Summer of '80

I was 19 years old and needed a garden.
I'd just finished a year of Bible School and my from-the-prairies roommates had rocked my world.
I, the one living on 25 acres in Surrey, was the city chick. I went to concerts, (Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Styx ...) lived in a house with flush toilets, and drove on paved roads. These were luxuries to those from Hepburn and Rosenort.

Their lifestyles fascinated me. Their boyfriend/girlfriend relationships amazed me. Their Mennonite accents delighted me. But mostly the stories about their gardens inspired me. (Vern is the youngest of about a dozen kids, and when she was little, during the warm summer months, her mom would take her and her sister-that-is-only-14-months-older into the flower garden in the evening to pray before tucking them into bed.) I wanted that. A garden. A flower garden to pray in.

I was rather persuasive.
My dad tilled a plot of land big enough to potentially feed a family of 12 for 6 years, mixing in 439 pounds of cow shit he collected from the back fields.
Then, because we were on well water at the time, and there was an issue of pressure and hoses and whatnot - he went to a friend who worked at a fire station and 'borrowed' a pump. Which he placed in the creek. Then he bought a hose that was about 14 miles long and voila! Water for my garden.

My Omi was very encouraging with the whole garden idea and started a forest of tomato plants for me. My mom helped me choose seed packets. Mark did anything that required muscle. (Which, actually, was just about everything.) And I watched stuff grow.
Trouble was, I couldn't tell what was supposed to be growing, and what wasn't. Didn't know a weed from a carrot top.
So I let it all grow, thinking the flowers and vegetables would make themselves obvious eventually.

I can't remember anything, other than the bright blue bachelor buttons, being obvious. (That's my mom, by the way, picking flowers. And 19 year old Mark attacking thistles with a hoe.) By the time we were into full summer, I was working two jobs and the romance of gardening had fizzled. Never to be rekindled.

Ever.

My garden plot now is alive and doing well. Drop by for fresh blackberries in September.

My old garden pic has my 19 year old boyfriend in it.

This one has his 17 year old son it in.