Grow Your Own Magazine

I've read a lot of gardening books lately and in almost all of them the author refers to someone who kindled their love of gardening at an early age, most often a grandparent.

I too have fond memories of my Grandad in his vegetable garden. I grew up in an extended family (mum, grandparents, uncle) on a dairy farm and we had quite a big area dedicated to crops to feed us through the year. My most vivid memories are of harvesting potatoes, the smell of piles of apples in the cellar and Grandad's efficient but brutal pest control method in relation to leatherjackets!

My Grandad is still going strong at the age of 91 and I know he's delighted that the family tradition of horticulture is continueing

I'd love to hear other people's stories.

Claire

Charlie Marriott, father of a girl I was once engaged to, brilliant gardener and lovely all round bloke.

None of my family gardened at all - hang over thing for my Dad from captivity in the far east during the War so I had to learn as I went along.

Recently, Geoff Hamilton, Christopher Lloyd, Beth Chatto and Graham Stuart Thomas and among the older gardeners, Margery Fish.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

I must admit it was my Grandad. He had a great allotment with veg, chickens, a pig and a goat. Not to mention the rats, cats, greyhound. He was a real hard worker but always had time for me. I just wish I was half as patient.

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Digger-07

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right" Henry Ford.

My father was an accomplished gardener, but wasn't too keen on me getting involved so................

My uncle had a smallholding and gave me free reign to grow whatever I wanted to in exchange for me building his chicken runs for him!

At about 10 years old I was probably cultivating an average allotment sized area, and my quest for World domination has now stretched to two allotments of my own!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

I have fond childhood memories of my mum making me weed onion beds (and I wonder why I haven't tried to grow them yet). I also remember eating brocolli straight from the plant and searching for ages to find sprouts!!!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

My Mum for flowers and Dad (when we were children) for the vegetables.

My parents last house in a small village in Wales had the most beautiful garden which they created from absolutely nothing. Small but just perfect with a little bit of formality (roses and trees) and the rest blousy cottage garden beds. I always admired what they achieved and even when they were both very ill with cancer they still found much happiness in the garden. So when I'm out weeding or digging I always picture them in my mind somewhere in the garden giving me a hand.

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Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

my dear, departed grandad. he always used to come and stay over easter bank holiday weekend. the whole garden would be planted over the course of the four days, it didn't matter if it was an early or late easter, that was the way his grandad did it so that was that.

after i left home, i didn't bother much with gardening until i met my current partner, being originally from eastern europe her family grew everything and she has re-ingnited the spark

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Kernow rag nevra http://www.cornishnotenglish.com/

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits
Albert Einstein

Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when your'e tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand
Bruce Lee

My Grandad! Nan and Grandad lived just five minutes away from us and he had the patience of a saint. He used to let me trail around after him from about the age of 4, had a lovely big back garden where he used to grow veg, fruit and flowers and an allotment too. He used to let me help and when I was big enough he let me have a bit of the lotment for my very own - gave me seed and helped in a nice way. My stuff always grew (I think, looking back, that he did a lot of "behind the scenes" work for me, but it worked).

Where in Wales Jennie?

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

My Dad grew veg when we were kids. My fond memory is of being starving (again) about 8.30 in the evening - after me tea had worn off - and being allowed to lift a root of new potatoes and a few carrots to boil and eat with butter for supper. This would be at the age when I was always hungry - early teens. He grew toms outdoors - anyone remember sigmabush? and french beans which I wouldn't eat - oh and how I love them now! He loved his rhubarb and blackcurrants even when age and ill health led to the rest of his garden being lawn. He always made jam and marmalade too - must be where I get it from!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

Both my grandmother's loved their gardens. One had a small city garden, but it was immaculate with flowers, neatly kept lawn and a pond. She even grew geraniums in pots in the yard where the outside loo and bathhouse was.

My other grandmother had a huge house that she bought and opened as a cottage hospital (before NHS). Her garden was her refuge from the work of running the hospital. It included a very long Victorian greenhouse.

I was brought up in a house with a 3.5 acre garden. We had a full-time gardener but he would only deal with the fruit and veg. Us children had to do the rest on our weekends (we boarded at school).

I married a farmer and had a cottage garden that was all my own. Apart from clearing it when we first moved in my ex was never interested in gardening. He said he had over 400 acres to "garden" and he didn't need any more.

I now have a garden (very overgrown) and a lotty (ditto). I can't wait til the weather allows me to get on them again and get them into shape.

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"I prefer rogues to imbeciles as they sometimes take a rest" (Alexander Dumas)

I think it must be in my blood as most of the members in my family tree going back a couple of hundred years have been Agricultural Labourers!

I loved helping my father in our garden when I was tiny and the smell of bonfires......hmmmmmm

My grandad started me off and then my dad took over - neither could be "a*sed" with flowers, so veg it was

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

My dad was a keen gardener - more by virtue of his tight fistedness than a love of the soil to begin with, so from an early age my weekends were spent at the allotment. At the age of 7 he let me have a little patch of garden, and I sowed a packet of Cosmos, to this day one of my favourite annual flowers.
On leaving home, I spent several years in Central London, and lost touch with garden. Finally, a new partner and a move to the suburbs rekindled my interest, and I've had an allotment since 2001.
A recent enforced house move has meant that we now live too far from the old allotment, and we've taken another near our new house. We've cut down the brambles, we're in the process of removing the roots and the couch, and the Christmas break will be spent putting together raised beds.

