How Does Your Garden Grow

Who plants a seed believes in god

My grandma Bauer would roll over in her grave, along with my grandma Frey, my mom's sister, my aunts on my dad’s side......heck, and even my own mom and sisters if they were in one, yet.

What the hell happened with the gardening gene and me? And who can find the time anymore? I’ll tell ya this, though. You do what you want to do! Why do I feel so guilty about gardening. I have 3 creative and talented kids who took a lot of damn time to raise. But then so do all the above mentioned. I have a job, so do most of the above mentioned.

The only reason the generation before my sisters and me didn’t have careers was because it took them the whole livelong day just to do a load of laundry. But they still found time to garden.

Oh, and by the way, when did the term “garden” change from mouthwatering green beans and red ripe tomatoes, to planting a geranium and a few measly herbs?

Today’s generation doesn’t know what a garden is. A garden is sweet, fresh, tiny strawberries hidden under a remnant of frost fighting straw in early June. A garden is dark green lettuce leaves that make a head of iceberg from the store taste like cardboard. A garden is tiny green peas all lined up in the pod just waiting for you to run your thumb at the base and pop them in your mouth with not a boiling pot in sight. A garden is tomatoes that make you want to eat them like an apple. A garden is radishes and green onions so plentiful you could make a salad from them alone. A garden is a mile long green bean row, planted right next to the field beans that would take a teen-ager a week and 1/2 to pick. A garden is all that and so much more..... dirt under your fingernails, soil smells, carrots, new potatoes, and sweet corn in all its alternate white and yellow glory.

So there, I have appeased my guilt somewhat.

Tomorrow I think I’ll go to the farmer’s market and I might even consider a bouquet of gladiolas.