I have so enjoyed reading all the stories of how everyone got started gardening!

My experience with gardening is pretty similar to Deryll's. I hated gardening as a child because of all the work. Breaking beans, snapping peas, digging potatoes and onions, shucking corn, washing jars, packing jars... YUK! Mom's flowers consisted of a few irises, roses, and hydrangeas.

But when I look back on pictures of my family and my cousins all getting together to shuck corn, we look like we were happy and having fun working together.

We even had a cow that dad milked and chickens and hogs to butcher. We were so self sufficient, that when mom went to the grocery and dad would ask her how much she spent, he would wonder why it was so much. He didn't realize that there was still flour, sugar, laundry soap and other things that just had to be bought. I can still picture that conversation

But I digress. Fast forward 40 years: Today, although I do not have a vegetable garden, I started flower gardening seriously about 12 years ago. My passion is daylilies, with something like 250 cultivars, but I also have a lot of other flowers.

I love to dig in the dirt and I love pulling weeds.

I love gardening and I love talking about gardening! That is why I love this site so much

Vickie - I totally agree with loving this site! Your last three sentences are me exactly

Vickie and Ginny, I agree and feel this is the friendliest gardening site available. I check it first thing in the morning, last thing before bedtime and several times in between. I usually scan 5 or 6 forums and when I have more time, I have started to read some of the blogs. Everyone is so helpful and knowlegable and although I have been gardening for at least 75 years, there is always something new to learn from other members' experiences.
Some of the members names are becoming familiar and see them on various forums.. Until the onset of my golden years most of my gardening was concentrated in growing perennials with several kinds of annuals thrown in for good measure. Now that I'm not nearly as spry as I used to be, my gardening routine follows the path of least resistance - that is very little bending down or stooping over and especially not getting down on my hands and knees - my favorite way of gardening in my youth.

I'm so glad you started this thread Don. I thoroughly enjoy reading everyone's stories!

I remember picking bush beans with Grampa. I had a knack for that with sharp fingernails. Grampa used a knife. Gramma used a scissors.

They had a raspberry patch too. I always outpicked them 2-1. Kids have nimble fingers. I doubt I could do that today as well.

I was also praised for de-silking the corn. Peeled down the husks, snapped the bottom off, and then twisted the corn in my hands in a downward motion. That really got them off. Gramma picked the silks off one at a time until she watched me. Probably the first time an adult ever learned anything from ME!. LOL!

My beans are my pride and joy, and I will often can well over 100 quarts a year. When I pick my beans, you can barely tell it by looking at
the rows when I am done. There have been times when other people have come to help, and the plants look like they were pulled up and
stuck back in the ground when they finished. Being gentle with the plants they can keep producing until the end of the season, but every
time I have "help" they just die soon afterwards. I never did have the heart to tell those people why I just prefer to pick my own.
I also remember being a kid and my Mom praising me for having small hands to wash jars. I was foolish enough to think that when I
got older I wouldn't have to do that anymore!

Cute story, Deryll

That's a lot of green beans Deryll

So Deryll, you are just full of beans

I know what you mean, Deryll. No plant like rough treatment. I keep my fingernails functional and that really helps with picking beans. I simply push a thumbnail intothe very top of the bean top and they hardly know I have been there.

Injuring a plant while harvesting from it is NEVER a good thing.

I had a gardening Uncle who could look at the sky and tell you the weather for at least the day. At three, My son wanted to grow a tree so he would know if it was going to rain like Uncle Mark.

A best friend loved to grow everything, inside and out. She wanted a garden friend. I knew nothing, and was not really interested. She bought me plants, and flowers, and mentored me and made me love it almost as she did. Her thumb is still greener. I think she planned it that way. That was 40 years ago.

Laurie, I liked your story about your gardening friend - lucky you! Unfortunately none of my friends are gardening enthusiasts but I believe I have already made several friends on the NGA website. It appears that no two gardeners have exactly the same interests, although usually sharing some, but that is what makes reading the various posts so interesting for me. I find myself roving the different forums that hold special interest for me: annuals, cacti/succulents, gesneriads, houseplants, tropicals, sempervivums/sedums, container gardening, seeds, plant exchanges - to just mention a few. It is indeed heart-warming to find fellow gardeners willing to share their bounty with others.

Best gardening site I've ever found Don. Great people on here both fun and helpful and very caring And like I've said before they don't roll their eyes at me when I talk gardening

Wow, what a great thread!

I grew up indoors, and no one was interested in gardening. The only indoor plant I remember was a poor ivy, hanging in the kitchen, with webs covering the leaves. It hung there for what seemed like an eternity because I think my mom was secretly hoping she could save it but had no idea how. I wanted to be indoors- no wind messing up my hair, makeup perfect all day, and never getting dirty.

Fast forward many years- I married a man who loved gardening and who had grown up on a farm. At first, he did all of the gardening and I would check now and then out the window to see what he was doing. Then the second spring, he said, "Hey- can you help with the garden?". He had made beautiful gardens that circled the house and I knew it would be a big job. I reluctantly went outside, and had no clue how to prune or do anything. But my first chore was helping him spread 33 yards of mulch that spring. I grumbled at first, and maybe part way through....but when it was done, I couldn't believe how beautiful it looked! So I started reading up on how-to's and began asking questions of his dad too. Then whammo- I was hooked and dove in head first to learn as much as I could, quickly. I began seeking out certain roses, and had 20 hanging or standing baskets of flowers that year on our deck. Everyone did roll their eyes, because all I could talk about was my new obsession, and I would seek out certain plants and drive to all the nurseries.

Now I'm into trees and simpler plantings in the garden, only because I have so many chores outside! I love walking around and admiring nature- the green grass, the blue sky, the trees, the birds, the bugs, the animals....the list goes on. I no longer wear makeup on a daily basis, love it when the wind messes up my hair, and happily walk through mud in my work boots. There are days where I just listen and watch, and I'm reminded how amazing life really is, and all the gifts that are around us. The things I used to take for granted, or just completely ignore, now take center stage in my life. I hope to pass more of it along to our younger generation when they're ready. Right now they are working on building their adult lives in the world, but I bet they'll circle back, because they've mentioned how they miss the good old times outside.

Alyssa what a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing

When I was a kid, the only garden chores they trusted me to do were to turn leaves under in fall and fork them up again in spring, mow the lawn, and "manage" the compost heap when we didn't just burn all the leaves.

Composting, building new beds and cultivating the soil are still my favorite parts!

Well, that plus collecting and trading seeds. But that is probably driven by advanced, congenital O. Seed D..

hi gardening interest grew when we moved into a house with a garden, been here 32 years took years to do anything kids were little so it was a rough grass lawn and a few seeds.
when they went on to other things, i got some books read them and started to look and buy perenials and annuals, the seed was sown you could say put some pictures in for you to see now im retired gardening nut :hurray:
one of my hanging baskets

my husband designed and built the waterwheel fully working


the palm tree i bought in torquay south west devon

Very beautiful, Janet! Your husband is very talented:) Love the waterwheel.