It’s snowing today as I am preparing this diary. But I’m hopeful this will be the last of winter and snow as we begin to warm up towards Spring. But on days like today when there’s nothing that can be done outside besides shoveling snow — here’s the question:
Why do you garden?
my yard… circa 1956Is there a reason why you don’t mind the oftentimes back breaking, knee killing, oftentimes accident waiting activity?
I garden because of the woman sitting on the blanket above. She’s my maternal grandmother and holding my second oldest sister. I wasn’t even a light on the horizon at the time of the photograph.
My grandmother grew up in what was likely considered a middle-class family. She had servants, she was educated (to the equivalent of grade 6), and her family owned land which was farmed by others. But like all immigrants, when she arrived on these shores, the middle-class life she knew prior to her arranged marriage was thrown out onto the streets of the lower east side of NYC. As her children were born, she was lucky to do piece work at home — a factory sewing machine set up in the apartment so she could stay at home. My grandfather did various jobs, but never lost the snobbery of coming from a middle-class upbringing himself. As the youngest son, he expected the privileges lauded on him when he was spoiled by his mother(s). He and my grandmother were never divorced, but I think they only lived together for about 15 years.
When my parents bought their home in the suburbs in the early 1950s, both being city kids and the GI bill helped them buy that home, my father insisted that my grandmother live with them since she had helped them with the down payment on the home. What my grandmother knew and learned growing up in rural China, she brought to the grounds of a Long Island, NY, home. She planted and grew many things. She tamed a yard that had become overgrown and neglected for years by the previous owner of the home.
By the time I was born, she no longer lived with us, but spent summers with us. And summer meant planting and weeding and teaching the grandkids that were interested in all things green. I’m not really certain how I learned so much from my grandmother since she barely knew English and I knew only how to say Good Morning and numbers 1-10 in Chinese! But learn I did. I learned about good vs bad bugs. I learned how I should revere the Worm! (They were good for the garden.) I learned about which plants in the garden could be propagated and how this was done. And of course I learned to weed and weed and weed… and how to identify a weed from its tiny sprout form. From the starts of my early education in the garden as taught by my non-English speaking Grandmother, I would say most of what I did learn under her tutelage far outweighs any traditional schooling or degree.
So — after this long introduction — how were you inspired to grow a garden?