Health & Wellness
In Search of My Mother's Garden
By Diana M. Amadeo, Volunteer Contributor
I grew up in rural Iowa. Our family of twelve had a large vegetable garden tended mostly by my mother. Although it was my father who had grown up on a farm, my mother was a city girl who quickly embraced rural life. She taught her children the love of gardening; how to grow, harvest, and preserve the fruits of labor.
My sisters and I belonged to our local 4-H club where we'd enter our very best green beans, tomatoes, carrots, peas, squash, peppers, onions, and sweet corn as entries to the county fair. Hundreds of blue, red, and occasionally white ribbons adorned our walls. Early on I received the coveted purple ribbon — the championship first place division winner that secured my placement at the Iowa State Fair. Trophies were soon to follow.
As a newlywed, a Minneapolis suburb became home. I worked full time as a registered nurse, took care of the household, and hosted parties. With the help of my husband, I also prepared beautiful raised organic gardens of separate and distinct geometrical shaped designs in our spacious backyard. Soon, three active toddlers were running amongst the designer harvest, snatching snow peas and gobbling strawberries. This was heaven.
Another move to New Hampshire preceded a major, life-altering illness. Who could have predicted that multiple sclerosis would temporarily rob me of sight, hearing and ambulation? As I struggled to raise my children and heal myself, the household became amass with various assistive devices, including crutches, walkers, and wheel chairs. Creativity and my precious gardens seemed to be a part of the past.
As the children grew and left for college, I once again had the yearning to grow my own fresh fruits and vegetables. I had mentioned this to my husband and he offered elaborate designs and planting schemes. But this organic garden had to be mine — from start to finish. It wasn't something I wanted to supervise or observe, but something I could actually get down and dirty with. What was the easiest way to get back to the garden? Keep it simple.
I thought how busy people had patio gardens that didn't even require stepping onto soil. That didn't appeal to me, but the idea of using garden pots or half cedar barrels did. Pots or half barrels fit my height requirement from the wheelchair. I could purchase, haul, and plant them myself. And they were affordable. So I picked the best spot in our yard, eyeballed it for space and sun exposure. Then I picked out the easiest and most satisfying fruits and vegetables to grow in our area. Soon I was off to the market.
My Simple Garden:
- 4 cedar half barrels
- 4 bags of 4 cubic feet Miracle-Gro soil
- 2 tomato wire cone cages
- 2 dragon fly ornaments
- 1 slender wooden trellis
Hand tools: fork, shovel, and scissors
Miscellaneous my old trusty rain stick, kneepad, gloves, and a bug repellant bracelet
With the aid of my scooter, I was able to place the pots with ample space around them to navigate my wheels. Then I clipped the corner from the plastic potting soil bags and carefully poured in the dirt. My trusty rain stick served as a cane to support myself to and from the scooter to fill pots and later to place seeds and set plants. The first year I planted the following:
- Barrel #1: Strawberries; June-bearing in the center, ever-bearing around the circumference; (dragonfly ornament to shoo away critters)
- Barrel #2: Tomatoes (within two cones); "Grape" variety and "Early Girl"
- Barrel #3: Trellis placed directly behind the pot; within the soil on the trellis, end was planted with snow peas; front of pot were carrots
- Barrel #4: Half pot was spinach; rest of pot was planted with bush green beans (plus another dragonfly)
Like John Daniel in The Trail Home, I meditatively thought: "Drop in the seed and the dirt takes over, the moist warmth, the dark. It's mystery now, out of my hands. But I want to follow. I want to understand what begins to wake the seeds. I want to hear the inaudible moan or hum, that chant of all the lives and parts of lives that dirt composes — I hear it after all, in my mind — that steady call, alive down there, that cannot rise without seeds, that even now enfolds them with its infinitesimal vibration, urging them remember now, remember now, it is time to remember yourself."
As the tomato plants blossomed and then formed green balls, as the snow peas grew to over six feet tall and green beans bushed out, I began to remember myself again. I thought back to when I was chasing my kids through the geometrically shaped raised gardens. Memories returned of helping my mother pick sweet corn for supper. I reflected on my times in the 4-H. I remembered the perfectly symmetrical unblemished bright red tomato that the judges awarded the coveted purple Iowa State Fair ribbon. And I also remembered that the greatest pleasures are the simplest. Like a garden.
Post-Season Advice from Diana
After enjoying the season's garden, Diana gives this timely advice: "When the fall harvest is complete, gardening tools are cleaned and put away until spring. Now is the time to plan for next year. What worked to improve the garden yield and what didn't work should be evaluated. Don't forget in retrospect, that vegetable that just wasn't worth all the effort. If you have kept a gardening journal along the way, next year's plans are easier to form. A journal makes for good contemplation: and memories of more than just a garden."
About the Author
Diana M. Amadeo generously donated this article for publication in The Motivator. She is an accomplished writer, with short stories, features, and articles appearing in more than 400 publications. Her seventh book, My Sister Amy Is A Premie, was released September of 2005. Some of her other books include, A Children's Guide to American Saints (which came out in October 2005), and There's A Little Bit Of Me In Jamey (an overview of lymphocytic leukemia from a child's perspective), published in 1989 and featured on the American Cancer Society's Suggested Reading List. Her novel, Scarlet Tanager, a medical mystery, was published in 1995.
