Do you have a garden, plant one, and how successful are you? Do you prefer to grow in pots? Green fingers are not a talent I possess, and I can’t say gardening is something I enjoy. My only really successful crops over the years have been tomatoes. There were plenty of them, and as the song says, we were able to share them with our neighbours.
The lds church promotes gardening as a way of increasing self-reliance, and it was emphasised a lot during the 70s. Today there’s an online gospel topics page devoted to gardening.
Growing up, my parents took the injunction to plant a garden seriously. Successes varied year on year, but like me one of their successes was generally tomatoes. Other successes I particularly remember were runner beans and winter lettuce. I loved the winter lettuce, and as it was fairly fast-growing, it could be sown several times throughout the season. There would always be some ready to cut until one evening when somebody failed to close the greenhouse door, and frost killed the lot. A memorable failure was the onions: little larger on excavation than they had been when planted.
It’s a topic that comes to mind at the moment because we’ve had a particularly long, cold winter this year. Not cold enough for a lot of snow, at least not in my part of Britain, but the kind of damp cold that seeps into your bones. This past week or so has been much warmer. I’ve mown the lawn, and am eyeing the beds with a sigh. Our current home does not have a large garden. But it is enough work for me, with my very non-green fingers. I need to be cutting back the buddleia, and forsythia before it’s too late. And yet again, I sigh over the preponderance of ground elder, already flourishing.
For a few years after we moved in I tried to root out the ground elder. A mistake. Any little bit of root left behind spawns a whole new plant. We’ve tried poisoning it. It’s too resistant. We were told it doesn’t like rhubarb, and gifted a rhubarb plant. And it’s true that where we have the rhubarb, the ground elder doesn’t grow. Still, there is only so much rhubarb we can eat, and a garden full of rhubarb instead of ground elder isn’t really that much of an improvement. The ground elder and I have had to come to an accommodation of sorts. Short of digging out and replacing our topsoil it won’t be leaving. As I’m very fond of the other plants around whose roots the ground elder roots are undoubtedly entangled, I’m trying to look at the positives.
Apparently the stuff is edible, and was imported by the Romans as a hardy green. Thanks Romans. That’s a long time for a non-native plant to still be causing problems. So this year I’m going to try this advice, and include fresh ground elder shoots in my stir fries and pasta dishes. There’ll be more than enough for the neighbours too, though I doubt they’ll be joining me. It’s obviously the ideal, easy-to-grow crop for a gardener with fingers the colour of mine. I don’t think I’ll be including nettles though.
- Do you have a garden, and if so what are your plans this year?
- Do you enjoy gardening, why or why not?
- What are your most successful crops?
- How do you tackle invasive weeds?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
This year, we decided to go for things less practical and more “I’ve always wanted to try that”. Eggplant, Watermelon, Pumpkin, Sunflowers.
We’re not so good at making use of what we grow. We’ve no knowledge or experience (or room) for storage, so we eat what we can and try to give away the rest.
Next year, I want to get some Canteen Gourd seeds. I found I have a great desire to make a Water Drum
I love to garden. Didn’t realize how good we had it in California until I moved to Colorado at 7600 feet above sea level. Tomorrow I start my seeds indoors ad hopefully, plant by mid-May after the last frost. I have a greenhouse for tomatoes and peppers.
It hit or miss here depending on the weather. The growing season is pretty short without the help of a greenhouse. Mid October were are usually done in by the first frost.
I will take the (living) Prophet’s advice and tend to my humble garden, growing “produce” appropriate for Northern California.
The benefits are exercise, life skills, and the quasi-spiritual experience that comes from ‘getting back to the soil’. Cost-effectiveness is secondary.
Of course, much the same can be said about HUNTING. As “Terrible Ted” would say, “You can’t GRILL it until you KILL it!”. Of course, were I to respond appropriate to my “Inner Klingon”, I would seek prey challenging enough that the distinction between hunter and the hunted would be irrelevant, with the victor having dinner no matter the outcome.
In today’s world, growing a garden doesn’t make economic sense, and perhaps this is why–along with an increasingly urban church–that gardening hasn’t been emphasized. That said, I still try and grow a small garden every year. Right now I have garden boxes, and it’s still cold enough that the only things I’ve planted are the peas, spinach, chard, and radishes.
