Home » Plants & Animals » California Gardening » Readers React to Childhood Garden Memories

Readers React to Childhood Garden Memories

© Keith Muraoka

Childhood gardens bring delightful memories. Two weeks ago, I wrote about this subject. My childhood memories of gardens were of my grandma’s garden, which came complete with rows of pink coral bells blooming along both sides of the long driveway, a huge, thorny lemon tree out back and the vacant lot next door full of California golden poppies in the spring. And now it seems that some readers have pleasant memories of their childhood gardens, too. Here are a few to share:

Patti Lawry of Hollister remembers when she was 7 or 8, her dad telling her brother to go ahead and plant the watermelon seed way in the back where nobody goes “because it’s not going to grow here anyway.”

She continues, “But my brother planted the watermelon seed anyway. I went about doing girl things like playing baseball, climbing trees and breaking my arm, and didn’t pay much attention to what my brother was doing. The next thing I remember is my dad saying how good my brother’s watermelon tasted. Maybe that explains why to this day, when I hear the phrase, ‘you can’t grow that here,’ that I run right out and plant it!”

Alice Sanchez of Gilroy remembers growing up in Fresno, where her mother filled practically every inch of the garden with either flowers or vegetables.

“She didn’t waste garden space on a lawn,” Alice says. “I remember our garden was very crowded with flowers and vegetables. Each of us kids had our own rose bush to take care of. I remember mine was one with yellow flowers.”

Jennifer Coile of Hollister grew up in Bethesda, Maryland near Washington, D.C. She remembers the ranch-style, 1949 tract house with a 100-year-old tree in the backyard. “Yikes, the leaf raking and acorn mess in the fall,” she writes. “My English mother loves gardening, but we didn’t have much money. I remember in the early 1960s, she bought some azalea plants: three for $1. They were tiny, just six to eight inches high. But she diligently planted dozens and dozens. Over the years, I think they totaled 300. So then, every spring our yard was ablaze with the colors of azaleas!”

Ruth Mathiason of Gilroy recalls her mother’s garden during the Great Depression. “If it hadn’t been for mom’s garden, we would not have survived,” she says. “It covered half of our yard and the adjacent city lot. Our chickens furnished the fertilizer, and we grew potatoes, squash, cucumbers, turnips, carrots, kohlrabi, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, onions, radishes, lettuce, corn, rhubarb, peas, beans – everything flourished in our fertile Minnesota soil.”

The copyright of the article Readers React to Childhood Garden Memories in California Gardening is owned by Keith Muraoka. Permission to republish Readers React to Childhood Garden Memories in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.