The Seeds Were Planted Early
Hi there! My name is Jerry Nielsen. I live in Pasadena, CA part of the year and in Chester, VT part of the year. I only tell you this because it means I am familiar with a variety of gardening challenges and climates, and I have successfully grown container gardens in all of them.
I grew up in San Luis Obispo, CA. On many weekends, however, we would drive down US Highway 101 to Solvang, a lovely little Danish American community about 60 miles to the south. That’s where my earliest experiences with gardening and gardens took place. My grandfather owned a lot which was a full block deep. Behind the house, which he built himself, were two gardens. As you faced the backyard, the vegetables and fruits were on the left, and the flower garden was on the right.
My grandmother felt that she was called to visit the sick and elderly, and she always took them flowers, and sometimes vegetables and fruit, to brighten their lives. That’s mainly what the flower garden was for. Before he moved to California and became a carpenter, my grandfather was a farmer in Iowa. The care of the kitchen garden had been an important part of his daily routine, and he simply was never willing to give it up. He told me on so many occasions, “Jerry, people need to get their hands in the dirt to be happy. We all need a connection to the ground.”
He was an incredibly gifted gardener. Anything he planted and cared for just grew wonderfully. Manure from the chicken coop was cooled off in the compost pile, grass clippings from the front lawn never went to waste, and potato peels and unused lettuce leaves went right back into the soil via the compost pile. I learned to love the garden at a very early age.
My grandmother had a little sign she hung just outside the door to the garden. You’ve probably seen it somewhere.
“The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is neaer God’s heart in a garden
Than any place else on earth.”
In the next post, I will write about my Dad, and his giant green thumb. Please come back and join me for the rest of this ride. We’ll have a lot of fun together, and I hope to hear about your gardening influences. Until then . . .
May there be peace in your garden . . .
Jerry
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Hello and welcome! Hi there! My name is Jerry Nielsen. I've been a gardener and gardening teacher for many years, and I have successfully grown container gardens the Northeast and Southwest. Please share your comments, and take a moment to sign up for my RSS feed.