I think the main religious benefits of gardening are (1) a better understanding of the scriptures (law of the harvest, parable of the soils, wheat and tares, Alma’s sermon on faith, weeds and the fallen nature of the planet etc.) (2) An opportunity to work together as a family, and (3) a chance to teach your children delayed gratification and life lessons. In some areas like Utah, it’s also a reminder of our reliance on God with weather and bugs. Plus I find some personal satisfaction in it, unless it’s just frustrations, which some seasons it is.
I hate gardening, but that soon needs to change, because apparently, in the UK, gardening is the 2nd most popular pastime for men over the age of 40, second only to watching TV. Sex is way down on the list of pastimes!
Keep sex at number 1 Nate!
We also have a very short growing season and it doesn’t make financial sense, but nothing beats fresh peas, beans, lettuce and raspberries. It keeps us fit-ish and offers us a chance to work together rather than apart. French beans are never cheap and we try to focus on stuff that remains expensive throughout the year by freezing the glut. We share with neighbours but also shop cheap produce from the local market when there’s a glut. we store for the next winter as far as possible, a european trait, but only store what we eat mainly from the freezer.
Never managed to grow a sweet tomato, but we have no glasshouse-that would mean a substantial outlay. We try to keep it realistic.
Fruit trees and a garden were the first improvements we made after buying a house. We’ve had success with pomegranates, peaches, raspberries, strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, beets, peas, peppers, okra, artichokes, and herbs. That list was much longer than I expected. Whenever I look at our garden all the things that aren’t working are much more apparent to me. The parable of the wheat and the tares is a good description of my weeding strategy, but we don’t have any particularly invasive weeds, and yearly tilling ensures that transplanted vegetables have a good head start.
There’s nothing sexier than a man with a trowel. Unless he’s wearing a ski mask, and then that’s just creepy.
Your post title gave me a flash back to something that happened years ago. A friend of mine from work was moving in to a new house, and he needed some help laying sod. Two of us went over there on our Saturday to help him out, and his FIL who was an SP was there. The FIL pointed out the generous space set aside for a garden (a relief since we didn’t have to lay any sod there!) and I joked how ambitious it was. He got all “serious-priesthood-leader” on me and asked if I had a garden (bear in mind he was nobody to me – I didn’t live in that area). I said I worked 50 hours a week just to put food on the table for my family and had 2 small children, and I was spending my Saturday laying sod, so no, I didn’t have a garden. He gave me the patriarchal gaze of discernment and asked in that quiet yet grave way, “And what does the prophet say about having a garden?” and I pointed out that I was missing General Conference to lay fricken sod for his son-in-law, so how should I know what the prophet says.
He proudly explained that everyone in his stake under his rule was challenged to build a garden. I’m glad if his stake has overcome their sins to the point that their SP is now just working on gardens. I’m sure that’s what tipped the City of Enoch over the line to Zionhood and translation.
I have nothing against gardens per se, but I do have something against ingratitude and springing a PPI on random strangers who are doing free service in the hot sun while you stand back and congratulate yourself on your great influence and wisdom. Asshat.
We have a 12′ x 12′ box on our 1/3 acre lot. That’s plenty. I like planting pumpkins so I don’t have to pay through the nose come halloween. We keep trying our hand at it everywhere we’ve lived. It’s alright I guess. The biggest benefit is working as a family, I suppose.
I’m interested to see that you have trouble with ground elders too.
Perhaps I am doing it wrong…
How finely should I grind up the elders before I put them in the ground?
I’m also a bit surprised to see that you have no qualms about eating them.
If it isn’t against the law in the UK, I suppose there is nothing better to nourish
and strengthen our bodies!
Thanks for the comments everyone.
The water drum looks fun Frank.
Jeff, I think the growing season is little longer here, earlier start anyway. When we were in Kent I grew tomatoes outdoors from late March – I did have to cover them over with bin liners at night though, to protect from frost, and it was both a sheltered and sunny spot in the garden.
Getting back to the soil (or at least getting it in contact with my skin) sets my teeth on edge Douglas, which tends to detract from the quasi-spiritual experience. So what would you hunt that you’d both be prepared to eat and be eaten by?
