**This post is a follow-up to my original post back from 2009 with the images back inside the dialog. My intent is to put all my original responses in this one reply so you can see how my growing season went from start to finish in this one reply. I won't paste EVERY reply I made, but I'll put in what gives the most complete picture on how I grew my onions. It may seem a bit choppy at times, but in some of my responses I was replying to others comments. You'll get the gist of what I did, mistakes and all. ~Catherine _________________________________________________________ Wed, Mar 4, 09 Hello everyone!! I thought I would share with all of you some progress pictures of my onions. I can't find too many pictures of baby onions, so I thought I would share some of my pictures. This is my first year growing onions of any kind. This will be my second year having a vegetable garden. So please keep this in mind. I'm a newbie and I'm just learning. Because I had no experience with growing onions, I wanted to start out with the cheapest method possible...seeds. I planted Copra onion seeds starting on January 15th (kind of early, I know). I was REAL anal when seeding them. I planted them in 3 rows, 1" apart; 2 seeds per 1/4th inch, using tweezers. I thinned them out as they came up. I seeded the onion seeds over 5 days. Here is a picture of them at about 5 to 10 days old: I planted them in Miracle-Gro potting mix. Looking back on it now, I should have used a seed starting mix or something much less dense. Over the next weeks, as they grew tall, I would trim them to 3". They also would really lean toward the window/light. I would turn them, but still they would really lean. So, I put some reflective bubble wrap I had left over from an attic project around the onions. This helped the leaning issue tremendously! At about 4 weeks old, I noticed they were looking really sad soon after I had really watered them. A day or so passed and they were still looking bad, so I decided to sprinkle some bone meal on them, and water them AGAIN real good. That was a mistake (I hadnât realized the original problem was from over watering). Those onions started smelling really bad and they looked all deflated and yellow. I thought for sure they were goners! Hereâs the picture: After several days of drying out, they started to come back. Whew! They did lose their second leaf, but at least they werenât dead. Here is a picture of my onions today at about 7 weeks old. I'll try to keep this post updated with my progress or failure of my onions. I'm hopeful :o) Garden on everyone! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mar 4, 09 at 23:01 I didn't use any bottom heat. The room temperature was/is about 72 degrees on cloudy days and probably closer to 75 degrees on sunny days (this window is my bedroom, so I keep this room comfortable). I'm not sure what conditions were present when the seeds were coming up (less sunny I'm sure...it was in the middle of January in PA...lol). I did use a clear plastic dome to retain good humidity. I used pre-dampened soil and I'm pretty sure I didn't water the seeds after planting. I thought there was enough moisture from the damp soil to activate the seeds. I purchased my seeds from Johnnyseeds.com. I bought the pack with over 1000 seeds and planted them all. I think the germination rate on the pack said 75%. I got at least that much if not closer to 90%. I'm sorry your germination rate was so low. That would truly be disappointing. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Mar 9, 09 ...... I think I planted mine a tad deeper than a 1/4th of an inch. I put some masking tape on the tweezers I used to mark the depth so all my seeds were at the same depth. Most germinated at about day 5. Some came up a bit later, but not more then a day or so later. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Mar 13, 09 In the past few days, Iâve noticed my onions were getting a bit pale. Some of the leaves were really pale and dying off. They were a bit dry, so I watered them. This didnât improve the color at all. I waited until they needed watering again but this time I added Miracle-Gro to the water. I hope this improves the color of the leaves and stops the die off of the leaves. Most of the plants have 2-3 leaves. I think they should have more by now (they are 1.5 months old). They would have more if the leaves would stop dying off (my fault, I realize). I have been holding off on adding any fertilizer because I used Miracle-Gro potting soil with fertilizer in it. It says on the bag it should feed the plants for up to 3 months. Well, apparently not so with my onions. I did test the Miracle-Gro soil and the ph was a bit high at 8 (optimum for onions is 6 - 6.5). But the potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus were in the medium level range (comparing with the color charts provided with the soil kit). They have grown quite a bit taller in the past week. Maybe thicker, but they are still thin (still normal and okay I think). Looking back I should have added some fertilizer in their water 2 weeks ago at least. In the next few days itâs supposed to be real sunny, so that should help them out also. I plan on getting a fluorescent light today. This Sunday I start sewing lots of different plants. The light will be nice to have and I wonât have to be too worried about them not getting enough light. The one thing I've really noticed about growing from seed, is how emotionally involved I am with these plants. I get a bit sad when they look sick and excited when they do well. How pathetic is that! I don't remember feeling this way when I would buy plants from the gardening center. Thatâs it for now! