I guess I'm a first gen! Wow. Or maybe a 2nd Gen that skipped a gen. My father's mother had a "victory garden" (I think that's what they were called for the Depression / WWII) that she used to barter stuff with the local general store (they used to raise rabbits & pigeons, too, to trade for other stuff that they didn't have enough stamps for, like sugar & flour). My father's kinda.. OK with growing things, but it's definitely not a happy thing for him and my mom has a black thumb: she can kill plastic plants. My sister putters in her yard, but she kills off almost everything she puts in, so I guess I'm it. I've always gardened.. I had my first veggie garden when I was about.. 8? where I grew pumpkins, corn, & maters (everyone grows maters!). When I was a teenager, I was given over the garden as my responsibility for the entire thing.. had a heck of a time keeping the darned deer & gophers out!! But it was really my parents' garden that they just didn't want to maintain.. I would have NEVER planted broccoli, radish, lettuce, or cauliflower! When I moved to NNY in '98, I took care of my mom's mater patch.. I had gone fishing and kept all the guts, fins, & scales off the bass I caught (didn't know it was out of season) and put all the yuck into a bucket w/water. Let that sit out in the sun *puke* for about a week *SUPER PUKE* and then tilled it into her mater patch, waited 3 days, then planted her maters. I planted 10 mater plants and ended up with over 15 bushels of maters that year. Next year, I didn't take care of her maters and she only ended up w/about 2 bushels. Next year, I'll be planting some corn along my fenceline - figured that if I'm gonna grow something, might as well grow nomnoms along w/the purdy roses!
