Honestly, this is NOT my first garden. I’ve been in love with ‘all things dirt’ since I can remember.
My dad and I would go ‘catch worms’ after dark by watering the ground outside the back door and wait for giant night crawlers to wiggle their way to the surface. We’d stealthily bend down, as still as possible, and yank those suckers out of their hole before they had a chance to escape! It was quite a challenge, but it was so much fun. Those were some good memories and he inadvertently taught me to NEVER give up.
Those three words have become the driving force behind all I do.
I’ve always had a connection to the dirt under my feet. When we moved into that house, I was twelve. It was the second and only other house they ever owned and the yard was so overgrown with weeds and fruit trees. Those trees were laden with peaches and there was a cherry tree too! Rotten peaches everywhere, but I managed to find one and the juice from that peach just ran down my chin. Why they ever cut down all those amazing trees is beyond me. But they did and I still think about how sad it made me.
But the ‘seed’ had been planted. Grow things. Take what you have and do something with it. I remember making myself terrariums and being fascinated with cacti. Hmm. Interesting to remember that after all these years. Cacti was a strange thing to have up north!
After I married Jef, we lived in Lexington, KY, for a season and I planted potatoes (something I’d never done) in our first ‘ renter’ home. We lived there a couple of years and then moved into a larger rental where I planted what turned out to be just gourds! But I planted, watered and it grew.
We moved to Alden, NY back in 1992, and lived on 102 ‘Goody Acres’ as the owner called it, for seven years. It was an amazing time of my life. The garden we had there could have been a real farm. We had so many tomatoes, we would throw them at the trees. It was there that I learned about the term, ‘sandy loam’. Wish I had it here.
It was on that farm that I ‘made’ my kids learn how to use garden tools. It only paid off with two of the five. The twins were born there, but we moved when they were under three. But I planted a seed.
My goal with my ‘urban farm’ is to take the plot of land we own and make the most of it. Along the way, I’m hoping my grandchildren catch a vision of what growing their own food looks like and fall in love with the dirt under their feet.