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Tue, Mar 17, 09 I did go out and get 2, 4â shop lights. I emptied a shelving unit I had in the basement and put it by the window with the lights. I turn the lights on in the evening when itâs starts to get dark and on cloudy days. Here is a picture of my onions. They are now 8 weeks old. They donât look too bad. I did cut away any dying leaves. They are maybe the thickness of toothpicks. In this picture the leaves are about 6" tall. I do cut them back to 3-4", which I did right after this photo was taken. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Mar 27, 09 My onions are now 10 weeks old...WHA-WHO!! I have been trimming them to 3" at least twice a week now. I think I'll start keeping them at 5".....3" seems too short now. The base where the leaves come out of the plant is higher than it used to be. They grow about a 1/2 inch a day! Go onions go! I water them with Miracle-Gro once a week. Here are some pictures: Some onions have 4 green leaves and some have 2. Here is one with 3. I think they've had about 5 to 6 leaves total, but they die off over time. I think it might be normal. I hope it is, anyway. I hope everyone else's onions are doing well! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sun, Apr 26, 09 I finally planted my onions today! Iâm glad I donât need to "baby-sit" them anymore. Here is a picture of some of them before I planted them out. They are over 3 months old now. Here is a picture of them all planted. There are about 350-370 onions. I forgot to count them after I covered them with the row cover. I was just tired and glad to be done. It looks like I murdered all the onions!! I sure hope they spunk back up. I think next year Iâll try using those 280 plug trays. That might help with the transplant shock. Separating the onion roots was surprisingly easy, but I did notice lots of extra roots left in the dirt in the pots. I was trying to be careful. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Apr 27, 09 It was really warm here when I planted my onions. It was also very windy. The temp. was in the 80's, I think. Cool and calm would have been perfect. If these onions don't recover, I'll know it's worth waiting for a perfect day to plant. I did water them as I was planting. I was really careful with that, because I have lost plants (once) for not being careful about keeping the roots wet at all times. I was being careful, but it was really windy and they could have gotten some damage (let's hope not!). It's always windy here, so I couldn't just wait for the wind to die down. I've given up on trying to grow anything on a trellis. They ALWAYS blow off or get damaged. I have been keeping an eye on my onions and so far they look okay. I watered them today also. They haven't really spunked up yet, but the new leaves on the onions are pointed up. The older leaves are still down, but not limp. I know my onions were used to growing next to each other and they didn't need to support themselves. I'm hoping that they are just adjusting to their new environment. The next nice day, I'll see if I can't straighten them up by watering them and pushing around the dirt a bit. We're in for some rain so it might be a few days. I'll take some pictures too. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sat, May 16, 09 I bought my seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds. I finally got around to taking my camera out to the garden. My onions have recovered nicely. It did take a week though. I lost 5 plants...maybe they were buried too deep or some fertilizer burn. I shouldn't have sprinkled that little bit of fertilizer on the dirt before planting. I ran out of bone meal, so I thought, why not? I will not do that again! However, the plants are 3 weeks now in the ground and most have doubled in size. Here is an average sized onion plant. _________________________________________________________ Sat, May 16, 09 I thought I would post an update picture on all my onions. About the beginging of June, I removed the row cover from my onions because the leaves were really getting bent and I didn't figure that was a good thing. Most of the leaves are still bent, but are still green, so I assume all is well. Have a happy summer everyone! