As I was growing up, one corner of our large backyard was turned over for a vegetable garden. Looking back on it, aside from the raspberries that I had to help pick, I don’t really remember being particularly fond of anything that grew in that garden. I suppose it was my childhood responsibility to turn up my nose at anything that might be considered a vegetable. What I wouldn’t give today to have, just steps away from my kitchen, all those strings beans, carrots, beets, and summer squash, ripe for the picking and cutting down on my grocery bills.
Along the front edge of the garden, were always planted one or two rows of flowers. I wonder how my parents found the energy to come home after work and go out into the garden to water, weed, and tend. I’m pretty sure my brother and I were supposed to help with these chores, but we would more likely be the ones to sabotage their efforts by forgetting to move the sprinkler or half-heartedly going after the weeds. Also, all the bees attracted to those rows of flowers would have kept me as far away as possible.
Both my parents remember large vegetable gardens that my grandmas poured hours and hours of work into. My dad says the garden my Grandma Ruth tended for their farm family of 8 was so large, they plowed it using the tractor in the spring and fall. I still remember all the jars lined up in Grandma Pearl’s basement. All those pickled things looked like some kind of creepy science experiment to me. But I do remember loving it whenever a jar of sugary sweet “watermelon pickles” showed up at Thanksgiving or Christmas – a taste of summertime in the fall or winter.
What gardens do you remember from your childhood? Did you have any responsibility for taking care of them? What was/is your favorite garden treat? Do you have a garden planted for this summer? What’s the vegetable you wouldn’t eat as a child but now can’t live without?
May God welcome you home today. -Pastor Peter
Let us pray… Homemaking God, from the very first garden of creation, you have loved your children by providing the bounty of the earth. Bless the efforts of all who garden this summer, may the food and the flowers they grow, sustain and nourish while offering delight and joy. Amen.