Absolutely no one in my family gardened we did have a garden once or twice when i was younger but i think it was probably grass....(lawn)
so no idea where its come from......
been interested in self sufficiency since the 1960s tho ....but last year was first time i could really get into it....

Firstly my dear departed Grandfather, who died in August this year, he had a veg and fruit plot at the bottom of their garden and as children we spent a lot of time with our grandparents as they only lived a mile away.

He used to grow gooseberries, rhubarb and peas, I'm sure he grew much more but these are what I remember most.

He was so chuffed when earlier this year, on what was to be his last visit to us in Devon, I showed him my little beds of veg, and that I was growing peas because that's what I remember of him! He had a tear in his eye (as I have now) as he told me he had only planted them for me, as he had so much pleasure watching us girls pick the pods and eat the peas straight from them!

Hence my first foray into gardening this year saw me grow rhubarb, goosgogs and peas amongst other things, I think he would be smiling at my ineptitude but proud of the start I'd made with my daughter too.

My mum is a keen gardener too but more into flowers etc. So we are learning to veg grow together, I do the work, she hands me the advice!!!

LJ

My dad.

When we were very small, back in the 1970's, Ireland was pretty depressing and Dad had a large and growing family to feed on small wages (and very high interest payments on the mortgage). So the back garden was turned into a veg garden with a small bit of lawn for playing on (we had a lawn and flowers in the front, and a huge green to the front as well). He used a blue plastic barrel as a strawberry planter (made loads of holes with his drill to form discs to remove for the plants). We had an apple tree in that house, blackcurrants and a lot of veg. I think he even had an asparagous bed.

When we moved across the road, he put up a polytunnel and dug out veg space again (bigger house and larger garden - bigger family to feed). We have 4 apple trees in this house (some eating, some cooking), blackcurrant bushes (which are no longer minded so non productive), the raspberry canes are now gone but were there for years. The tunnel had loads of tomatoes, courgettes and cucmbers every year. He had a vine in there too which produced a few grapes on good years.

Outdoors, he'd have a large herb area and lots of lettuce and french beans. Myself and 2 sisters each had our own patch, to grow what we wanted (never a lot but I liked keeping it dug). Some years he'd grow sweetcorn. He gave up on peas after I'd eaten them all about 4 years in a row and none made it to the kitchen!! No more strawbs though. And I do remember potatoes and carrots, and occasional years of winter cabbage, but they were when I was very small. OOOh and rhubarb - always had rhubarb.

As we all got older and he got busier at work, the garden has reverted to lawn and shrubs. The trees are still there and productive, and mum has a small herb bed, but that's about it. But he is talking about putting in a new tunnel (old one died about 14 years ago).


When we bought our first house, we didn't ever really settle into it but we did plant a fruiting cherry tree in the garden (which was yum!). But never did anything else (too busy on other things at the time).

But when we bought our current house, I started putting tubs of peas in the patio from the first summer, and a hanging basket of cherry toms (garden very small for true veg growing). This year, the first year we actually had the lottie, DH actually went off and bought french bean plants for the garden and his mum gave me a few lettuce seedlings which I stuck in the flowerbed as well. And we had a load of tomato plants from our compost - so it was probably our most productive year ever by a long shot before you even mention the lottie (not great amounts of produce, but more than we expected this year).

Ooops, meant to add that DH used to have a veg patch in his garden too, and he used to tend it for years, so while he wasn't keen on growing anything in the old house, he is delighted that I had the initiative to get the lottie and has enjoyed it just as much as me.

Govilon, just outside Abergavenney. Beautiful area. Are you anywhere near?

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Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

ditto 'my dad'

My first memories are of going to lottie with him, he had two to tend! I always loved being put on pea picking duty, although Dad got fed up with a sack of empty pods ::innocent face::

I was going to lottie with him in the late 50's to mid 60's, we had a cracking make-shift 'barbie', he put together some bricks topped off with an old grill rack - he would take bacon and eggs up for our breakfast.....ah such sweet memories

I am 103 miles closer to Ireland! Slap bang between the LNG sites and the 2 Irish crossing routes

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Simon Mayo

Well, ok, not Simon Mayo exactly, but the programme "The Big Dig". I watched it last year and thought I quite like the look of that - surely it can't be that hard!? I was right - it's bloody harder!

Parents and Grandparents aren't/weren't exacly keen gardeners - we're urbanytes. That said, I do remember my step-Granddad (Grampy) doing a bit of gardening when he and my Nan ran an old people's home amny moons ago.

Lady HW's grandfather apparently was a prolific gardener and had 2-3 greenhouses and grew loads. I'd of loved to have met him, I reckon we'd of got on famously! Lady HW worked picking tomatoes as a young'un, I think she'd had her fill of growing fresh produce as a result! (mind you, she does like the picking part still...)

Part of the reason for me wanting to do the whole grow your own thing was so that I can pass on to my children (as and when we have them) what wasn't passed on to me.

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A simple dude trying to grow veg.

http://haywayne.blogspot.com/ - Updated 30th November

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