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Fri, Jun 26, 09 I'm not an experienced onion grower, but from growing onions now, I think a yellowing/dying leaf here and there is completely normal. My onions have been losing a leaf every now and again since the beginning. I don't think it's normal to have lots of onions with lots of dying leaves though. If it's just one per onion, I think that's normal. I went out and took a picture of the bottom of my onions. I usually pull off the dead leaves to keep things looking neat, but I did find some I haven't pulled off yet. Hope that helped Good luck! Catherine _________________________________________________________ Jul 1, 09 at 11:35 I guess I haven't mentioned that I do add fertilizer. I have been adding ammonium sulfate every 18 days since the beginning. The first time I added it was 2 weeks after planting them in the ground. I really think that is why they are doing so well. We've also had a lot of rain, but not too much (yet...). I don't know if planting my seed so early was the best thing to do. I was kind of thinking I might start next year around Feb. 15th (not Jan. 15th like this year). I don't know....maybe Jan 15 was fine. I guess I'll wait and see how this crop turns out before I make any decisions for next year. I will plant them further apart next year. Every 4" isn't enough room. Every 6" would have been better. All of the onions on the edges are growing at an angle. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Jul 1, 09 at 13:42 Well, from what I've read, onions are heavy feeders and do benefit from heavy fertilization. The bigger the leaves = the bigger the bulb. Iâm following the advice giving on the Dixondale FAQ page regarding when/how to fertilize. They are experts at growing onions, so I figured I couldnât go wrong with following their advice. The article mentions to fertilize "every 2 to 3 weeks".18 days is just a number I decided on that was between 2 to 3 weeks. â¦.. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Sun, Jul 26, 09 Itâs been a little over a month since my last onion update. Here is a picture of what they look like now. It has been a very wet and cool/cold summer here in PA. A couple weeks ago I noticed some of the onion leaves were getting a gray fuzzy mold growing on them. To try to control the spread of the mold, I removed all the leaves with any mold on them. During that first week, the mold seemed to stay on just those first few rows of onions. Here is a picture of the mold. For the past 5 days weâve had nothing but rain and more cool temperatures. There was finally a break in the rain yesterday and I noticed the gray mold on my onion leaves was much worse. I sprayed them with some fungicide (neem oil), but today they look no better. Maybe theyâll look better with some time, but Iâm doubtful. The mold has spread to about half of my onion plants and much more of the leaves are infected. The leaves are soft and falling on top of each other, which makes the situation worse. Here is a picture of the infected leaves circled in red. I am unsure on how to proceed. I canât just remove all the leaves that are affected, itâs way too extensive. I hate to pull all infected plants, because that would be half of my entire crop. I donât want this mold to affect the bulb. It would be okay if my bulbs stop getting bigger. They look pretty good right now for the most part (except the onions in the center are smaller due to being planted too close together). Iâll change that for next year for sure). I did pull one infected plant to see if the bulb was okay. The bulb was fine (whew!). If anyone has any experience with molding onions leaves, please share. If I get no advice, Iâll probably just wait and see and hope for some sun. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Mon, Jul 27, 09 I did some more reading after I posted. What I have on the leaves is powdery mildew (did I say that before?). I read that this type of fungus will not usually kill the plant, but will create a poor quality bulb, which will get spongy in storage. So SAD! Everywhere I read, it said the infected plants should be culled. Once the plants are infected itâs very difficult to get rid of it and it will just spread to other plants. So, unfortunately, that's what I did. I pulled any onion that had any fuzz on it. I would say half had the mold. I spent all day chopping them up and putting them in my freezer. I'm hoping to finish that job tomorrow. I hated pulling all those onions but I didnât want them to just rot away in the garden or in storage. The bulbs I did cut up where in great shape. Iâve used lots of frozen onions in the past and I think they are fine. I would just have wished I could have stored them the normal way! The bulbs were in such great shapeâ¦it seemed such a shame to just chop them up. It was a hard decision! I did know I had to pull the plants. The fungus was moving and infected other plants. I donât have a picture of the remaining onions in the garden. They are falling over because they used each other to support themselves. They arenât BENT over just leaning quite a bit. If they start getting yellow, Iâll knock them over. I sprayed the remaining onions with neem oil. I know it's been really wet and cold but I do blame myself for this problem. I planted these plants WAY too close. They are planted where I did have some powdery mildew problems last year (I didn't realize it could infect plants the following year). AND I should have pulled the onions as soon as I saw any fuzz. I would have lost a lot less. A LOT less.... Hindsight is 20/20 :o( My onions are copra. Catherine _________________________________________________________ Thu, Mar 25, 10 Okay...I started this thread over a year ago and this is my last update (probably!) on my onions. (I was happy to see this post revived!) I let those onions sit in my garage for about 6 weeks. It was real obvious when they were