My maternal grandmother always had a large garden when I was a child. I honestly do not know if she 'loved' gardening or simply saw it as a source of food and revenue in a tiny rural town in the mountains in southern Idaho. My grandmother is with the shovel, my mom helping, and me in the red striped shirt, actually working.
To the right of this pic to the road, she had what seemed like a vast flower garden that I loved to wander through, inhaling every luscious scent and delicately touching each gossamer petal. To the right of the house she had a vegetable garden rimmed with currants and berries that must have been at least a half acre or more. Her iris rimmed the huge lawn she had in front of the house. She shared buying iris with her sister because neither of them could afford the price in the 40's, probably 25-50 cents a rhizome. Behind the house she had a raspberry patch. I still remember watching her pick berries, me in the shade of a tree munching delightedly on the boxed berries and her attired in a faded house dress, her worn-down heels dusty, her thick tan cotton stocking piled at her ankles, and her grey head covered in a dilapidated straw hat while she worked the rows, diligently testing every berry for ripeness, looking up now and then to check on her grandchildren. She never said a word to me or my berry hungry siblings, but later I learned she sold those berries along with other produce to provide revenue for her and my grandfather. My mother always gardened wherever we lived, and apparently, I was less than willing to help unless it was with the watermelons I grew in Sacramento, Ca in the 60's. When she saw my first garden, she looked at me and said, "I never would have guessed you would know how to do this." I guess she did not consider either her example or her instilling the love of a library with books on gardening in me.
