Roots

The other day when we were down at the allotment there was a family there-- dad and 4 young children  all helping dad to harvest his spuds.  They were very noisy, but full of enthusiasm and keen to help.  The children came over to talk to us and I gave them some of our broad beans. Their dad said he might give them some space to grow their own  stuff next year.  That got me thinking about encouraging children to grow things and  I wondered if  gardening knowledge and enthusiasm is passed on through families.

I've often thought about my own passion for gardening and where it came from.  Well I think that one of my grandfathers was a  gardener. My two older brothers developed a very keen interest in gardening when they bought their own homes and so did I. I think I caught the bug off them.

I remember when we were young we didn't have a garden, just a back yard.  My mum had a hardware and ironmongers shop (my dad died when I was a baby and she carried on running the business) and she sold gardening stuff and seeds in the shop. One year we thought we would sow some flower seeds in a couple of raised beds in the yard. To this day, virginia stock, candytuft, cornflower, larkspur, calendula, nasturtium, all remind me of my childhood.

From the time my twin daughters were toddling around the garden, I tried to get them interested in gardening.  We had a lovely good sized garden and they spent a lot of time out there.  They had to really because that's where I spent a lot of my time.  We sowed flower seeds of annuals together, they helped me harvest fruit and vegetables and they grew things themselves.  I often wonder if they remember the glut of runner beans we once had.  There were so many we couldn't pick them fast enough and lots of them were stringy because we had left them too long before picking.  I've never been able to eat runner beans since!

As the girls got older they were more reluctant gardeners. The first signs of revival I think was when one daughter was at university and sharing a house.  She took a pot of mint back with her for the garden area, which survived all sorts of trauma living in one of the worst areas of Leeds.  The mint is now back home where it started off its life and is still going strong.  The said daughter now has her own home,  garden and allotment and  I was so proud and  quite moved  when I saw the tiny garden in the first house that she and her  husband bought,  which she had planned and designed herself and they built together.

My other daughter was the one who I really had no hope for. She was the clumsy one who was always standing on the delicate seedlings, trampling over plants, just being generally clumsy and not much of a gardener.  That all changed when she had her first house. It just had a back yard, but she filled it with pots of plants raided from my garden. She has since moved to a larger house with a  good sized garden, has some wonderful flower borders, shares an allotment with me and can tell me a thing or two about how to grow tomatoes and courgettes.

Now my daughters have their own children and are encouraging them to take an interest in gardening. I also like to help my  grandchildren to grow  things in the garden.  I suppose it's all about sowing seeds early, which may take some time to establish roots, but which will become strong.  I'm not talking here about the normal types of seeds but the seeds of knowledge, love, enthusiasm.
 

Who taught you how to garden?  Feel free to leave a comment.