dry enough...no more green was visible. I braided them into ropes and stored them in my unheated, yet insulated garage all winter. It gets really cold in there but it doesn't freeze. This was not optimal, but it's what I have. This worked REALLY well. I lost maybe 10 to rot out of all those onions. By mid-March it was getting too warm in the garage and I put the rest of my onions in the fridge. I think I waited a week or so longer than I should have (note to self). Some of the onions were starting to sprout...not too many though. I still have plenty to last through till August (though I doubt they will survive that long...they were not stored perfectly). So, there it is :o) Catherine and just saying....I did start up my onions this year in a 1/2 inch plug tray for ease of transplanting...BIG MISTAKE. Those things dried out so fast and it was so easy to over water. UGH! I killed half of them. I transplanted the survivors to my "old" planting containers and they are doing much better. I wanted 200 onion plants...I might get 150 if I'm lucky. Oh well...live and learn! THE END

Coffee mom, it is hard to tell whether you're being sarcastic or if you're telling me this because you have my best interest at heart. Which is it please? No I'm not trying to be rude, and if I come off that way I apologize as it's not my intent. However it's very difficult to tell how to interpret what you said. That's why I'm asking for clarification with what you said. New2gardenFL, this next message is directed toward you. You said plant vegetables that grow well in the summer. Well I'm not a genius, but to my knowledge vegetables that grow well in the summer are those that love sun and are categorized as "warm weather vegetables". I'm not a genius with gardening, FAR from it. However the reason I'm debating planting veggies from seed like cucumber and green beans is because to my knowledge they ARE warm weather veggies that LIKE the sun and LIKE warm weather. All I'm asking is that if I were to plant bush green beans and cukes from seed now is it too late? Or would they eventually up and die on me because eventually the weather will become so hot that it will be too hot for them to grow and survive and they'll die because the weather will eventually become too hot for them to survive. I know part of this depends on how long it takes for them to germinate and how long it takes for them to complete their maturing cycle. I can't give an exact figure with this, but i know bush green beans take about 2 months from start to finish as an estimate.

Couple Pics After watering when I got home from work. This is a mystery plant that was supposed to be a Bhut last year but clearly was not. Possibly a Twilight, Bolivian rainbow or some type of Cross who knows :) Overwintered cut to stem in a 6 inch pot. Keeping it as an ornamental plant not looking for productivity but has tons of pods and is my healthiest plant. Close up Same plant TS Butch T, Bishops Crown, Bhut Jolokia, Red Savina. All had lots of leaf damage and loss from wind and cold a couple weeks ago. In 16 inch pots. Red Savina is flowering like crazy but wont set pods :(. All 4 have flower drop so far. I also have 9 plants in a in ground Garden at my In Laws house that gets much better sun. Last time I was there the scotch bonnet had one set baby pod and that was it so far for the 9 plants. All experienced same cold and wind problems :( But are coming back nicely.

I will try to condense this because I could pontificate for hours on this! My love for gardening came from my father. He was the ultimate green thumb-he didn't have formal training that i know of, but he was a street tree gardener for two of the communities we grew up in, and always had a vegetable garden as a way to supplement our large family's food budget.(Six kids) He was a school music teacher and when summer vacation began he was always found out back tending the garden for pretty much the whole summer. Of all six children I seemed to be the most interested in what he did-and my first memory of my own interest was when he gladly allowed me to plant marigolds around the border of his garden to keep pests away(this was a fairly large plot and now I know why he jumped at my offer to help him!)I was in elementary school at the time. Also eating a tomato whole and sprinkled with salt always brings dad's tomatoes to mind. And asparagus and homemade pickles.... That was my first taste of working in a garden. It wasn't until I was a first-time homeowner that I knew I was going to be a gardener but I chose to go the route of flowers instead of vegetables. The saddest thing, though was that the year before I moved into my new home, my dad developed Alzheimer's disease and everything I needed to ask him for gardening advice about trees and organic gardening was completely gone-he was just a shell of my father-quite sad. Not a day goes by when I'm in my yard and garden that I don't think of Dad and the gift he gave me. I just wanted to share it with him. He passed away two months ago. Just an interesting note; Our family surname has it's origin from Poland and it means 'gardener of an estate' I find that kind of neat. Maybe it's in our bloodline to be gardeners! * Posted by: pkock Zone 6 (My Page) on Tue, May 28, 02 at 2:44 So glad to find this thread - hope it lasts, because it's fun! Honestly, I am not sure what got me hooked. I think it's my tendency to love "scientific" stuff - I never pursued it professionally, but I'll make anything into a science experiment. I got through two pregnancies with that attitude. ;-) My grandma was the gardener in our family. She lived with us, and each year we had to have a veggie garden. My dad wasn't into yard work much, but was "forced" into the labor required, turning over the clay soil with a spade and protesting the entire time. Always basic stuff - tomatoes, peppers, pole beans, but they sure tasted good. We had strawberries for a couple of years, and there was a big apple tree in our yard that grew "cooking" apples. Grandma made lots of pies and applesauce. Then there was Girl Scouts - one year we had a hike with a knowledgeable person who pointed out all the fantastic wild plants along the trail. I absorbed it all like a sponge. This is rare, this is edible, this is a cure for poison ivy, etc. I still remember most of it, teach my daughter, and soon will teach her scout troop too. I was voted "Miss Outdoorswoman" in high school. Isn't that neat? Some things never change. :) --Pam * Posted by: Lucy2 Z7Atlanta (My Page) on Wed, May 29, 02 at 8:23 I love reading these. I remember going to visit my grandparents in Texas every summer. We lived in New Hampshire and would fly down and my grandparents would meet us at the airport. The first thing we would do when we got to Grandma's house was run to her garden. Every year she planted a watermelon JUST FOR US! Oh, how special that was. We would walk into the garden and she would "double check that it was ripe and time to pick it and she would let us watch as she "ever so gently" plucked the watermelon from the garden and we would sit on her front porch all afternoon eating the best watermelon we had ever tasted and spitting seeds as far as we could. Sadly, my Aunt burst my childhood memory bubble (when I was in my 40's but it still hurt!) by telling me that my Grandparents would go to the grocery store the night before we flew in, buy a watermelon and lay it in the garden "just for us", pretending they planted it and grew it all along...I guess I'm in denial because I still tell my children about those fond memories! * Posted by: becki3 z5 IN (My Page) on Tue, Jul 23, 02 at 20:34 Can I still step in here? This is such a wonderful thread, brought back some great memories. But now I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes and a big lump in my throat. One of my first garden memories is of my next-door neighbor when I was very small. She had a gigantic (to me) gooseberry bush that she would make pies for us from, if I would pick the berries. And she also had a thick grape vine that she would sit down with me in the middle of the yard and eat grapes from right off the vine. We always sat on the other side of it so my mom couldn't see us from the window. I don't think she would have minded, but my neighbor made it fun, thinking we were being secretive. She also had about a million plants in her house that she would show me all the time. Thinking back on it now, I realize they were mostly African violets. She was in her late 80's, early 90's, and I thought she was the best neighbor a girl could ever have. (still do) :) Then there was my grandpa. When he was a teen in the service, he had come home to visit his mom just before being shipped overseas. He took ONE little segment from her Christmas cactus, which had been a wedding present 25 years before that, and put it in his wallet. He then drove all the way across the country (took a few days), all the while sitting on this wallet. Just before being shipped out, he stuck this one little smashed, dried up piece of Christmas cactus and stuck it in a little pot of dirt from the ground outside his barracks. I'm not sure what happened to it (where it was, who took care of it) while he was in the war. But I do know that when he died in 1994, that Christmas cactus was not only alive, but very, very, VERY big. He had built a planter for it on wheels so he could move it outside in the summer and back inside for the winter. He also had a ramp leading up to his patio door, which he had to remove to get it through. This "planter" was 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. Filled all the way with soil and thick, long roots. And the plant filled every inch of the top of the soil and hung down to the floor all around. He had to give it a "haircut" every time he moved it in or out so he wouldn't run over it with the wheels. I now have a pretty good size pot of this same plant in my husband's office, where it sits in front of a huge window all year long and blooms from Oct to around May every year. I ask about or stop by to check on this plant about once a week. I'm always terrified I might lose this plant, I feel like somehow I would be losing my grandpa all over again. Or that he might be disappointed in me for letting his precious plant die after having survived 4 generations in our family. But my all-time favorite childhood memories (of any kind) come from my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill. They had a big farm in Missouri with a couple horses, a coop full of chickens, and about 300 head of dairy and