Allotments 4 All

It's a well known fact that some smells can trigger memories in a human 'bean'  ;D

Perfumes, foods, flowers etc.

I've got LOADS of things in my garden that trigger 'sniffer' memories for me.

Flowering redcurrant: Reminds me of my great granny Mason's garden. We used to go to her house and come home with jam/lemon-curd tarts, rhubarb, pork joints (they had pigs in their garden and my great grandad had a shire horse, some land and a plough)

Tomatoes: Remind me of my lovely grandad in Goole. He had two greenhouses and I used to stay there in summer and help him water them. And rosemary as well ... he was headmaster at the local school and I went with him one day to water the rosemary in the school herb garden

Mock-orange trees: Remind me of my Auntie Winnie. She had 2 in her garden underneath my bedroom window when I was a kid. That probably explains why I always leave my bedroom window open all year round!

Cowslips: Remind me of summer holidays looking after a relative's dairy farm (I was responsible for weaning the calves - helping them to drink milk out of a bucket by letting them suck my fingers!) Fantastic days. Cowslips grew wild in the hedgerows and smelt FABULOUS! Went down to the garden centre today and they were selling single plants for £3.99.  ::) And they DIDN'T smell the same.

Celery: I don't know when or how (probably a previous life!) but the smell of celery makes me want to retch.. Perhaps I was a serving wench in an olde country house and I was asked to serve celery soup to the guests. And maybe I inadvertantly spilt the soup on the way to the table and I was dismissed for being clumsy? Who knows  ;D

So what smells do you like/associate with memories?

Honeysuckle is a deffinate childhood reminder, had lots of it at home with my grandparents. The smell always reminds me of my grandad sneezing with chronic hayfever! :P :D

Lily of the Valley reminds me of my grandparents garden- my grandad grew them cos he loved them.  He also had 3 allotments on the go and kept chooks.  Must be where i get my veggie habit from  :)

Lilac - reminds me of summer evenings at school
Daffodils - decorating the church at for Easter
Mint - with new potatoes
Wet cat - reminds me of the smell of the bantams we had when I was a child [was always picking them up and wandering round the garden with one!]
Elder - damp, rather frightening places in the garden.

my grannies garden was overgrown with mint, there was abrick foundation of a long gone greenhouse and the mint was rampant. i always remember how i argued
with her that the flower on her wall was a snapdragon not a wallflower , well she said it,s on a wall isnt it so it must be!! but its the mint that takes me back 50 years
marg :)

Love the scent of blue moon roses - reminds me of my nanna & grandads front garden and the smell of oil always takes me back to my grandads workshop which was like aladdins cave to me when I was young .. we were always making 'summit out of nowt'.

Violets...My Mum used Devon Violets perfume, for some years after she died I had the smell in an empty bottle but it gradually faded away. About 10 years after she died I was crossing through the perfume dept in a large store and stopped dead in my tracks,John asked me what was the matter and I said I smell my Mum, we went through all the testers and found the source,it was Paris by Eves St Laurent. I mentioned to the girl why I had stopped and she told me it contained violets.

I felt so good that day and of course I bought it,

XX Jeannine

Some years ago I found an old historical atlas that I had when I was a kid, in a box of stuff. It can't have been opened since then since it still smelt of the front room of the house I grew up in. The smell soon faded, but the first few times I opened it totally creeped me out.

Ah the smell of a gin and tonic on the terrace on a warm summers evening, reminds me of the headache I had last time I had a gin and tonic on the terrace on a warm summers evening.

Give me the smell of a bonfire every time - the sort of bonfire pile that has in it just accumulated vegetation, dried roots and nasty prickly bramble stems, maybe a bit of wood and some damp soil, and that smoulders away in the corner throughout the day, occasionally bursting into flame. And towards mid afternoon, you can push a couple of potatoes into the base, and burn your fingers eating the charred remains later. Yes, I know it's not pc nowadays to burn your garden waste, but bonfires are one little bit of heaven for me, and I don't do it that often.

Oooh lovely thread.  For me it's autumn & rotting leaves, reminds me of sneaking into the bottom eof the garden of the "Big House" and hiding out in tunnels made by the old rhodedendron bushes.  Lots of games of cowboys & indians, crawling on our bellies to ambush one another.

And heavy diesel oil always reminds me of my dad.  I wear his old boiler suits to do the decorating in, but it's not the same.

Unfortunately as I have grown older I have lost my sense of smell :(. I can just about catch the scent of sweet peas but that is about it. I think it must be heriditory because it happened to my father too. In the sheme of things it is no great loss but I do miss it sometimes :).

The smell of Cowslips growing on foxhills up Lambley Dumbles.the smell of rain after a dry spell allways makes me think of my granddad Mason saying "that's it summers over for this bloody year", the smell of my grandmars meat n potato pie, a coal fire, and smell of hot sweet tea  the farmers wife would give us on cold mornings when we were potato picking as kids......i feel sad in a nice way now. :'(

The smell of a storm on the way reminds me of walking home from pub with my OH when we were first getting together.   :)

Ok im odd but the smell of broad bean flowers reminds me of my dads garden, and cut grass of hay making when we had horses, i hate the smell of lawn fertiliser it reminds me of the school playing feilds ugggggggg !

The smell in my allotment shed reminds me of my Grandads allotment shed where I spent hours as a kid, "polshing" as he called it. Mixing up all of the nails and screws weighing anything on an old pair of scales. Then we would sit on upturned buckets and drink tea from a tartan coloured flask, and eat ham and mustard sandwiches. the best treat was going home I always got to ride in the truck which was constructed out of an old pram.