Garden Memories II

You may have already read about the first garden I remember. My family moved from Utah to California the year I turned 9. The move brought many changes, including changes to the garden. We were used to cold snowy winters, and now we lived in a place where things could grow all year long. Our new property covered a square acre, with two houses, two carports, and several sheds to take up space.

The lawn to the side of the house provided a perfect play area, bordered on one side by the house and on the other by a hand-built brick barbeque and a grape arbor. It even had a hollowed out monster bush where we loved to play hide and seek. The yard in front of the second house – grandma’s house – we appropriately named the fruit yard. When we moved in, the yard had an apricot tree, a fig tree, and a walnut tree. By the time we moved 22 years later, we had added an apple tree, pear tree, cherry tree, and a several citrus trees to the fruit yard.

With an acre of property, fruit trees were found all over when we moved in, and not just in the fruit yard. Pomegranate bushes bordered one side of the property. Grapes grew in the grape arbor, and snaked their way up through the nearby shade trees. A walnut tree, a lemon tree, an avocado tree, a kumquat, and a loquat tree could be found in various places. Everything but the avocado tree produced quite a bit of fruit.

Behind grandma’s house was a perfect space for a garden. A fence protected it from running children, and the trees were in the fruit yard rather than the garden, so it got plenty of sun. Dad tilled it up, and we got started. Unfortunately, the grass that had been growing there was Bermuda grass. For those of you not familiar with that type of grass, I’ll describe it. Bermuda grass grows well without lots of water, and it spreads rapidly. (If you have ever dealt with crabgrass, you have some idea of what a challenge this grass can be.) When you get rid of Bermuda grass you have to get rid of every bit of the roots, because the grass will grow back if there is even a tiny piece of root.

That first year, Dad tilled all the grass under, and we spent a couple of weeks pulling out rocks and roots. (Or maybe it was months. I just know we spent many hours in the garden sifting through the soil to find and dispose of grass roots.) When you till Bermuda grass, the roots get chopped into small pieces, and getting rid of all the roots is like trying to catch all the ants in an anthill by hand. Trying to pull Bermuda grass out is not much different than tilling it under. The root system spreads and spreads, and I don’t know anyone who can pull it out without breaking off part of the root and leaving it in the ground. Each year in the spring, dad would till the garden, and we would spend some time raking through the soil and pulling out any roots we could find. If I remember correctly, it did get easier each year, but those first few years we spent a good chunk of time pulling out Bermuda grass roots before we could plant anything.

In spite of everything, that garden drew us all. We spent many hours in the garden, some willingly, and some not so willingly, but all beneficial in the long run.

Garden Memories

The first garden I remember is the one at our home in Magna. I remember walking down the rows planting seeds, and playing in the yard nearby while mom or dad worked in the garden. I don’t remember what we planted, but I’m sure we probably had tomatoes and zucchini, among other things. I’m pretty sure we planted squash or pumpkins one year, because of a picture we have of a squash (or was it a pumpkin?) hanging in a tree. The vines had grown up into a tree, and it looked like we had a squash tree. I am pretty sure that picture was taken in Magna. (Hey, these are my memories. I can remember them however I want, right?)

The garden was a big sunny plot on one corner of our large corner lot. Several fruit trees edged the yard, and a large raspberry bush took up space in the middle of the yard. Our watering system in that home was an irrigation ditch. I don’t remember if that is how we watered the garden, or if that was just for the yard. The irrigation ditch ran through the back portion of the property, and made a wonderful place for children to play. On our irrigation days, we would open up the gates into our property and let the water in. A small ditch ran into the middle of the raspberry bush, and created another small stream in the yard. On non-irrigation days, the inside of the raspberry bush made a great place to play hide and seek.

The water always flooded the yard, and irrigation days in summer led to lots of water play. Sometimes we even got to catch fish as they came in from the irrigation ditch.

We even had our own island! Well, technically it wasn’t really an island, because it wasn’t completely surrounded by water, but the part on our property was. The irrigation ditch ran close to the property line for most of the yard, but at the very corner it swung out to leave a small patch of ground between the water and the fence. We put a board over the small stream, and had our own “island”. Our best friends lived kitty-corner to us across the island, and it was not uncommon for them to climb the fence and come play, or for us to climb the fence to their yard to go play a their house.

We also had several fruit trees. Cherry and apricot are the ones I remember. We loved picking the cherries, and we had some fabulous apricot fights with our cousins. (No, we didn’t use the ones from the tree. We only used the really gooey ones that had already fallen on the ground.)

I may not have appreciated all this early exposure to gardening when I was little, but I am sure glad my parents always grew a garden, and always allowed and encouraged us to help.