beef cows at any given time. Along with the usual couple of dogs and a barn full of cats. And I remember one time my Aunt sent me out with the horse to get a few apples from the big tree out in the east pasture to make a pie for dinner. She told me to get a sack out of the barn to carry them in. Well, being about 8 or 9 at the time, I had no idea how many apples it took to make a pie. So I took 2 big gunny sacks, and me and Ginger (the horse) set out to find that big tree. Ginger was so patient with me as I stood on her back on the blanket that I rode with (never used a saddle) to pick all the apples that I could reach. I tied these two gunny sacks across her back and filled them up full. (poor horse!) When I got back, I didn't think my Aunt and Uncle would ever stop laughing. Instead of a few apples for a pie, I had just picked enough apples for an entire week of non-stop canning, freezing, and baking everything we could think of that contained apples. Then there were the times that Aunt Julia and I would pack a picnic basket to take out to my Uncle Bill when he was working the fields. We would sit under a big tree and just watch him disking the field, or baling the hay until he noticed us in the distance. Then he would come get me and let me drive the big tractors for a while before we ate. But one of my most vivid and comforting memories is of me and Aunt Julia sitting on the porch swing snapping beans or shelling peas. I can't remember who picked those beans and peas, or what she did with them afterwards. But just sitting there snapping and shelling, not even having to speak, but feeling like the most loved person in the world. I just started to garden seriously for myself last year, and this year I had to have those green beans and peas. And I think of my Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill every time I go out to the garden. I almost started crying when my daughter (5yo) asked me the first time if she could help me shell the peas. She had so much fun with them I didn't even mind the ones that kept flying across the kitchen to land under the cabinets or off in a corner with the dust bunnies. And I can just see my Aunt and Uncle smiling now (more like giggling probably). Right now I think I need to call them (they live in Arizona now) and tell them how much I love and miss them, and maybe thank you for teaching me about all the things I love the most. Then I think I will sit down and start crocheting an afghan for Aunt Julia (she taught me how to do that when I was 6). Luckily I learned to crochet a lot better than I learned how to milk a cow (sorry Uncle Bill)! Thanks for letting me take this stroll! Becki :) * Posted by: Mirri 5 (Finland) (My Page) on Fri, Jul 26, 02 at 3:06 My first attempt to garden vegetables was when I was 9. I loved peas, so I wanted to grow them. My father formed me a lot saying it would be too hard for me, turning the thick soil. Then I sow the peas and watered them for about 2 weeks. Then my first dog - who died of old age a few years back at 13- had a friend over. They were just puppies back then, running and playing. My daddy warned me, but I wanted to let them play on our rather tiny lot. They run over my pea-lot several times, breaking all those tender 15cm pea shoots. Oh, how I cried. Then I took little sticks and tied the shoots back up. Most of them recovered. Then the dogs, Roope and Olga, run the pea shoots down again after a week or so. And I gave up. I quit gardening for about 10 years. I only had a few cacti which I killed and bought new ones. But now I am a horticulturist. Working, ironically, in a greenhouse that produces pea shoots! I think that the wonder of growing, seeing the shoots come up from earth was a positive thing in the end. Even though I didn`t get to harvest the peas. This year I have a tiny pea-lot again, the first time after I was 9. I have harvested some, but my dog keeps steeling the pods before I find them. When I was 17 I found gardening again, in the form of houseplants. I was living in a tiny oneroom flat without balcony. The houseplant hobby lead me into studying horticulture. Now I have a son and 2 dogs. If Pyry wants to be a little gardener, I will build a fence around his lot. * Posted by: prairie_rose southalta (My Page) on Tue, Aug 20, 02 at 23:56 my earliest memories. being sat in the potato patch with a coffee can with some kerosene in the bottom and picking potato bugs and putting them in the can. i think that was the way my mom and grandma kept us out of their hair on wash day ( the old wringer washer, rinse tub, mangler days.) i remember the smell of the compost heap, and i never thought it was nasty. my grandpa and i spent lots of time there, spreading things out, turning it over occasionally. i think i must have got compost in my veins, replaced all the blood, cause i still don't find the compost heap all that nasty. (compost tea, well that is a different story. lol) i remember i hated bringing kids to our house in the fall cause you could smell the crocks of sauerkraut brewing. we lived on the edge of town, and i swear my mom was the only one who canned. but i couldn't wait for it to be ready and eating the stuff till i was sure i would burst. i remember we were the "poor kids" but we ate better than any of my friends, and were