The Garden

Granny is notorious for her green thumb and her garden.  In talking you can feel the joy and pride that the garden brings her.  Growing up I remember spending a lot of time in our family garden.  I remember having to help put seeds in the rows and cover them with dirt.  I remember the distinct smell of a tomato plant.  I remember wondering why sweet corn seeds were pink.  I also remember harvesting and how good everything tasted that was freshly picked.  Though in my much younger years I did not like tomatoes for some reason and I ate bacon and mayo sandwiches and opting out of the tomato which is strange because I put Ketchup on everything...  Karalee also remembers spending time in Granny's garden as a child and having very similar memories.  Who knew we would end up planting these memories with our child 20 some years later. 

When I moved to Kentucky I was blessed to be able to spend time with Karalee in Granny's garden.  Granny doesn't just let anyone into her garden, it is almost a right of passage.  We would help out as much as we could with planting, pulling weeds and the things that go along with gardening.  Granny would even entertain many of my novelty plants that I wanted to try grow and some have even been planted again (though butternut squash has been officially banned).  In the past couple years Granny has even added another garden which is about 15 x 40 feet behind the barn.

We try to get to her house at least once a week to help pull weeds and pick veggies.  Kennick is also been a very big help with this process.  Last night he helped us plant beats, cucumbers and summer squash.  We also were able to pick cucumbers, green beans, peppers, a few small tomatoes and yellow squash.  Also, the neighbor boy stopped over with a dozen farm fresh eggs.  That's a pretty good haul. 

Karalee, Kennick and Granny with the first planting of the season.

This was last night.

Here is Kennick giving a classic "cheese" face.  You may also notice that he is completely covered in dirt.

This is a tradition that has been going on for a long time.  After one of our first plantings as we were sitting under the shade tree Granny mentioned something to the effect of "I don't think Kennick's gran-gran-granny would have ever imagined having a fourth generation grandchild sitting under the same tree 100 years later". 

Now that is growing deep roots...