Being a family historian I am amazed by the number of my antecedants who have 'Gardner-Domestic' as their occupation on the census forms, way back to when those started in 1841. It seems the soil is in my blood!
Mother wasn't a gardner at all, but her parents were and from them I learned a lot. My beloved grandpa grew all the families vegetables and soft fruit, so that in war time, and post war, Britain when others were rationed hard we were never hungry. (He also was a pig farmer but that's another story!) I followed him everywhere from the time I could toddle and learned not to pick the strawberry flowers to give to grandma!. An easy mistake for a 2 year old to make.
Grandma loved flowers and had a very pretty flower garden which she tended daily and there were nearly always fresh flowers in the house. There were also wonderful pies and pastries and pots and jars filled with the produce from grandad's allotment. She was a cook before she married so that skill was passed on along with the gardening.
My father grew fruit trees, He grew up in New Zealand on a Peach Farm and learned to manage trees and their produce there for maximum production. We had Apples, Pears and Plums of multiple varieties from our English garden all year round. He enjoyed grafting, and not just fruit, so that was another skill tucked away. Back in the early 1950s people were always amazed to see purple and white lilac growing on the same tree. I used to see folk in the village trying to take seed and occasionally cuttings to grow one just like it which of course never worked!
Then I married a gardener too - also at least second generation. Now he does the flowers and I do the veg (in theory) though the demarkation line is very fuzzy. However only one of our three children gardens so it isn't totally hereditory!!
