies back then, running and playing. My daddy warned me, but I wanted to let them play on our rather tiny lot. They run over my pea-lot several times, breaking all those tender 15cm pea shoots. Oh, how I cried. Then I took little sticks and tied the shoots back up. Most of them recovered. Then the dogs, Roope and Olga, run the pea shoots down again after a week or so. And I gave up. I quit gardening for about 10 years. I only had a few cacti which I killed and bought new ones. But now I am a horticulturist. Working, ironically, in a greenhouse that produces pea shoots! I think that the wonder of growing, seeing the shoots come up from earth was a positive thing in the end. Even though I didn`t get to harvest the peas. This year I have a tiny pea-lot again, the first time after I was 9. I have harvested some, but my dog keeps steeling the pods before I find them. When I was 17 I found gardening again, in the form of houseplants. I was living in a tiny oneroom flat without balcony. The houseplant hobby lead me into studying horticulture. Now I have a son and 2 dogs. If Pyry wants to be a little gardener, I will build a fence around his lot. * Posted by: prairie_rose southalta (My Page) on Tue, Aug 20, 02 at 23:56 my earliest memories. being sat in the potato patch with a coffee can with some kerosene in the bottom and picking potato bugs and putting them in the can. i think that was the way my mom and grandma kept us out of their hair on wash day ( the old wringer washer, rinse tub, mangler days.) i remember the smell of the compost heap, and i never thought it was nasty. my grandpa and i spent lots of time there, spreading things out, turning it over occasionally. i think i must have got compost in my veins, replaced all the blood, cause i still don't find the compost heap all that nasty. (compost tea, well that is a different story. lol) i remember i hated bringing kids to our house in the fall cause you could smell the crocks of sauerkraut brewing. we lived on the edge of town, and i swear my mom was the only one who canned. but i couldn't wait for it to be ready and eating the stuff till i was sure i would burst. i remember we were the "poor kids" but we ate better than any of my friends, and were healthier than most of my friends. the garden was a way of life, and everyone was expected to pitch in. and when harvest happened, everyone was expected to come home to can. my mom would pick the weekend and as young adults, we all showed up. 5 women in a kitchen!!!!! lots of hard work, but lots of laughs, too. and when it was over we all got our share to take home. now, i am a single mom with two kids, and all those lessons are paying huge dividends. my two are the "poor kids" but they eat better than most of their friends and are healthier than most, too. what i save at the supermarket because of the garden pays the morgage and the extras for the kids. and this year, my daughter is taking an active part in the canning. i just wish my grandma, mom and sisters were here, too. * Posted by: lynne_s z5ny (My Page) on Mon, Sep 9, 02 at 22:23 I remember planting potatoes on my grandfather's farm in the early spring when i was about 4 years old. We weren't just planting a little garden patch...I swear this field must have been at least an acre. I remember the fun we had, laughing and running around in the dirt...getting dirty, but it was ok..we were doing something productive. I remember Grampa explaining the different types...we even planted purple potatoes from Russia. Later in our visit to his farm my brothers and sisters and I helped plant the seeds that would become carrots, corn and beans. I remember trudging through the brambles in search of the elusive blueberry bushes...after a morning of picking berries, we'd stop and have lunch...Grampa would take a fishing line and hook out of his pocket and catch small trout from a nearby stream and we'd roast them on a stick over a fire...just like a hot dog. He amazed me...the man could survive in the wilderness with nothing, and probably live better than most of us do today. lol The outdoors was his church; where he prayed, pondered and planned his life. My grandfather, retired by this time still loved gardening and sold his veggies every summer from his down-sized farm. We spent the entire spring and summer there. Everything we ate and drank came from that farm. I still remember how wonderful everything tasted...the taste of fresh food was foreign to me then. I went back to Grampa's farm many times until he passed...there, I worked hard, enjoyed the freedom of being in the outdoors and learned how important it was to treat our planet with respect, for it is what feeds us. It seems I forgot a lot of his wisdom until quite recently. Now that I'm a Mom of 5 boys, with many mouths to feed as well as many personalities and value systems to help develop, the things he taught me are returning. My husband and I have purchased a home out in the country trying to create an environment for our boys that my Grampa created for us...one of fresh air, sun, fun and respect for all things living...an I'm proud to say, we are well on our way! * Posted by: KCtomato1 z5/6 KC, Mo (My Page) on Sat, Sep 14, 02 at 0:36 My grandfathers both got me started. My first memory is of dark purple tulips and tulips that were taller than I. I recall what a joy it was grandpa let me pick one. Somewhere in the family, someone has a picture of it. I was 2-3. Both gardened but it was my paternal grandfather that let me try everything. He introduced me to raw veggies. I still prefer them over cooked. He would also let me in the berry patch - which is what really got me growing. He made a deal with me - if I picked 2 I could eat one. He'd go in and I would pick 'em clean of course taking the best for myself. We both walked away thinking we got the better deal. My maternal Grandfather taught me more on the "how's" rather than the "whats". He grew to sell and was not keen on kids picking things he could potentially sell. When I was small I would go out to the garden where he was working just to be with him and I'd watch. I would have worked but he wouldn?t let me. He thought I was nuts for wanting to work. He told me there were snakes in the berry patch in an "effort" to keep me out. Most the time he ran me off I was just looking for the snake. Him teaching me things came at a much older age. Im grateful for the time I did spend with them and the gift they passed on. Keith * Posted by: bizmhamama CA z10 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 15:09 This answers your interest in childhood memories in a roundabout way. My parents and I immigrated to the United States when I was four years old and I never really knew my expanded family. My mother, who grew up on a sugar plantation, cared absolutely nothing for getting her hands dirty. Our back yard was concrete! Her only gardening interest was roses. I became interested in indoor plants as a teenager and then became obsessed with succulents once I moved out of the house & had a patch of dirt of my own. I even wondered what it would take to go back to school for a landscaping degree, and daydreamed about owning a nursery. My maternal grandmother came to America only a few years ago. I was fairly shocked to learn that she loves gardening! She grows guava trees from seed. In her 80s, she still derives incredible enjoyment from simply watching living things grow. I realize now my passion for gardening would have been sparked much earlier in life if geography (& politics!) hadn't intervened.

