| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Aug 04 2004 : 10:31:21 AM
I was probably a weird kid. I am pretty sure my parents thought so  but wondered if any of you had memories from childhood like mine. I remember at about 9 years old asking my mom what time of day the morning glories opened, because I would like to see that..and when she said..oh they open when the sun comes up...I slept outside that night so that I could be there to see it..and I did. She just rolled her eyes. And I was constantly planting things in her flower beds. Seeds that I came up with like popcorn, pinto beans from her cupboard and seeds from weeds and wild flowers that I found in the fields. gosh I think its amazing I didn't drive my mom nuts. My grandma nurtured my "farm girl" tendencies and although I love my mom, I sure had more in common with my grandma. I don't think she would have let me plant popcorn in HER flower beds either, but she gave me my own part of her garden and a barrel to plant mint in, stuff like that. I sure miss her.
Jenny in Utah
Bloom where you are planted! |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Jun 30 2007 : 10:24:01 PM
My Grandma was for sure my "someone". I remember her always going to the garden with a salt shaker in her apron pocket..so she could "graze" on cucumbers and fresh tomatoes while she worked. I have been known to do the same now..heehee
Jenny in Utah
Inside me there is a skinny woman crying to get out...but I can usually shut her up with cookies
http://www.auntjennysworld.blogspot.com/ visit my little online shop at www.auntjenny.etsy.com |
| Trace |
Posted - Jun 30 2007 : 2:16:51 PM
Isn't it funny how "someone" in our lives fostered our greenthumbs. My mom fostered mine. Mind you, at the time this all started we were living in a skyscraper, in the Bronx on the top floor(the 33rd floor) we were lucky because we had a terrance. For a city place, the terrence was a good size. I think, somewhere is my mothers past live, she was a grower of crops, lol. She always wanted a vegtable garden (we had houseplants galore)She came upon a book on container gardening and she and I want from there. We dragged home bags of potting soil (big bags)and big retangle containers. She and I made quite a site in the elevators. She loved and labored over every single thing she planted. And she watched me like a hawk to make sure I was tending things right.
So I always thought it funny when I annouced to my parents, I was going to a high school to grow things, lol.
The day my mom had to give up growing her own tomatoes and moved to a place where she could not smell fresh cut grass, I bought and mailed to her two candles I found, one was a tomato scent on , the other a fresh cut grass scent. She loved them!
Thanks mom for instilling a greenthumb into your cityborn daughter, lol
Trace
pics from my world.. http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/tra-dun/ |
| Alee |
Posted - Jun 26 2007 : 10:49:14 AM
LOL! If you can harness the digging energy of little kids- you would probably have the best turned earth in the county!
Alee
The amazing one handed typist! One hand for tying, one hand to hold Nora! |
| City Chick |
Posted - Jun 26 2007 : 05:19:02 AM
What memories!
I would go to my Grams house to help her get her garden ready. My brother & I were "expert" diggers. Spending hours just digging and playing in the dirt. Ahhh, the smell of fresh dirt! We would find Army men hidden in the dirt - having spent many years there, left behind from our Uncles. Then Gram would have us put in her garden. Squeezing cherry tomatoes for their seeds.
My Mom would let us dig up her garden as well, but we would spend days in the dirt. Digging graves, laying in them - making mounds for cars, making mud pies and just getting good and dirty!
