Topic: Your Inspiration

[sandersj89]

Anyway i have just looked through your pictures sanders and you are now my inspiration, your garden and veg plot are really stunningly neat and beautiful.

Very sweet of you....but the pictures in that link are of my parents garden in Devon so I cant claim any credit for it.

Of down there soon so will be taking more I hope.

Jerry

[lorna]

Sandersj89. Apologies I also meant to say how I enjoyed the photos of your parents garden Stunning.

[SteveJ]

Good topic!
Must be my immediate family -  I vividly remember hiding out of view in my grandfather garden snatching the odd pea and eating them before anyone could catch me.  I thought it was amazing to be able to step outside and pick something and eat it.  The smell of freshly harvested peas always takes me back to that point.  He grew the biggest onions, and most perfect veggies but never ate any and gave them all away.  My dad has been a keen veg grower since he bought a house with a garden 20 yrs ago.  I used to grow a few tatties and leeks in a mud patch outside a flat back in my student days, then when I grew up and bought my very own house, a veg plot was a necessity.  Now I have an allotment, I have everything I could possibly wish for.  I hope I can help my children develop an interest and keep the passion alive.

[Gadfium]

My grandad.

Used to sit out back, evening after evening, next to his greenhouse; me, him, peace, contentment, and the tomatoes. Out front was the privet hedge and roses... but the other side was for leeks. And radishes. Rhubarb eaten raw with a dip of sugar. Carrots you pulled and ate without bothering to wash.

So the scent of greenhouse tomatoes takes me back, without fail, to him.

[Heldi]

This is a question I have a struggle to answer because I often wonder where I got my love of gardening. Neither of my parents were interested in gardening,my Grandma had one of those boring 1940's rose gardens which made me hate roses for alot of years...not now though! Grandpa was never out of his chair. Gran and Grandad lived in Portsmouth whilst I was up in Newcastle so they can't have had any influence.

I remember loving being outside in the garden as a young bairn and loving pottering about. No one there to show me what to do. I use to watch Geoffrey Smith on a Sunday morning and loved it. Then as I grew up,whilst all my mates were busy being "cool" I was secretly watching Gardeners World. Well not secretly just never talked about it because no one else was interested.

Why I often wonder about it is because I have had no direct influence.I'm adopted and slowly finding out about where I come from. I would be blown away if later when I search for my natural mother I find a love of gardening either in her or in my natural grandparents.

Is it in the blood ???!!!  ;D

[loulou]

to answer this question id have to say my daddy he hated trimming the grass and the hedges but when my brother wouldn't eat any veg he got a plot and it started from there  them i got married and didn't bother much till  emmalouise asked where a potato came from i shown her by planting one i a bucket of soil and shes hooked and i do love the taste of home fresh veg other half  likes the eating of home grown veg but doesn't like the hard digging hes too heavy handed for the delicat jobs IE transplanting but he dose try his best bless him and he says if his girls love it he will do it for them i think he'd rather sit down with a chilled bear and a computer than dig  and the kids just love to make mud and eat veg

[Palustris]

Read the third chapter in this section.  Grandad's Sweet peas. Posted as fiction, but mostly true.

http://www.writerstoyou.com/books/readonline.asp?bookid=5253&locid=4945&title=Palustris+Cats+%2D+The+Ashton+Rd%2E+Gang++Chaps+1+to+3
Did not keep up the gardening until we bought our first house, then never really stopped, though I actually do not really like gardening. I like mesing with plants, totally different thing. ;D

[lorna]

Eric. Reading that put a big smile on my face. In a word determination!!!

[jennym]

Brilliant Eric, those tales made me laugh - especially liked the downfall of Finnegan  ;D

[ACE]

I started growing veg 40 years ago as I wanted some exercise digging the plot. I was working for the local council,cutting grass, making all the municipal gardens all nice for the holidaymakers. As I was the champion digger they also had me digging graves. Ended up in charge of the cemetery staff, but retired early and the found my 'feminine side' ;D and started working with a garden designer, Now I prance about in my loafers moving this and moving that, but I still prefer the digging bit.

[jennym]

My Mum and Dad had an allotment near the waterworks in Walthamstow, and I remember as a child, trudging up a really steep hill to get there. We went on a regular basis, the pram loaded up with spades and bags and orange squash.
We children were left to our own devices whilst they worked. So, spent a lot of time roaming around Epping Forest, picking blackberries, lighting bonfires and roasting potatoes and pretty much took the veg bit for granted - wasn't particularly interested in the growing side then, it was just a fact of life.
Dad died young, but my Mum kept it up until she was nearly 70, about 10 years ago. It was only really when she gave it up that I realised I missed it. When the opportunity came to have an allotment near where I live, I took it, albeit reluctantly at first. Best thing I ever did. Now I haul her over to look at how things are going!