#8 – Hawk, CHILLLLLLL…… So the SP was riding his proverbial high horse. The Lord called the “Asshat” for a reason, pontification and all. You’ve heard this slogan how many bazillion times (and with our hyperbole, we get all bent out of shape about seemingly impossible numbers mentioned in the Old Testament or the BoM?)…”The Church is Perfect (b/c it IS of the Savior), the leaders and/or members are NOT”.
That being said, I had a bishop some several years ago that happened by one fine late spring day, when in Northern California it can get a mite toasty. I’m ‘laboring’ in my garden, and so stripped to the waist as it WAS quite warm, I was getting a real workout, AND my tone was still pale as our Sacramento valley does have long stretches of winter overcast and fog. Said bishop came a-calling, my then-wife answers and let’s him in, and he wants to see me, so she shows him to the back yard where I’m a-flailing away. It happened to be 5 pm, and at the time, it was the custom of our local album rock station to play Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” every weekday at that time (had something to do with the Sac Metro area’s infamous commuting traffic). So I’m giving our then 71 y.o. bishop a real positive impression as to Douglas’ being in ‘tune’ with the Spirit! As we spoke, he commented that he’d heard from other members that I frequently went about in public w/o my garments (usually gym attire), which as I was even more at the time a ‘gym rat’ than now, and he was saddened to confirm it for himself. Some time later, when attempting to renew my recommend, he cited this reason as to why I shouldn’t get it, i.e., I didn’t take my covenants seriously. The man has his own accounting firm, I wonder what it’s like to work for him! Don’t get me wrong, in many ways he’s also one sweet old guy, but his fixation on the temple garments was grating. Maybe when I went to Church I should have worn my frat pledge pin on the lapel of my jacket.
#11 – IDK that good ol’ planet “Oith” (Earth) really offers much in the way of prey that is both challenging AND tasty, and would consider me the same. Probably hunt grizzly bear in Alaska.
I’m not up enough on my Star Trek lore (Star Wars is far more my bent) to know what beasts the Klingons hunted on Q’uonos that met their criteria of “kill or be killed, eat or be eaten”. Ya gotta admire that, though, that’s REAL sport. If I go out to bag a four-point buck for venison and a trophy on the wall, fine, and it can be a challenge to stalk that deer and take the shot, but where’s the SPORT in it? Shouldn’t the deer also be armed?
The Other Clark, I think you absolutely right on the economics. I doubt even after 20 years we’ve broken even on the outlay for the tools, never mind the time involved. Tomatoes just don’t cost that much. And when it comes to storage, canned goods are far cheaper and simpler. Thanks for mentioning the benefits. I’m glad you find satisfaction in it.
Nate, our neighbours have always been far better gardeners than we are, sometimes to the point they found us quite frustrating, so it’s not a missionary tool for sure. Garden centres and nurseries are popular destinations here, and come with great restaurants often. And then there’s always the TV programmes about gardening!
All I’ll say is, we don’t have a TV, and gardening is way down our list.
handlewithcare, that’s a tasty list. I agree, markets can be really good for fresh produce. The city I grew up had the best market in the whole of England, I’m convinced. My parents had one of those pvc covered greenhouses which were much cheaper than the glass variety. I’ve never had a greenhouse myself though.
Daniel, I’m guessing you’ve a nice warm climate with those peaches and pomegranates. Very nice.
hawkgrrrl, a trowel?
“I have nothing against gardens per se, but I do have something against ingratitude and springing a PPI on random strangers who are doing free service in the hot sun while you stand back and congratulate yourself on your great influence and wisdom.”
Amen! This reminded me of a talk my father sometimes refers to. I haven’t heard it myself. Goes something like this. A fit young couple in a street had a rubbish garden, whilst their elderly and sometimes infirm neighbours had immaculately well-kept gardens. The couple were criticised. Something like that. Turns out the young couple had no time to tend their own garden, because when they weren’t out at work, they were kept busy helping their neighbours with theirs!
Kristine, we managed to grow a pumpkin for the first time last year. Just the one. Unfortunately it had to be eaten before Halloween.
Rawkcuf, what grinder are you using?
Having missionaries for dinner is longstanding joke in my extended family. I find they’re good with Thai green curry.
