My Gardening History Pt. 1 of 4 (Reposting from other blog)

Speaking of gardening, :).....I thought I'd repost some of my older posts from my other blog. Here's part 1 of my gardening history...how I came to love 'dirt underneath my fingernails'.

I think, I was almost born with dirt under my fingernails. I realize that now. For a period of several recent years, without dirt to be in and garden, I felt something missing. Now that I'm gardening again, I know the feeling that I was lacking........These memories of my recently dearly departed Dad are sweet. It all began as a child in a house where I lived in another state. Back then our focus was on survival. We grew what we ate, (prettynear') and we ate what we grew!! We had two BIG plots of garden for a veggie garden. Each spring my parents would have our landlord or someone else 'disc' the gardens. They'd bring in their tractor and turn over the soil. It created huge playing mounds, if the dirt was the right texture. Then soon Dad would bring out his tiller and start the several day job of tilling the ground. Then he'd rake it and then we'd start to plant. Little bit at a time, veggies that would take the cold first....then eventually the warmer weather ones. He'd either hoe rows or dig holes and we'd plant, and plant and plant...lol, the seeds or sets, or transplants.
We had: onions, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, red peppers, yellow peppers, potatos, tomatoes, peas, green beans, corn, radishes, carrots, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, sunflowers, cabbage, celery, wax beans, and probably a couple of others I have forgotten.

oh my!!

We'd also receive seeds from our local elementary school to plant and then bring the harvest in the fall for some sort of harvest festival. Fun. One year I brought in a HUGE pumpkin that ended up being a chair in the reading group circle area until it outlasted its prime. Then the school cooks, took the pumpkin and returned with roasted pumpkin seeds.

Those were the days...planting, picking, harvesting, shelling, snapping, watering (by hauling water in huge pots in our little red wagon), hoeing, weeding.

What sweet but sad memories. But the gardening love instilled by my Dad lingers. :)