I hope that I'm helping my girls make good memories by giving them each their own space to garden in. They too are "expert" diggers. I have the holes in the yard to prove it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
Dorothy Frances Gurney |
| Alee |
Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 8:19:23 PM
Isn't it funny how old contraptions, bottles, and gizmos are so very facinating? I loved looking at things like that as a kid too...actually I still do! LOL
Alee
The amazing one handed typist! One hand for tying, one hand to hold Nora! |
| kitchensqueen |
Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 09:03:01 AM
These are great memories. Not weird at all, just farmgirl beginnings! I have most of my farmgirl memories from my Great Grandmother's farm also. We used to wander through the back pasture and pick wildflowers, hunt mushrooms, build forts out of of fallen branches and stones and pretend we were pioneers. One of my favorite things was harvesting veggies in a basket. There was also a gigantic white hydrangea that grew in a semi-circle and was really tall and my sister and I used it as our play house. My Great Grandpa had a sawmill, so he put a big log round and 2 small ones for a table and chair set up there, and we would have tea parties with old dishes from the cellar (looking back, I realize they were all precious antiques!). And I loved to gather eggs and feed the chickens and milk the Jersey cow by hand. We used to poke around in the old smokehouse (turned into garden storage when I was a kid) and look at all the interesting pots and saucers and garden contraptions. They was a home made tree swing in the chicken yard also, and I LOVED to swing away the summer afternoons... I could go on and on, but I'll leave room for others' stories! :-)
http://apartmentfarm.wordpress.com
Now Open!: http://shadetreestudios.etsy.com |
| Marybeth |
Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 07:49:16 AM
I have no good gardening memories from childhood. It seems (in my mind) I had to always weed, and since I didn't like it or want to, I got a nickle for every sm. bucket I would fill. All I know is I never made any money!!!
www.strawberryhillsfarm.blogspot.com
www.day4plus.blogspot.com www.holyhouses-day4plus.blogspot.com
"Life may not be the party we hoped for...but while we are here we might as well dance!" |
| asnedecor |
Posted - Jun 25 2007 : 07:01:43 AM
My grandmother was always in charge of our vegetable garden. I was always amazed at how much she grew in it and how big everything got. Both grandma and mom were canners too - I remember spending summer days behind the house in the shade either popping pits out of cherries for canning or peeling and coring apples for applesauce. We had a berry farm so there was always the task of picking berries too - but no berry fights - my mom would have "boxed" our ears if we did that. Though we did like to throw dirt clods at each other. One time I hid behind some blueberry bushes in the field while my brother ran the tractor tilling in between rows. When he got close enough I "nailed" him with a dirt clod in the head and then took off running as fast as I could. He caught up to me in our kitchen and by that time I had pulled the kitchen sink hose out and was spraying him with water - man my mom was mad. But it was pretty funny.
Anne in Portland
"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them" Eyeore from Winnie the Pooh
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| Alee |
Posted - Jun 24 2007 : 9:27:14 PM
I remember that my mom always had a great flower garden. Every spring we would be out there planting the new plants and cleaning up the flower beds. We had a hedge of tall daisies that was the length of our driveway. I used to love to go pick big bunches of flowers for my mom.
At my Nannies house, she had a large back yard garden. We weren't allowed to dig up the plants, of course, but she did let us pretend to garden. Her watering would create that mud that cracks as it dries. So I would always try to dig up dirt plates :)
Then the first time I decided I wanted a garden, my mom let me pick from seeds she had on hand and she sent me out to dig up the dirt. I am suprised anything grew! I was so impatient and did a pretty fast job of digging! LOL That year the only crop we had from my garden was tons of Zuchinni!
Alee
The amazing one handed typist! One hand for tying, one hand to hold Nora! |
| bramble |
Posted - Oct 10 2004 : 4:17:09 PM
Aunt Jenny and all...what a great bunch of memories! Both of my grandfathers were farmers and gardeners so they are where I learned my love of being outside in the garden. Such a nice peaceful time and always full of something new to learn! My one grandfather used to grow peonies the size of dinner plates and twist them together so that two stems came down to tie under your chin like a hat.You felt like a princess! I do remember the hollyhock dolls-round bud for the head and the bell was the skirt. Daisy chains ! Many a day we festooned ourselves to the point of florific delerium! What about pinnocchio noses too! It's funny I thought just we girls liked this stuff but when I showed it to my son and his friends they had a great time trying it out too! The one difference (probably geographic...)
we did have plum trees but we ate them! Our wars were fought with pinecones the harder the better! I can attest this tradition was reenacted countless times this summer and will be all fall as long as the supply holds out! Bramble
with a happy heart |
| Eileen |
Posted - Oct 10 2004 : 3:05:23 PM
Do any of you remember making a dancing ballerina out of hollyhock blooms? I remember doing it but can't remember how exactly we did it. I also remember making the snap dragons talk. So funny when I showed this trick to the local hardware store manager. He is in his late twenties and well educated but had never seen that. He laughed and laughed.
