Garden junkies

In May of 1999 we bought our home. It was great having more space for our growing family (2 kids in a one-bedroom basement apartment is pushing it just a little). The change that was most surprising to me, however, was my new found interest in gardening.

I hated gardening as a kid. It was always Dad making me weed; Dad making me dig up potatoes; Dad making me pick up rocks in the garden. Even worse was dinner during summertime. It seemed like every night all we had was corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes. Dad would always brag, "Everything here on this table came from our garden." I was OK with corn and potatoes, but I couldn't stand tomatoes, and cucumbers were even worse.

Inexplicably, after I had a plot of soil of my own, some long dormant gardening gene started to sprout (sorry, but that pun was just unavoidable). It all started with just a few little potted plants. It couldn't hurt; everyone was doing it, I told myself. But then I moved on to starting my own seeds under shop lights in the basement. After a while I ripped out some lawn to expand the flower bed "just a little." "Just this one little spot won't hurt." Years later my front lawn is almost non-existent, and I found myself needing more and more unusual plants to get by. I stay awake at night scheming about some little spot where I can shoehorn in some more plants.

I started out with just flowers, but I all too soon branched out to vegetables (sorry about that pun, I couldn't help it). I was getting a very suspicious feeling that I was turning into my dad. My brother, Clair, was telling me about how he was really into plants. My cousin, Cameron, spoke at his dad's funeral and talked about how his dad would always make him garden and he hated it, but now he loves gardening. Even my sister, Carrie, is now planting tomatoes.

What's going on here?! I can't decide if it's just part of getting older and more mature, or if there is some deep primal need in our souls to make something grow. Maybe it's the farmer heritage that runs in our veins that compels us to till the soil and plant. Whatever it is, it feels right and is very satisfying to me. What do you think?