The growing season is in full swing and gardeners everywhere are busy.
My front flowerbed, planted a mere six weeks ago, is in full bloom. A riot of colour, my petunias, pansies and snapdragons have fared well with the hot and relatively wet weather.
Even the two hail episodes haven’t seemed to put a damper on my annuals’ sunny good looks.
My gardening chores include removing the dead blossoms off the flowers in my beds and baskets twice a week. Along with the odd weed-pulling adventure, I also water, fertilize and mow the lawn. It couldn’t really be easier to maintain my postage-stamp-sized yard.
Summer gardening hasn’t always been this easy, something I was reminded of last week when I visited both my 80-year-old grandma’s and mother-in-law’s gardens.
Grandma’s garden, which would likely feed a family of four throughout the winter, overflows with carrots, peas, beets and lettuce. Flowers being one of grandma’s greatest joys, it also boasts a large number of perennials, shrubs and roses. It is remarkably weed free thanks to the hard work of grandma.
By comparison, my mother-in-law’s garden is at least three times the size and overflows with a variety of vegetables including the regular potatoes, carrots, peas and beans, as well as the more difficult to grow corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes, asparagus and peppers.
Perfectly cultivated and already reaching maturity, the garden is a lush oasis surrounded by a maturing orchard filled with prairie fruits such as saskatoons, elderberries and chokecherries. My mother-in-law is famous for her strawberries and grows a plethora of raspberries, currants, gooseberries and more. It seems any plant that has even the remotest change of growing in her yard, which is located near Rocky Mountain House in the middle of a zone 2 growing area, flourishes.
My mother-in-law is a green thumb, but even her bountiful garden produce doesn’t come without a lot of hard work.
Having grown up on a farm, I understand the value of having a garden. I also know, first hand, the many hours put into growing food.
I remember planting and hilling the half-acre of potatoes my dad insisted we plant. It took my older brother and I a full eight hours to get through that job. Afterwards, I could barely lift my arms.
Harvesting was no better. One fall, we left the potatoes too long and my little brother and I, eight and 12 respectively, had to dig up the crop despite the light dusting of snow on the ground. I remember barely being able to uncurl my fingers, they were so cold.
Picking the peas was no better.
My brothers and I spent hours gently moving the vines and searching for the elusive green pods. After hours of picking, shelling and blanching the peas, my mom would end up with about 12 cups of produce she froze for the winter months. I remember the wheelbarrow loads of shelled pods that I hauled out to the pigpen, all the while grumbling and musing about what a waste of time it was to grow peas.
Since then, I have grown to appreciate the knowledge I gained during my formative years. I have also learned to appreciate the feel of dirt running through my fingers and the satisfaction of storing food, grown and processed by my own hands, for winter.
I haven’t had a vegetable garden since moving to Airdrie 11 years ago and as I get older, I am surprised to find that I miss it.
What was once the bane of my summer months is now a fond memory. Although I am blessed to receive produce care packages from my family, I no longer have the opportunity to watch the process of growing my own fruits and vegetables unfold.
This farm girl has to content herself with visiting gardens of loved ones, attending farmers markets and picking the odd weed out of a public flowerbed.
