Why Garden?
From my childhood
When I was a pig-tailed, spunky kid my parents had an enormous lot with a tiny house in Portland. My earliest memories were in that yard. My best memories were of working in that yard. Now it didn't seem like work because I was just a kid and my parents did not send me out there to till the hard earth.
They were working and I was there beside them. They were picking beans. And I sat snapping them. The late summer sky grew dark and I pushed my toy shopping cart full of snapped beans to the breeze way connecting the house to the garage.
I ran inside, changed into my pink summer pajamas and sat with my brother eating strawberries over ice cream. I felt good. I had worked. Contributed. Now I enjoyed sweet Oregon strawberries and sweeter smiles and good-night kisses from my wonderful parents.
Saturday mornings would find me wandering to the backyard while my parents still slept or showered. I picked blueberries from the bushes right outside my back door. My dad cared enough to wash them and put them in my Saturday morning pancakes.
Because I am a dreamer
I have always loved Little House on the Prairie stories or anything involving more self-sustainable living, hard work, and sweet family life.
Everyone and their brother teased me as a kid and ensured me that I would grow out of wanting to "be a farmer."
Thankfully, my husband was being raised on five acres in Newberg, OR and has always fully shared my desire to work, grow and enjoy the good fruit. (Oh wait, he was already 20 something when I was a dreaming kid . . . but that is another book in itself!)
Because of the nature of seeds
When I started hearing about Genetically Modified crops and how animal, bacterial and other genes were being mixed with the DNA of plants I was amazed. When I experienced the havoc that GMO corn raked on my body I knew that it was a bad idea. Well, bad as far as health and society. Good as far as immediate profits for the farmers selling these disease-resistant crops.
I started reading.
The simplicity of heirloom seeds got me hooked. Heirloom seeds can be planted, the fruit harvested, and the seeds of that harvest saved to be re-planted. That is how God made it. Simple. Perfect. Amazing.
Each time I plant a seed and watch the plant and fruit that grows from that one small object my entire being cries out, "How great is my God?!"
Because I have children
My garden food is better for them than the organic produce from the supermarket because my soil is rich in nutrients and they eat it the day it is picked - at the peek of its nutritional content. Who does not want the best for their kiddos?
Kids love planting seeds. Watering. Weeding. Thinning the carrots and lettuce. We have good fellowship in the garden just as I did as a child working alongside my parents.
So there you have it!
My inspiration for gardening.
