If Gardening a Family thing for you?

[AJ Drew]

Have a mentor in agriculture named Bob.  Used to work for him.  Great conversations.  Not that I was like a son to him, but his family has always farmed, his kids had no interest, their kids had no interest, and I was someone to talk to.  I once asked him if when he was a kid, he got paid for working his family farm.  He answered: Ye, there was supper on the table.

My kids help me a lot, but till this year it has always been a chore.  I have always had to ask.  This year, my daughter wanted a garden of her own.  When I say her own, I mean it.  I get yelled at if I do anything in her garden.  So far she has corn, green beans, spaghetti squash, tomato, cucumbers, and dipper gourds out the ground and growing fine.  Peas too, but they arent doing all that great. Check her out, she is the energizer bunny compared to her dad.
 
But it is the son who is making plant out feel like a real family event.  I do the planting and then he mulches the plants I have put in.  So we sit there, me on one side of the row, him on the other, talking and talking.  I try to stay on topic and use the planting as some of his school work, esplaining why we set rows the way we do, why we mulch and related topics.  But it always turns to video games and movies.

How about your family?  Is gardening one of those things you do together?
 
 

 

[Edmick]

My wife kills every plant she touches and we don't have kids so gardening is pretty much a solo activity around here. It's definitely something every kid should learn though. My family never gardened when I was younger either. My first experience with it was in high school growing weed in my closet which my mom found and destroyed. Lol

 

[Chorizo857_62J]

Wife has no interest.  When the kids were younger, they would help with my gardens.  Grandparents had a farm that we all grew up visiting for summer (incarceration).  I still love it, but won't get any family buy-in.

 

[ShowMeDaSauce]

We had a garden pretty much every year i can remember except for when we lived overseas. Mom's side of the family had a 180 acre farm and a big garden. Dad's side had a massive garden at my uncles farm. Grandma pretty much took care of that one. When we moved to STL in the mid 70s my dad converted about 1/3rd of the backyard into a garden. One fence was covered in grapes from a cutting we took from grandmas house.
 
I will never forgot the time he had a hog farmer friend bring in about a ton of partially composted pig crap. We added it to our compost pile. It "smoked" like mini volcano all winter and into the next spring. Being down wind of it was less than pleasant Most of the neighbors were not happy about it.

 

[nmlarson]

Hello, AJ!  Happy to hear you are back in the swing of things, albeit missing a few bits.
 
We always had a huge garden growing up.  That's what fed the four of us and Mom & Dad.  Dad would get a pig and a quarter of beef and that would go into the freezer for meat.  We grew, froze, canned and pickled all the fruit and vegetables from the garden and ate them throughout the year. A pear, apple, & a real plum tree (they were so good, not those hard, tasteless orbs sold at the supermarket), along with strawberries and rhubarb rounded it out, along with peaches from Dad's cousin's orchard and tart cherries and grape juice from Grandma's tree and arbor.  At the end of the summer, we'd take whatever was left of last year's veggies out of the freezer, those canned and needing to be used up, and some cabbage.  Then Daddy would get a big chuck roast and make the most amazing vegetable beef soup over a fire in the back yard.  Yum.
 
My dad passed 18 years ago.  Way too soon.  He was strong as a horse.  At 70, he could do a hand stand and walk around, on his hands, upside down.  One day he has a brain tumor, 10 months later he's gone.  Every day I think of things I should have asked him.  He was a master of many trades.  One of his favorite sayings was, "If there's an answer, it's not a problem.  Let's find the answer."  He could do anything.  Make anything.  If he could visualize it, he build it.
 
My husband has no interest in gardening, only things having to do with fast cars.  He's a bull in a china shop in the garden.  If I point out a plant, he eventually steps on it, sprays it with weed killer or whacks it off with the weed whacker.  However, he is the muscle and will bring me anything I ask.  But, don't let him in the garden unless he promises to stay on the pathways! 
 
I like it that way.     It's MY happy place.  And where I talk with my Dad. 

 

[SavinaRed]

I do all the gardening and we all do the pickin and eaten. So far this year I've picked a few ripe cherry tomatoes, lots of various types of blueberries, strawberries , mulberries and raspberries. I have over 30 varieties of berries in my garden and we love them. Next to ripen very soon will be plums, nectarines and peaches in early June. We picked some to try this week and they are sweet and tart but in a couple of weeks they will be nothing but sweet heaven 

 

[abnjmdan]

NIce post - I can remember as a small boy in Louisiana putting in the corn or pea seeds down the row my Daddy had made after tilling with a old Sears walk behind, with him following along behind me with a hoe covering them up... getting told about it if I spaced them too far or too short! Great memories - might be some of the reason I still like to garden today! I can still remember the taste of my first raw sweet corn pulled right from the row - eaten raw with silk and all!

 

[ako1974]

My parents had a garden when I was a kid and I had to help. And inadvertently learned how to garden. When I bought a house, it's the first major project I did (after painting) - installing a garden. Two years later, another garden was put in; could still use another, but have no more room (about 30 beds and tons of pots). Both my kids (11 and 8) have helped to some degree, but have no real interest in germinating, planting, etc, other than as a way to pass some time. Although I hold out hope that they may one day enjoy it as much as I do. My daughters (particularly the older one) is really good with the chickens. Both had zero interest in my honey bees. My wife enjoys...all the things I cook from the garden She is not a natural green thumb.
 
The one thing I do make a point of doing is, when we spend time in the yard together (I have stuff growing all over), I'll quiz my kids on what a plant is and what it's used for. They forget some things, but they also remember a lot. And I hope if I keep repetitively teaching them, they'll find some value in it on their own down the road. 

 

[Roo]

Definitely! When I was growing up, my dad's dad had a huge garden next to their house. He basically took up their entire yard with his garden. It's where I learned where potatoes come from when I was very small (I was absolutely amazed!). My mom's dad also gardened. One year, he was so fed up with squirrels that he planted nearly 100 tomato plants just so that he'd have enough not disturbed by squirrels to make pasta sauce (Italian!). 
 
When I was growing up, we always had a garden. Mom had her plot, dad had his plot, and I had my plot. Dad's was usually hot peppers. Mom's was mostly tomatoes with some zucchini and bell pepper, and mine was cherry tomatoes and potatoes. I used to watch dad rototill with such awe. I remember being allowed to help for the first time - I stood in front (at a safe distance) and watched for rocks or roots. 
 
A couple years ago, I controlled the tiller for the first time. Loved it. Felt so powerful! 
 
When I moved out, I went back to their house to till in the summer and help plant. I weeded when I was visiting, too. I tried to have my own garden but I couldn't get anything to grow where I was. Two summers of that, and I moved back.
 
This year, I started a bunch of plants from seed - brandywine tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, some peppers - and what I didn't keep, I gave to my parents and my BF. Basically, I kind of made everybody around me garden this year