It's all in the genes....

[zazen999]

So I visited my family today in Wales; my mum has sold her house towards the end of last year and is renting for a while...and she has a small garden out the back.

I got there today and she's dug some flower beds, put some slabs down for a patio, put up hanging baskets and already sown her runners and tomatoes - where are they I asked as there is nowhere to actually put them. She had bought one of those plastic toolsheds [3 ft high and 6 ft wide type things with a lifty lid and swingy open doors at the front]. It was sat there all made up with the lid open. She's sown all her seeds, balanced them on boxes around her tools and new mower - in the toolshed - and she closes the lid each night and opens it in the morning. Bearing in mind she has real trouble walking and is due a knee op in the next few months; but still managed to dig turf out and remove it, plant up shrubs, and put a load of pots out she's doing relatively well.

I just looked at her and thought 'I see where it all comes from now'.

[julesapple]

Sounds like you're jolly lucky to me!

[veggiechicken]

Good on your Mum, Zaz. There are loads of younger folk who would just let it all get overgrown and moan about it!

[Bigmallly]

Good on her Zaz, let's hope it is in the genes.

[Shortie]

Good on your Mum to keep going even though she has knee

[BarleySugar]

Once a gardener, always a gardener She sounds a lot like my Mum, who at 80 was still digging her back garden and growing way more veg than she could eat. Even when she wasn't quite 'with it', and was in the nursing home she'd tell me what she'd 'done' in her garden. Planting beans, digging potatoes, picking strawberries. Your mum sounds very inventive too, working out how best to cope with the space she has.

DD had a garlic clove sprout, so she potted it up and kept it on her student room windowsill. It isn't looking too well, but she tried her best with what she had.

Edit - we pulled it (Freddie ) up to investigate. A brand new garlic clove, not split, but she is so pleased she's taking it to her boyfriend tomorrow when she goes to stay.

[VirginVegGrower]

My mum, seventy this year, although she won't thank me for saying it has dodgy hip. Still gardens like a mad thing, her borders look immaculate already, despite leaving her herbaceous to overwinter, for the birds, etc.
No longer having an allotment she has lots of my produce. She still hasn't worn the Gold Leaf gardening gloves that I bought for her, professing to needing to feel the soil. Then again I hardly wear mine either. Says it all really

[Peas'n'Kews]

'Fraid mine are are crazy as a box of frogs and well past their sell by dates to boot, but I can thank my Dad for being from a long line of farmers (mixed arable and beast farms, aberdeenshire).

Genes rool!

[Snadger]

So it was your dad who was the serial killer.......................

[piskieinboots]

Same here - my father was a very keen allotmenteer, I have never know life without gardening.

[ladylottie]

Well I don't know where mine has come from - none of my mother's or father's families were gardeners. But I've always loved plants and growing things and had a smallholding with fruit, veg and chickens while the kids were small. Made all my own goats yoghurt, cheese and bread.
I must be a first generation gardener! Or a throwback to a long ago gardening relation

[binley100]

I know my love of gyo has come from a mixed bag ........my great grandmothers cousin founded our allotment site and was a seed merchant , my grandad had a plot on our site before the war ......my Mum had very green fingers ......my Dad doesn't do too badly in the gyo stakes either even though he was put off by having to help tend his dad's plot when younger

[horticultural_hobbit]

Neither Ma or Pops are particularly green fingered or GYO-y. Ma is mooli, methi and spinach focused but that's it. Paternal granny used to sow in the backgarden, I remember munching on radish pods as a kid. Maternal grandad used to be a backyard GYO-er. So perhaps it skipped a generation. It started with thirty chillies from wilkos on a bank holiday whilst having a tough time whilst training to be an educator.

[Sanjo]

I know our daughter has green fingers. Several years ago - a new house - lovely kitchen window sill, everything seemed to pop up overnight. She was full of enthusiasm until she realised she had to actually do something with it all, like pricking out!! She has a huge garden but finds it all a bit boring although she loves her chickens and ducks and will spend hours with them.
She'll grow veg (plug plants) just for the animals. The GYO gene obviously missed her.

Our son likes his shrubs but wouldn't dream of making a veg patch or even growing runners.
I have no other member of my family that grows and likes getting down and dirty.