I grew up in Aroostook County in Northern Maine, an area well known for its farming communities and above all else, growing potatoes. We always had fresh vegetables growing up, either from our own garden, relatives' gardens, the surrounding wilderness or from the various farm stands that would pop up every summer/fall on the main roads around The County. We also grew up picking wild strawberries, raspberries and of course, like any good Mainer, fiddleheads! Fiddleheads, for those who aren't from Maine or New Brunswick, Canada, are edible ferns, often Ostrich or Bracken ferns, picked from river banks and damp areas when very young and still in their "fiddlehead" form and not a full fern. They are steamed, pickled or boiled and eaten with vinegar or butter and salt. A true Northern Maine delicacy, we grew up eating them with just about every other meal in wintertime. Dad and I would collect numerous garbage bags filled with them every spring, we would bring them home, Dad would clean them and Mom would blanch them in boiling water and put them, drained, into freezer bags and to the deep-freeze for the winter. We would process so many of them, Dad even built a spinning cage that rinsed and cleaned them in bulk.
I have early memories of "working" in my father's garden when I was young. My father was, among many things, a scientist, an inventor, an artist, a teacher and an environmentalist. He studied composting and organic gardening even back then in the 70's and early 80's. I have memories of one of his first hydroponic experiments, growing Sugar Baby watermelons inside under a skylight in his Solar Energy teaching lab/classroom at the Northern Maine Vocational Technical Institute (NMVTI). When it came time to harvest the little watermelons, he brought one home for me to try. I cut it in half and ate it with a spoon and to this day I still remember it as one of the most amazing things I ever tasted. I'm still chasing the Sugar Baby dragon with watermelon.
Now I'm not saying it was all roses and sunshine. Having MY Dad for a dad, came with some shit. Like literally, some shit. Case in point, the composting toilet, which also made its appearance in our home around the time I was 12. Much of Dad's work/research was based around sustainability and environmentalism, way before very many people realized that this was something we should be paying attention to. Over the years I benefitted from many of his inventions/creations. I had an electric bicycle at age 10. I got to climb the windmill he built at work, play in the treehouse he created in the backyard, and play with various homemade toys he crafted out of wood for me. Most of these turned out to be huge wins for me, but there was the odd drawback. Cue the appearance of the composting toilet he built in our home. We had to expand our bathroom to house the enormous throne he had created in the woodshop on campus. You had to climb three stairs to plant yourself on top of it. When you lift the lid, it's just a hole, like an outhouse. In fact, I do recall stating at the age of 12 to my father that THIS is just an outhouse, IN THE HOUSE! It didn't smell at all, mind you, but that was not the point at all for me. Now 34 years later, I will tell you I'm just as environmentally conscious as my father, if not more. I'm 99% vegan...soon to be full vegan, I compost, I recycle, we grow organic, buy organic, we clean without chemicals, our next car is going to be a hybrid and so on and so on. But on my father's grave, I will NEVER have a composting toilet. Never. Just never. I will indulge my inner grossed-out 12 year old on that one until the end of time.
So you can see, an odd mix of my father's hobbies or more accurately, passions, make many of my garden and garden-related interests nostalgic for me. I lost him when I was only 20 years old, before we could really develop an adult relationship. Too bad really, because I think we would have had a great one.
My mother also loved to garden, but her influence came later in my life, once my father had passed. Mom moved from the home I grew up in 1996 to a smaller house. She had a few flower beds there and some perennials so she started planting some things from seed in her bright back dining room. She especially loved planting petunias, and would fill numerous beds and pots with them. I got my love of flowers from her. I was always excited to see what she had planted and what was on the way. I wish I had her still (she passed away in 2012) to talk to about growing flowers. Every year I grow some petunias from seed, so I know that if she's around or ever checks in, she'll feel at home and it will make her happy.
Then there are the reasons that I keep gardening. I have always had a deep love of art, and nature is by far the most adept painter, sculptor and photographer. I love the way raindrops collect in pools on vegetables and the droplets shimmer on the leaves. I love the insect life, especially the beneficial ones, bustling around pollinating and eating pests. I love the way the tiny hairs along borage plants light up like illuminated from within when the sunlight hits them at dusk, I love combining two things I love into one and taking photographs in the garden of these things. I love the smell of tomatoes, basil, lavender, cilantro and the taste of alpine strawberries warmed in the sun and peas freshly popped out of the pod. I love the tastes and the textures and the intricacy of it all. I love my hands in the dirt and the sun on my back. Most of all, I love eating fresh vegetables, cooking with fresh herbs, and what little fresh fruit we have so far is amazing and I can't wait to have a lot more of it, as well as nuts. My hope is that some day we can grow and preserve 80% of our food for the year. We'll see...getting there is half the fun!