Moccassin- I would love to see your swarovski stars tree! Since our wedding colors were blue and silver, I've always gotten ornaments in those colors. In the past few years, I've really fallen in love with crystal ornaments. I didn't even realize until I was putting up my tree and looking at the date written on each ornament, that the past 3 years have been crystal. This years is the Waterford snowflake, lasts years was a teardrop shaped crystal and a swarovski snowflake, the year before was a swarovski bird. All of the ornaments on the family tree in the living room are durable, nonbreakable ornaments. Hopefully, when my kids move out they will be like I was, and have a tree full of ornaments. Terri- beautiful tree but you do have to bring Rudy back! As we have all agreed on, its about the memories! I have so many ornaments and I love this time of year so much that I'm thinking I will snag a tall narrow tree after Christmas on clearance and put it in my dining room next year. I will keep my wedding tree in my room where it currently resides, my "elegant" tree in the living room and the brightly colored, all other ornaments, in the dining room. I already have a miniature tree for each of the girls that is 4 ft tall for them to have in their rooms but they are still young enough that they mess with ornaments so I haven't put them up in a few years. I can just see though, in 10 years I'm going to practically have a tree in every room!! As much as I admire my tree every year, I think I enjoy putting it up and taking it down the most. As I grab the seashell ornament and pack it away, I'm reminded of my trip to San Diego. When I grab my cute little snowman ornament, I'm instantly transported back to our weekend trip to San Antonio and the Macy's store I picked him up at. Every ornament is a little vessel of memories. I see them, touch them, and I'm right back at the moment in time and my life that I was when I got them. I think the fact that we only see/hold them once a year is part of what makes them so magical. That cheap, one dollar globe from the dollar store? We were flat broke, college kids but I still insisted on getting an ornament for the tree and that means just as much to me as the 75 dollar swarovski crystal does. It tells a story, specifically, our history. Where we once were and where we are now. That Pyrex I received as a wedding gift? I use it still, every single day but when I grab a loaf pan, I'm not flooded with memories of my wedding day, despite the fact that I received it on that day. I think only seeing and touching these special items for a short period of time each year makes them all the more special. This post was edited by Texas_Gem on Mon, Dec 15, 14 at 23:31

This is the last year for our 8' pre-lit tree. We got it probably 10 years ago at Lowe's. I loved it because it had 1,100 white lights that stay on, don't blink. It was a beautiful tree, but after all those years of being squished down into the box, it is looking worn and shedding needles like crazy. We had the top section of lights go out after the first year but it was still under warranty and they sent us a whole new top section. Until this year, we had no other light issues. When hubs set it up this year, three sections of the four had 2-3 branches that would not light. We used strands of 50, which is about what were out, for 2 of the 3 sections. The last section went out after I had put on the ornaments and it was only 2 branches, go figure. Since it was in the back of the tree, I didn't bother replacing the strand. I don't know why 2-3 branches would go out but anyway, its going out on the curb this weekend. Usually someone comes along and takes things like that so maybe they will fix it. We haven't been able to find another one with that many lights on it. Now the 8' ones have alot fewer lights, maybe LEDs but still not enough for me. We live in hot Florida, so real trees don't last until Christmas. Most places get shipments from just before Thanksgiving until the first weekend in Dec. After that its slim pickings. We haven't had but 2 days out of the 80's the entire month. Too hot for a real tree.

My parents still have all of our childhood ornaments and still use most of them. Our main tree was all homemade ornaments so no online pictures for the most part. I helped make some of them. There are a bunch of shell ornaments with the back and rim of the shell painted gold and various pictures shellacked into the inside. There are cross-stitch ornaments (about a half dozen ones I made later on when I was in college and gave to my mom). There are cloth ornaments that are like small shaped pillows--stars and balls and such. And many ornaments made from eggshells (I helped make several of these). Like this: There are also doilies that my grandmother crocheted and mom used starch to stiffen And I am sure some other things I can't remember at the moment. My brother oddly enough has said he really wants the ornaments (I say oddly because he did not help make any of them and never helped decorate the tree). That's fine with me. My parents also have a complete set of lovely ornaments they bought early in the marriage when dad was stationed in Germany. I have said that if it is okay with everyone I would like to have those some day as I always thought they were just beautiful.