healthier than most of my friends. the garden was a way of life, and everyone was expected to pitch in. and when harvest happened, everyone was expected to come home to can. my mom would pick the weekend and as young adults, we all showed up. 5 women in a kitchen!!!!! lots of hard work, but lots of laughs, too. and when it was over we all got our share to take home. now, i am a single mom with two kids, and all those lessons are paying huge dividends. my two are the "poor kids" but they eat better than most of their friends and are healthier than most, too. what i save at the supermarket because of the garden pays the morgage and the extras for the kids. and this year, my daughter is taking an active part in the canning. i just wish my grandma, mom and sisters were here, too. * Posted by: lynne_s z5ny (My Page) on Mon, Sep 9, 02 at 22:23 I remember planting potatoes on my grandfather's farm in the early spring when i was about 4 years old. We weren't just planting a little garden patch...I swear this field must have been at least an acre. I remember the fun we had, laughing and running around in the dirt...getting dirty, but it was ok..we were doing something productive. I remember Grampa explaining the different types...we even planted purple potatoes from Russia. Later in our visit to his farm my brothers and sisters and I helped plant the seeds that would become carrots, corn and beans. I remember trudging through the brambles in search of the elusive blueberry bushes...after a morning of picking berries, we'd stop and have lunch...Grampa would take a fishing line and hook out of his pocket and catch small trout from a nearby stream and we'd roast them on a stick over a fire...just like a hot dog. He amazed me...the man could survive in the wilderness with nothing, and probably live better than most of us do today. lol The outdoors was his church; where he prayed, pondered and planned his life. My grandfather, retired by this time still loved gardening and sold his veggies every summer from his down-sized farm. We spent the entire spring and summer there. Everything we ate and drank came from that farm. I still remember how wonderful everything tasted...the taste of fresh food was foreign to me then. I went back to Grampa's farm many times until he passed...there, I worked hard, enjoyed the freedom of being in the outdoors and learned how important it was to treat our planet with respect, for it is what feeds us. It seems I forgot a lot of his wisdom until quite recently. Now that I'm a Mom of 5 boys, with many mouths to feed as well as many personalities and value systems to help develop, the things he taught me are returning. My husband and I have purchased a home out in the country trying to create an environment for our boys that my Grampa created for us...one of fresh air, sun, fun and respect for all things living...an I'm proud to say, we are well on our way! * Posted by: KCtomato1 z5/6 KC, Mo (My Page) on Sat, Sep 14, 02 at 0:36 My grandfathers both got me started. My first memory is of dark purple tulips and tulips that were taller than I. I recall what a joy it was grandpa let me pick one. Somewhere in the family, someone has a picture of it. I was 2-3. Both gardened but it was my paternal grandfather that let me try everything. He introduced me to raw veggies. I still prefer them over cooked. He would also let me in the berry patch - which is what really got me growing. He made a deal with me - if I picked 2 I could eat one. He'd go in and I would pick 'em clean of course taking the best for myself. We both walked away thinking we got the better deal. My maternal Grandfather taught me more on the "how's" rather than the "whats". He grew to sell and was not keen on kids picking things he could potentially sell. When I was small I would go out to the garden where he was working just to be with him and I'd watch. I would have worked but he wouldn?t let me. He thought I was nuts for wanting to work. He told me there were snakes in the berry patch in an "effort" to keep me out. Most the time he ran me off I was just looking for the snake. Him teaching me things came at a much older age. Im grateful for the time I did spend with them and the gift they passed on. Keith * Posted by: bizmhamama CA z10 (My Page) on Tue, Oct 8, 02 at 15:09 This answers your interest in childhood memories in a roundabout way. My parents and I immigrated to the United States when I was four years old and I never really knew my expanded family. My mother, who grew up on a sugar plantation, cared absolutely nothing for getting her hands dirty. Our back yard was concrete! Her only gardening interest was roses. I became interested in indoor plants as a teenager and then became obsessed with succulents once I moved out of the house & had a patch of dirt of my own. I even wondered what it would take to go back to school for a landscaping degree, and daydreamed about owning a nursery. My maternal grandmother came to America only a few years ago. I was fairly shocked to learn that she loves gardening! She grows guava trees from seed. In her 80s, she still derives incredible enjoyment from simply watching living things grow. I realize now my passion for gardening would have been sparked much earlier in life if geography (& politics!) hadn't intervened.