This week's Flashback Friday is about gardening! Fun topic! Join us if you'd like at Mocha with Linda.
My flashback:
I remember many years that we had a garden when I was growing up. Our house was on about one acre of land in the country, and in one fenced off area we always planted a garden. The things I remember growing are tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, okra, and green beans. The okra I did not like to pick because it was scratchy. One year we did carrots because my cousin wanted to see how carrots grew.
We always had so much squash, and it has always been a favorite of mine to eat, cooked any way. My Mom made up all these random recipes using squash. One I really liked was "squashed squash" which looks like baby food. I could eat a whole pan of it!
Tomatoes from the garden are my favorite. I love cherry tomatoes especially! One year I picked the tomatoes and put them into a little pink plastic doll carriage and got a full load. My Mom would make quarts and quarts of tomato juice for my Peepaw. Also, she would fix me stewed tomatoes....for breakfast! I LOVED them! It makes me want some today just to think about it.
We also canned what we grew. I still tease my Mom because she always would say how easy it is to do the canning, like of green beans. She said you just cut them up and put them in water. It was always funny to me because the process always seemed so long to meand not as easy as she made it sound! I remember canning green beans, carrots, and bread and butter pickles for the county fair.
One funny story I have about the garden was when it became a mud pit! I don't remember if we asked to do it or my cousin just thought it would be fun when she saw the water making a puddle. But we were both muddy messes when her Mom came to get her!
Another random garden story to throw in.....One summer we visited my Mom's aunt and uncle in Iowa. They had pumpkin plants growing in their back yard. They would take off the blossoms and fry them to eat!
My Mom had a flower bed out front. It had a bunch of rose bushes. Also we had a patch with irises. She had hanging baskets on the porch and a huge trellis of honey suckle. We also had fruit trees lining the driveway in the front yard. The apricot trees seemed to produce a lot some years.
We did not have much success with a garden at our previous house. My husband tried one in different spots in the yard but it never grew well. He thought it was because of the rocky soil. Now at our new house we are trying a garden and we're very excited about it! I'm watching it grow and it's exciting to see the plants getting bigger. I had Caleb take pictures earlier this week so we could see the progress it's making!
Have a day of blessings!
