#greenless thumb

[greenlessthumb]

The question of who we are.

I do not mean as a group or as a society or as a species.  I mean it as who am I, it is a question some figure out earlier then others (or at least fool others into thinking they did) and some never find at all.  

I am in the middle.  I am coming up on 30, which I am told is still young, and I must say I still feel young, but with a seemingly endless barrage off crossroads my life could take.  Do I base my life on what I know will give me the most security, do I risk it and follow my love, do I roam like a nomad through adult life and never truly find what I am looking for?  These are questions that plague me on any given day.   I love my occupation but not necessarily my job, I see people around me who are 20-30 years further down the rabbit hole then me and are miserable why would I be different?   I see people who from what I can tell don’t do anything for a job other then make up a title and throw themselves in the right groups and they are doing fantastic and feeling like they are changing the world.

How does this fit into a gardening blog?  Well it doesn’t really except that gardening is where my search has taken me.   As I grow older I become more nostalgic of things and maybe see the world for the strange thing that it is and want to distance myself from it.   I only know who to be from those that I have seen be it.  Unfortunately many of the people I have watched growing up are no longer around to ask how they did it and what it was like for them at my age.   I know though that there are people who were in my life and some that still are that I want to resemble as I grow.  

My maternal grandfather is the first and foremost.  He was a greatly respected man who was able to balance life in a way that I wish I could do even a tenth as good as he.  He was an attorney, he was a husband, father to six, grandfather to many more, a man who loved to hunt, fish, garden.  A man who all around loved life from everything that I knew and saw of him.   When he passed away hundreds of people came to his funeral to pay respect to the man they had come to know and that they had respected as a good man.  I remember watching him as a child and he always seemed to be in control of the situation (which may have come from training as a police officer) and he always seemed content and happy.

My father is another who I strive to imitate in many ways especially in my secular life.   He has raised 2 children (me and my sister) and now has two grandchildren.  He is respected by many people in and out of his work and not many people have a bad thing to say of him (and those that I have heard say bad things are not the kind of people that you mind not liking you).  He has worked his way up his field with nothing but hard work, and a good ethic.  He is stern though fair and doesn’t mix words when they don’t need to be.   While not as content as my grandfather he does appreciate what he has and looks to improve what he has rather then increase or replace.  His and my mothers financial responsibility is also something I failingly strive to imitate.

Gardening is my therapy to help connect to the feelings I had when I was around these people.  I have decided to increase my gardening outside and especially inside to be as big as I can stand to maintain and that as soon as I have more then my family can eat (there are only 3 of us and our little guy doesn’t eat much yet) I am going to give my fresh vegetables to those in the community who truly need and cannot afford them and since I will be year around operation they will not have to wait for a small window every summer to be able to feed their family correctly.  

Until the time that I can set this up though I will continue working 40+ hours a week and busting my ass trying to grow the most beautiful fruit that I can when I am at home, hopefully getting my wife more involved and teaching my son to love working with his hands and raising his own food as well.   We may never become farmers and we aren’t quite the family to homestead and get off the grid but I promise our .18 acres of urban postage stamp yard and 1100 sq ft of home will end up being able to grow more then just a few fruits and vegetables. 

Please join me for my ride.  It will probably not be pretty, we will definitely get our hands dirty, but we will also have a ton of fun and have tomatoes.

[greenlessthumb]

Growing Nostalgia

I remember growing up and my mother always having a garden.  I thought at the time it was my parents having a garden but I realize now that it was my mother who did all the gardening.   My father loved the produce but I do not remember him doing much more then tilling the soil and maybe helping put in a couple seeds towards the end of the day if my mom needed some help. 

I remember visiting my Grandparents (maternal) and seeing their gardens.   It was different then ours though.  My grandmother took care of all the flowering pretty plants, my grandfather grew the vegetables and fruit.  At their one house there was a large garden on a city lot with tomato’s, beans, cucumbers, etc.... as well as plum trees. I remember him after dinner taking the scraps from the day out to the compost bin.   The first year he grew cherry tomatoes at their new house and he was blown away with how many tomatoes he had.  His garden was a thing of pride as only it could  be for an Englishman of his generation.  

Since those days of my childhood have lost my grandfather and my mother does not plant a vegetable garden any longer, perhaps because she no longer has me and my sister eating them out of house and home, or perhaps now that my father is a little more secure in his work that she no longer feels the need to grow extra food just in case it is a bad year and perhaps we can’t afford the groceries as easily as we could while my father is working.  I have not asked her why I just know she no longer plants the garden.

For a decade or more I have thought nothing of gardens other then the memories that I attached to the people and my own childhood gardening.  I have moved away from my parents, gotten married, and have had a child.   Last year though I met two wonderful people who live across town from me who run the Dickie’s Urban Farmer’s Market, Richie and his father Rich (a.k.a Dick) I have seen in them the love that I knew gardening to have from my childhood and it has sparked in me what could perhaps be a primal need to supply for my family, or perhaps a need to cultivate the land and grown things, perhaps it is just my need to hold on to the memories of days and people gone by.  

Which ever it is I found myself obsessed with growing my own food.   Especially tomato’s and peppers.   Last summer I got a very very late start and ended with a couple peppers off of one plant.  This year I have started early and larger.  Dozens of various tomato plants, handfuls of pepper plants, eggplant, basil, cilantro, oregano, parsley, carrots, kale, zucchini, squash, sunflowers, onions.

I realized that my patience level isn’t high enough to have only one small summer growing season and so I have started some indoor plants under grow lights and a small hydroponics system that I perhaps hope to grow.

The purpose of this blog is simple, since I do not expect anyone to ever read this it will be to chart my progress in my growing and how to eventually get a little green to my thumb and also to recall stories of my past and especially of my Grandfather Jim, as well as hopefully some of the tales that I will hopefully have with my family if they take to gardening with me. 

Nostalgia is a strong feeling and growing my own food, if but only a little of what we actually need, makes me feel for lack of better words rooted to my past and closer to those I knew.

I hope if someone stumbles across this blog they will read the long first post and hopefully be reminded of their own experiences and enjoy the happy memories that it recalls.