Friday, January 09, 2009

Gardening, lost art?

When I was young, I had to pull duty in
the garden. Pulling my fair share of weeds.
My brother continue the job even after I
left.

Over the years I have had some gardens,
but most of them have been flower gardens.
With veggie gardens sprinkled here and there.
The King is the one who does the veggie garden.

I remember my first year in Idaho, where I built
a green house with the kids help. And started
corn in there, fairly early. By the time it came
safe enough to put them in the garden, they
were almost 2 feet high. They did great. I was
so proud of them, I had my picture taken with
them. Standing so tall, about 2 feet above my
head. And they said you can't bring corn to full
growth in Idaho.. There they were ...tall, green,
and nice size cobs growing on them, not quite
full size yet. The next day after the picture was
taken, I took another. There they stood, kind of.
Yellow, and drooping. It had froze the night before.
And down they went.

When I was a kid there was a place called
Victory Garden. The field stood empty as the
years went by. But in its glory, it was a sight
to behold. In the 1940's the government encouraged
Victory Gardens. Some you did yourself, or as in this
case it was tilled for families. The Vanderbilt's had it.
Yes, Cooper Anderson, grandfather had this for the
public. Now I hear it is a housing project.

In the 1970's I remember community gardens. It would
be a lot that someone would rent out tilled sections to
families. The owner would water it, but the renter had to
do their own weeding. It was mostly for people who had
an apt. and didn't have an area to do gardening.

There are still a lot of people who garden yet, but they
seem to be 30 and older. Will gardening be a lost art?
Will the younger generation take it up? Or will they be
so use to fast food drive thru windows, that they won't
know or want to know how it is grown?

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