As a child we had a weed that grew in the alley that was a little yellow honey suckle type flower. We used to bite the end off the bloom and suck out the honey. My mom called it butter an eggs plant.
Eileen
songbird |
| cecelia |
Posted - Aug 06 2004 : 2:29:39 PM
I was also a "city" girl, but always a tomboy. We had lots of relatives with farms so we either had a garden there or in the city. We had a wading pool we visited in the city, but also swan in a pond or creek near the farms. I used to road my grandparents' farm alone - I also had all boys/brothers for playmates until I was in 8th grade. In the city, summers, we had peashooter fights, an old barn to explore, water balloon fights (until I dropped one out of the attic window onto the sidewalk near a neighbor). Lots to do, lots of fun. Winters brought snow, and we made huge igloos in the yard, sledding, skating, etc. Didn't have a TV until 3rd grade, so we read or played games. Lots of good memories....
Cecelia
Cecelia
ce's farm |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Aug 04 2004 : 6:14:20 PM
ooh plum fights...I sat in a corner many times for a long time for doing that. Especially the time we did it too near the back of my grandma's very white house. When we got done it was polka dotted. I think that was the maddest I ever saw my grandma. When it wouldn't come off, we all (my 2 siblings and 4 cousins too) had to help paint.
My grandpa (we called him Pappy) had a small garden tractor that he parked where we played...or maybe we played where he parked it. Anyway, my older boy cousin wouldn't play, but the rest of us played farm all the time (I was the next oldest and "THE BOSS") I always organized my farm helpers and the tractor was for me and me alone. I had them do most of the "work" and I would tell them who's turn it was to feed the "cows" and chickens and all and who got to hoe the crops and who was allowed to go "to town" for feed. They knew if they wanted to play on my farm they had to do what I said. I guess I may have been a little bossy...but we sure had fun. My sister told me one time that she didn't mind being the one who had to clean "the barn" but she hated when I was mad at her and made her shovel manure.
Jenny in Utah
Bloom where you are planted! |
| Sherries Farm |
Posted - Aug 04 2004 : 1:09:54 PM
Jenny and Clare...lovely memories. I can say that all of my "farm girl" ways are not from either my Mom or Grandmother. It seems my Great-Grandmother was the cook, baker, and all those things you did in the early 1900's. I can only hope one or both of my two daughters will take on some of my ways of gardening, canning, cooking. I think the oldest one may have it, just needs to be unhidden. Thanks for sharing times gone by...my childhood consisted of drinking Kool-aid, swimming at the local park and plum fights with the neighbor kids in August (that was pretty gross, but alot of fun). I was raised as a city girl...so glad to be out in the country as an adult.
Sherrie
"When you care enough, you make it yourself."
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| Clare |
Posted - Aug 04 2004 : 10:46:48 AM
Ahh, Jenny, you have good childhood memories! On the farm we had a big garden, and as kids we were the weeders of the garden. I remember my brother and I were assigned the task of weeding the corn, and I apparently wasn't too happy about doing it. I was taking exaggerated swings with my hoe..... and ended up wacking my brother on the head!  Not a good thing. He eventually got even, (but I'm sure it wasn't intentional either) when we were using pitchforks to clean out stalls in the barn... got me in the back of the leg. We both still have those scars and will occasionally remember those occasions and chuckle about it. My mother had a cottage garden just outside the back door (which was the only door that worked!) and I remember being fascinated by the snap dragons and roses and other varieties of flowers that reseeded themselves. It was a very pleasant, informal garden. I have many farm memories of haying and threshing and milking cows and dead chickens with their heads cut off... I remember sitting under the lilac bushes with my dolls and imagining that this was my little house... as an only girl and no girl playmates in sight, I had to use my imagination alot. There's only so much you can do with brothers, so if you tire of playing in the dirt with trucks or playing catch, etc...(or you get run off!) then you get creative.... thanks for sharing and allowing me to share my memories too, Jenny! Good topic.
Gardener, Stitcher, Spiritual Explorer and Appreciator of all Things Natural |
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