When it comes to gardening, forget economics…since it’s not too difficult to raise a halfway decent garden (as long as there was seed(s), favorable climes, and stable politics, usually the X-factor into whether a famine occurs or not) it should be self-evident that there would be greater occurrence of subsistence agriculture, even in the cities, if the economics favored it.
The only time in recent history that even occurred was during WW2, with the “Victory Garden”. As farm subsidies to NOT grow crops, started, IIRC, in the HOOVER administration (NRA) did not cease during the war, there was no shortage of arable land nor manpower to raise crops/livestock and harvest (Bracero program). There was sufficient productive capability in the agricultural sector to not only maintain a free market economy in the civilian sector AND sustain OUR own military requirements, we had enough to make up deficiencies for the UK and the Soviet Union! The issue, from farm/ranch to the consumer, was TRANSPORT. Vehicles (truck, trains, ships, planes) to carry products, and fuel itself (overall petroleum production wasn’t a problem, but getting it where needed was, as too many oil tankers fell victim to German U-boats off the Eastern seaboard). By doing a ‘patriotic’ version of ‘locally grown’, our war economy planners figured to (1) lessen transport demands, (2) give civilians a greater sense of participation in the war effort, and (3) if civilians were expending effort to garden, they had less time and energy to frivolous pursuits or to become malcontents.
It’s a pity that we can be motivated to take up a hobby like gardening by politicians who might be cynically motivated by self-interest, but respond to the gentle counsel of the living Prophet with snide remarks, bickering, and malingering. Sez more about us than the message giver.
Trowel in US = hand-hoe in UK (IIRC).
the past 4 years or so we turned our very small suburban lot into almost completely garden. It was a very, very fun hobby. But it was not economical at all. Cost us thousands for a very small return. as others have commented, we didn’t have enough time to really work it, what with both working full time, and we didnt have a place to store lots of food.I think you have to live in the same place for a long timeto get your soil working well and accumulate all the tools you need for gardening, which doesn’t hAppen in today’s mobile societut. We just had to move to the city due to schooling and sold all of our gardening stuff.next time I plant a garden, it will probably just be a garden box or two. I think it’s good to know how to do it if the need arose.
I was inspired about gardening by reading Barbara Kingsolver’s ANIMAL VEGETABLE MIRACLE for our RS book club. It is about a family trying to eat local for a year.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/
We grow and dry most of our own herbs. Green onions, basil, thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary, sage….
I only eat sprouts that I have made myself ever since I got food poisoning from sprouts. We do mung beans for stir fry, alfalfa or whatever for salads. Although that doeesn’t involve the garden plot per se.
We also raise snow peas, bok choi, kale, tomatoes, peppers, beans. We don’t have enough room for corn–our lot is kinda shady so sunny spots are limited.
I agree that it is a great family activity.
I am no economist so get out the salt shaker. One of my children is and this springs from a discussion with her, filtered through the cobwebs of my unreliable memory.
The source of wealth in a community, whether it be anything from a tribe to a superpower originates from only a few things. Economic inclusiveness- which means most people believe they will be well-rewarded for their work and creativity. This is nearly always tied to political inclusiveness in good governments. The other key factors are; specialization with increased efficiency based on better education and developing technology, and then open trade so that efficiently overproduced goods and services are distributed widely in a market system.
It is clear to many students of Mormonism that Brigham Young either did not understand these principles or had another agenda contrary to creating wealth. Self-sufficiency is pretty much the opposite of specialization and taken to extremes results in poverty. In agriculture it becomes unsustainable subsistence farming characteristic of the poorest societies on earth today. The few even more primitive stone-age cultures remaining on earth are self-sufficent to an even greater degree.
This contemporary impulse to grow gardens is a sentimental throwback to the “good old days” of 19th century Mormonism. A time when communities were more tightly knit, faith seemed stronger and the church exercised more power and had greater meaningfulness. Gardening today is an expensive and time-consuming hobby that only works under specific ideal conditions. It might also be useful teaching children lessons of life but so are a host of other endeavors. Its only redeeming value is as an amusement.
If it works for you then do it. As a hobby! Not inflicting misplaced guilt on those who don’t.
