Why do I love gardening? Well, I have been practicing it for as long as I can remember. My parents always had a tomato and pepper garden growing up but that's not exactly where I took root.
If I reach back, deep down to my earliest conscious memories, I can remember my grandma babysitting me. She loved flowers. Not only that, she also had a much more varied garden. Cucumbers, cilantro, roses, impatiens, and more!
My wonderful grandma happily picking strawberries
I can remember my Mamá Esperanza sitting outside in her lawn chair next to my toddler self, instructing me exactly how to plant her precious fruits and flowers. It was peaceful. It was satisfying. And later in the season, I would have little fresh pepinos to munch on. I always had fun hunting for fruits in the thicket of green running along the length of the chainlink fence.
While my very young aspirations to be an artist or electrician may have fizzled out, my love for gardening never did. Why not, I ask myself. Maybe it was my love for the outdoors or getting my hands dirty. After all, I'm told I would occasionally be caught eating dirt when I was 3.
Pulling out weeds was like playing in the dirt for me. I would find weird rocks (that I later discovered to be jet) and strange arthropods I never saw at home. For me, everything about gardening was inviting; no one had to try too hard. One of my good friends said she never made her sons pull out weeds as children in an effort to not discourage them from the hobby. She then said, "And look! They still didn't become gardeners!"
The world of gardening simply is not for everyone. Being the entomology enthusiast that I am, I can't fathom how some people just don't like creepy crawlies. Some people just hate bees (and wasps). And for good reason!
Sting
I can actually remember the very first time I was stung. Coincidentally, it happened in my grandma's backyard around that same time, and judging by the files in my memory banks, it looked like a paper wasp. It was drowning in somebody's unattended soda and I reached in to grab it. Pow, right in the palm! Luckily this was some sort of family function cookout and not in the gardening setting. If it was, I might have been forever traumatized.
As gardeners, we just accept the unpredictable and volatile nature of hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps). I've still never been stung by an ant. The first and only time I was stung by a bee was a few years ago in Mexico. That time I may have been asking for it. I had read that when honeybees swarm and are looking for a new nesting site, they are the most docile. What a load of rubbish! As soon as I approached the writhing mass of insects I stung square in the forehead. Needless to say, I learned my lesson.
Now there are very few earthly creatures I dislike. But then there are yellow jackets (and squirrels)! I do not fear them. I have a personal vendetta against them. One summer, while working on a small farm, I was attacked and stung by those ruthless hornets no less than 4 times. They're not like their distant, docile cousins the paper wasps. The yellow jacket is fiercely territorial, and a real piece of work.
At least on two occasions, I may have been standing a little too close for comfort to their nest entrance. I imagine the darned things flying backwards, stinger first aimed at me and with fighter jet sounds. On the third occasion, it was an honest accident. I was in a grassy area and stumbled upon what I thought were flies around a dead animal and curiosity got the better of me. I may have stepped right on the nest or at least its entrance, and that really did it. Attack pheromones filled the air while all the guards engaged. I heard my manager say calmly, "Don't swat at them," I knew that but there's only so much you can do when an angry mob is flying around your head. I ran.
It's worse when you're minding your own business. Was I antagonizing the hornets? No. Trespassing? Not even close. I wasn't even drinking anything sweet! A yellow jacket landed on my arm, crawled up my sleeve, panicked, and then prick! How was that my fault‽ And if you've never been stung by a wasp or hornet, I think it's much worse than that of a bee.
That's gardening. Plants, flowers, fruit, and the occasional ouchie. I still love it and nothing could deter me. Maybe it's destiny. No, just botany. Either way... thanks, grandma.
With your post, you have awakened in me so many warm family memories of farming in my childhood!
My grandfather had a cottage of six acres. He made terraces on it and built a warm cozy house and a spacious gazebo.
The land plot was near a small lake, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
How I loved to relax in the country! Time by the water under a willow or with a book on a huge old walnut - the most intimate moments of my childhood!
But I also remember well how I did not want to help my grandfather in the garden! And as soon as I had the right to refuse due to age (that is, I began to understand that I could refuse), I practically stopped helping my grandfather. However, I still came with pleasure to relax and enjoy the harvest.
Now I have moved from the city to the countryside and work in the garden, with my animals and birds!
I love this life!
Why? Because from childhood I was surrounded by adults who brought joy to work on earth!
We will never invite our children to do something that we don't like, that makes us angry and drains us!
I think that your sweet grandmother passed on to you the love of the earth - the most important skill for a future gardener!
Now I am raising my daughter. She is two and a half years old and I take her with me for all the work on our estate. I try to show her everything in an interesting and joyful way, explaining how carrots grow and why you can’t eat green berries 😂 And I wish her to love working with the earth and cooperation with nature, so that she enjoys every day of every season!
Thank you for the warm memories.🧡
Aww, I hope your daughter turns into a gardener some day!
Sometimes I wish I lived away from the city. But I could also just bring the farm to the city. Make complete use of the space we have!
It sounds like you have fond memories of gardening.
Yes, I have a lot of warm memories of my country childhood, but they do not concern how I did gardening, but how much joy, inspiration and cheerful excitement it brought to the adults around me!
This is what led me to the idea that the city is not a place to live. Perhaps for earnings, perhaps for entertainment, but I need to live surrounded by nature, where we came from. It's my personal opinion.
I also really hope that, thanks to the upbringing in nature, my daughter will accept it as her own.
I love that picture of your grandma. I need to find one of my green thumbed Nana. I don't know how to influence kids to be gardeners. I certainly killed the idea for my son, who wanted to fill the garden with concrete and be done with it! He just can't see the point. He lives in Melbourne and would rather go to the market to get fresh veggies. Mind you, it's not that he CAN'T help. It's just that he makes it difficult lol with his reluctance. He had smarts in everyway but gardening.
Hymenoptera is a delightful new word for me! Now why the 'hymen'? Just had to google the etmology. Interesting!
WE don't get so many wasps here, a fact which makes me ETERNALLY grateful. Isn't it funny that everyone goes on about how dangerous Australia is, yet here I am shit scared of hornets in other countries. I recall in England they'd always land on the edge of my cider. WTF!!!!
I too feel very thankful to my Grandma for giving me this passion.
Great post, PRoto. Hope you have cheered up some since your start of season disasters.
I guess it's not really up to us and just depends if our kids really like it or not for themselves.
I never really thought of the etymology...hmm... But I've always liked the word nevertheless. One of my favorite groups of insects.
Not so many wasps in Australia? Interesting. English hornets sound particularly frightening for some reason! I'm imagining them as large as those ferocious Japanese kind!
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