My Mother's Garden

Today is the 2 year anniversary of my Mother's passing, so I thought it would be a fitting tribute to her memory to post some photos I was pleased to come across recently in one of my albums. I took these pictures with our first decent (for those days) 35 mm camera, in 1977. They show my Mom's abundant garden on our farm, located on the North Dakota prairie.




Mom, in her garden with Benji, the dog. Since it is a cool, northern zone 3 there, nothing can be planted until after Memorial Day....so this is probably around late June or early July. The Corn is up and growing , with Peas in the foreground. (Click on photo to enlarge)





The next three photos were taken in the fall of the same year. Here you can see the Corn...tall and tasseled out, with Squash plants on the right and Cabbages in the left foreground, along with the yellow flowers of Dill in the center. Her garden was not weedless, but it was very productive! I remember Mom enticing us kids with spending money for the County Fair, in exchange for weeding 'X' number of rows in the garden. :-) Some days, supper hour would come and go....the kitchen was silent, and Mom was no where to be found, until we realized she was lost in the garden. I now find myself doing this....there is much to do and time passes so quickly when you're working in the garden!




A huge Cabbage, with two of my (then) little sisters flanking either side. I was the big sister.....the oldest of 6 girls. I have both an older and a younger brother, too, bringing the total to 8 children in our family. These photos were taken on a visit home to the farm, when I was 22.





The flowers at the edge of Mom's garden were beautiful! This old scanned photo simply doesn't do them justice. ( Please click on photo to enlarge and see detail ) Many returned as volunteers from the previous years self-sown seed. There were Bachelor buttons, California Poppies, Marigolds and Zinnias. Behind the flowers is what looks to be Potatoes and a Cucumber patch. We always had dozens of jars of dill pickles on our pantry shelves!

So....there you have it. Proof that I come by my love of growing things quite naturally. Is there such a thing as a gardening gene? :-)

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Mom, your memory is blessed. You were a wonderful example to me in all things, not the least of which was the love and labor you put into your garden and the countless hours spent preserving its bounty to feed and nourish your family. You are dearly missed!