I loved gardening when we lived in Minnesota and had a fertile patch of ground. Here in the hills of Georgia Iam surrounded by 150 ft tall pine and hardwood trees (that keep the A/C bills down), expensive water, and extremely acidic (pH <5) poorly drained heavy clay soil. A host of varmints from deer to raccoon to opposum, rabbits, squirrrels, chipmunks are waiting for a free lunch. Last fall $100 worth of store bought pansies disappeared overnight. Then there are the bewildering variety of insects, fungi and who knows what else to ruin any garden produce.
I spent decades trying to grow anything edible with perpetual near total failure. This year I have one 5 gallon bucket of papyrus growing. The other bucket froze in the garage. I haven't figured out how to make it into paper yet, last year the fibers were so tough they ruined the electric blender. When I finally make some crude paper I intend to write scriptures on it. Pretty efficient, eh?
Our stake had a plot of land for gardens. The stake president encouraged everyone who didn’t have room for a garden to come plant a garden on the stake land.
My wife loves to garden, and then complains that nobody likes any of the vegetables she grows. It takes too much effort, we seem to grow weeds better than plants, and the canning to save the excess is just too time-consuming. I’d rather buy canned goods and rotate them out. Even then, who wants to eat canned instead of fresh food?
Gardening just seems like a monumental waste of time and energy given how cheap food is.
We built a new home in 2010 and finally last year got the garden plot in. I’m not much of a gardner, and we actually didn’t plant ANYTHING until July, in Utah. (Yes, I know.) But we still got a nice little haul of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beets (and beet greens), rutabagas, chard, greens, onions, carrots, and, of course, scads of summer squash (yellow and zucchini).
We use the square foot gardening method (modified a bit) and so it takes really very little time and effort once set up. Someone just goes out every couple of days and brings in baskets of food. 🙂
Hopefully (it’s almost May, right…augh) this year we’ll get it going earlier to take advantage of a longer growing season.
For those thinking it and too polite to say it (if there’s such a thing around here) –
Yes, when the world comes to an end, we’re all going to starve, cause our pizza plant won’t grow.
So, when Pres. Benson (in the Oct. 1980 conference) said, “The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah,” was that he inspiration of the Lord, or (in the words of the LDS PR department) “personal, though well-considered, opinion.”?
I’m the only member of my family that touches vegetables and I have a black thumb, so, no, I haven’t attempted a vegetable garden. Growing up my parents had cherry, apricot, and peach trees as well as tomato plants. My brother grew a pumpkin plant for a science project and used the result of his labors at Halloween. My husband also grew up with fruit trees, so I think we may try those when we move into a longterm home.
With the trend of urban farming (and backyard chickens) I see a wide variety of people raising their own food. I think the benefits are generally more spiritual/therapeutic rather than economic for most urban and suburban dwellers.
#21 – the economics of the food chain may not always be so favorable in this “Blessed above ALL Nations”.
“Luck always favors the prepared” – Edna “E” Mode
We have a small garden in Provo – we’re leaving the house to our son and the automatic sprinkling system for a couple of months, but we planted 100 tomato plants last night and cross our fingers that there’s no frost while we’re gone. He’ll cover the plants if there is. My husband bottles tomato juice that is beyond delish, using a Victorio strainer for the juice. We also have hundreds of quarts of bottled grape juice, peaches, and pears, fresh (and then frozen) strawberries and raspberries. We don’t do so great with the root veggies because our soil is not in very good condition yet – it really does take decades of kitchen scrap compost – but we know what we like!
It’s definitely an expensive hobby. I don’t quilt, sew, or craft, so gardening is basically my only homemaking skill, since I quit baking (and eating the results) due to blood sugar problems. I like to supervise best, order my husband and son around, transplant shrubs and rearrange flower beds. I don’t do much of the bottling or freezing. My husband gives his grape juice and pear jam away for Christmas. Plastic store-bought tomatoes and tasteless transported strawberries are just not the same.
I love gardens and gardening! We’re traveling in England over the next few weeks and the gardens are my favorites!
Douglas, Dig for Britain/Victory was a huge thing here during WW2. People did miss the stuff that won’t grow in our climate – bananas and oranges. Rationing went on for almost another decade once the war ended. I’m sure that contributed to the British love of gardening and growing your own. Allotments are very popular even today.
Hawkgrrl, a hand hoe sounds much creepier than a trowel, even without the ski mask. Here a trowel is a small hand held spade with a pointed tip (as in the ace of), often accompanied with a small garden fork of the same size (http://cdn2.notonthehighstreet.com/system/product_images/images/001/135/123/original_personalised-garden-tools-set.jpg?1368018415). That’s gardening.
Otherwise it’s a small flat hand-held tool (usually) with a point used in diy/building for spreading mortar and the like.
jennyinnc, Mike, MH. Yes, I think most people who enjoy gardening enjoy it as a hobby. It is something of a national pass-time here though, as the number of books and TV programmes would attest. There’s the best kept village award which includes inspecting private gardens and allotments in the villages entering the competition, and “Open Gardens”, where folk open their gardens to the public, raising money for charity (http://www.opengardens.co.uk/).
Naismith, thanks for reminding me about bean sprouts. My grandad always had some on the go, and my mum sprouted a lot too, even on camping holidays. It’s a good source of quick fresh food. I’ve sprouted both mung beans and adzuki beans in the past. Sounds like you’re a successful gardener.
Mike, interesting stuff on economics. I’ve certainly read similar ideas on cooperation and specialisation. It makes sense to me. I don’t think any of us want to return to the stone age if we can possibly help it.
We are also on clay, and the water table is quite high, so it gets very soggy after rain and the lawn sometimes hosts unusual fungi seemingly overnight, which we then have to remove. Not quite the same collection of varmints though. Also we tend to encourage garden birds with nest boxes and feeders – another British thing perhaps.
Alison, I’m imagining one of the advantages of starting from scratch like that is that there is no previous occupier garden already in place, and you get a clean slate to work from, sort of. Though there could be all sorts of horrors involved in clearing the ground as well. I’m a bit of a softy when it comes to ripping out well-established plants, those that aren’t weeds. Though my father says any plant in the wrong place, or that you don’t want, is a weed.
All of that from July. Stuff grows fast over there it seems. Sounds delicious.
Frank, I’m just hoping I can trade my sewing skills for the produce of the many allotment holders ;-).
The Other Clark, I really wouldn’t like to say. Is he speaking individually necessarily? I have stored food, in cans. I may not have produced it myself, but hey…
Your comment reminds me of the time I spent in Japan in the early 90s. There was a trade argument going on between Japan and the US at the time. Food security was involved. The US wanted Japan to import US rice, but in Japan the rice market was protected, to ensure the rice farmers could make a living, and that Japan could be self-sufficient in rice production.
Mary Ann, not just me then.
Apricots are my favourite fruit. Sadly not native. So as a child growing up, apricot trees were as exotic as the idea of popcorn growing on them. My parents have a plum tree. They’re nice plums. And much more successful than they found apples or pears.
A few of our ward members keep chickens, and couple of my brothers tried it for a while. There are lot of urban and suburban foxes though.
CRW, that tomato juice sounds amazing. And the fruit.
I hope you have a great holiday. Are there any gardens in particular that you’re planning to visit?
We started some seeds back in February, although most of them died from being kept indoors and not getting enough sun. However, we now have 5 tomato, 2 cucumber and 1 watermelon plant in a little 7×8 raised bed in our backyard. It’s my first time as an adult growing a garden NOT in Utah, where we can actually put plants outside before mid-May without worrying they’ll freeze.
I agree that planting a garden is a horrible way to be thrifty, unless you essentially take on small-scale farming as a second job. It is a good way to learn/remember where and how food comes to us, however.
Hedgehog-ground elder. I’ve learnt over the years that all of these longterm invasive weeds can be weakened substantially by a war of attrition. As you remove leaves above ground over time,roots are weakened. You never entirely win, but it does give what you want a head start. Although I think ground elder very pretty.
I think we all have to make a judgement call about where we spend our time. We waited three years here in the UK for an allotment, and it’s a lot less efficient than a garden plot as you aren’t seeing precisely what’s going on on a day by day basis-watering etc.
Also I left out the strawberries, wild strawberries,blackcurrants and redcurrants, garlic,scallions, potatoes, spinach and lettuce. So easy only to see what you fail at! Although the currants take a gallon of sugar to be palatable. Can’t be good for you.
All in all very hard work to fit in to a busy working life, church and family. we choose to do that because we enjoy it, but I certainly wouldn’t judge others for not. My kids think we’re crazy, so that didn’t work too well did it?!
My favorite English garden is Sissinghurst, in Kent. I love Virginia Woolf, and read about her relationship with Vita Sackville-West, then saw photos of that beautiful garden. I first went with a friend on a day-trip down from London, and we bought fresh strawberries to eat on the way. What a very English thing it is that a person like Sackville-West who could have been most famous for her raucous sexual adventurism is instead know best for her garden.
What other country gives its gardeners names like Henry the Magnificent, or Capability Brown? Others of my favorites are Chatsworth, Stourhead, the Secret Garden at Blenheim Palace, Fountains Abbey, Kew Gardens, the lovely green “lungs of London” – Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. My very favorite public garden is Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regents Park in London – best visited in June. I love to walk by the public allotments at Haworth near the Brontë Parsonage in Yorkshire. One of my favorite ways to see English gardens is while sitting in a train, peering over the back fences into the gardens of people’s private houses. It’s only a glimpse, but it’s like looking into the faces of people rushing by.
A love of gardens, gardening, plants, may be an acquired taste (or possibly inherited – a lot of people in my family love gardening, young and old). Right now I’m torn between the English gardens we’ll see soon, and leaving our own little backyard garden, which with this rain is greening up and will never be so tidy again this year.
senalishia, thank you for mentioning that. Yes, it is good to be reminded about the where and how of our food.
handlewithcare, thank you for the encouragement. and yes, it is pretty when it flowers. Just everywhere. The fruit sounds great, and I love baby spinach. I believe there’s a pretty long waiting list for allotments in my area too. I’ve never been tempted, though I am in walking distance of a least 3 different allotment grounds.
CRW, they sound lovely. I really like Kew, mainly because my husband and I spent time there together when we were younger, both before and just after we married. Wishing you good weather.
My wife and I build our own homes but are hopeless at gardening. We built a new home 10 years ago, and it has some low maintanence trees and bushes, mostly palms, and cycads.
We have no grass, just gravel. We have no vegies growing either. We have moved at least every 10 years, and looked at some of our food storage, when we last moved, which was spoiled, so got rid of that too.
Must be in a state of apostacy, though choose to interpret self sufficiency as being fincially prepared. In Australia there is a shortage of housing, so investing in property is a more productive way to achieve financial security than gardening.
Was in London 14 days ago, when the heat wave was on, in Pizza and Florence today, on a mediterrianean cruise.
I think the garden, and food storage are another example of american culture being taught as Gospel
Geoff, a good few years ago now, we had a member of the then area presidency speak about self-reliance; he also favoured financial security over gardening
Enjoy your cruise.
#28 – Hedgehog, thanks for reminding that our UK cousins ‘across the pond’ were no slouches when it came to the “Victory Garden” thing either. And for Britain, it was more an issue of SURVIVAL, as one of the goals of Gross-Admiral Donitz’s U-boat campaign was to literally starve the UK into submission, or at least to toppling the Churchill government and bringing the Brits to the ‘peace’ table (where I suppose Hitler would once again have demanded a ‘piece’ of this and a ‘piece’ of that with regards to the Commonwealth). Fortunately, though with rationing enduring long after the war was over (as much due to socialist-minded interests refusing to relinquish power as to any inability of the British economy to provide consumer goods), the British people didn’t come close to going hungry.
How much the UK “Victory Gardens” actually contributed in terms of relieving need for import of foodstuff or freeing up fuel and/or vehicles/vessels for the war effort is debatable. What isn’t is how, with even once carefully-manicured flower gardens at Royal palaces sporting cabbages, beets, and carrots, there was a sense of public participation that kept the public morale from flagging.
It’s like many other things. I don’t think it’s strictly a commandment to garden, in that, if one’s circumstances (apartment living, for example) tend to discourage it, when it’s all said and done, and one goes before the Savior to be judged, and He asks: “Gary, Gary, quite contrary, how did YOUR garden grow?” And Gary shakes his head and replies, it did not, M’Lord, for I planted none.” And then shall He say, “Depart from me, ye indolent non-farmer…”. Nope, don’t recall reading THAT in the scriptures, not can imagine such a scenario save in my fertile and smart-alecky imagination. Though we may be counseled to garden, as D&C 58:26-27 explains, we’re not to be COMMANDED in all things.