Gardening with my grandmother was the best. She let me pick green beans, and dig for potatoes. The digging part was my favorite. I just loved being out in the garden with her(which was huge btw)and listening to her tell me all about the plants and how to grow them. I was in elementary school at the time, but to this day I love gardening and always think of her when I'm out in my garden.

Picking figs. Huge in memory (although in size, no!) Celeste figs from a large tree we would climb. You were allowed to eat the ones you picked but had to pick enough to satisfy her too. The leaves made a 'ss' noise as if snakes were in the garden, and the fig tree was sticky. The mirliton vine was over it all (how did the fig survive? I don't know) and if you were not careful you would bonk your head on one of the horrid green things. The birds knew she loathed cats, and if one came in the yard they set up a row; she would then come out and lob bricks at them. Not a sweet, gentle grandmother at all! Great figs, though.

I remember planting zinnias with my Gram every year. She loved those zinnias. I do too - such great colors and butteflies love them.
Also our apple tree when I was a kid. Loved to climb it and Mom made everything imaginable from those apples.

OK so here is my fav memory about the garden, one we still talk about and giggle over each time my sister and I get together, but as a mom now I know I should have been in deep trouble...
Summer was over and the first frost had struck, but the day was so warm it was almost hot. My mother made my sister and I go out to the garden to pull the tomato plants. We had been working for ever and the tomatoes were soft and squishy and really gross. My sister was about five feet away from me and we were starting to fuss at each other. We both raised up at the same time and I lobbed one of those big nasty matoes right at her. It hit her with a squashy splat and busted right in her face, oh it was awful! She still to this day brings this up, and to this day I still get the giggles over her screaming and running to the house.
Not as nice as everyone elses memories, but every spring when I put in my matoes I think of that warm fall day. Becky

My best memory is with my Grandmother. Grandma always had a variety of flowers but I was not allowed to pick any of them except for pansies. Grandma said that pansies needed to be picked every day. The more you picked them, the more they bloomed. Also my Dad loved Sweet Peas and I do too. I really ejoyed "sniffing" them when I was a child. My worse memory was weeding the carrots! All the weeds definetely loved carrots!

It's so nice to see how many people have had such wonderful experiences with their grandparents in the garden. I too learned to love gardening and appreciate the beauty of nature from my grams and paps. The most wonderful thing for me was watching my grandpap convert the Brunswick pool table in the basement into his seed-starting table. He would cover it with plastic, add a few more flourescent lights, and before you knew it, the table dissappeared and the plants took over. I wish someone would have taken a picture....all those years (20+) and no one ever took a picture! After he transplanted everything into the garden I would watch him tenderly caring for his "babies" every day. The best moment was when the first kohlrabi was ready. I couldn't wait to have a slice, sprinkled with salt. My grandpap is gone now, but I think of him every day while I'm out in my greenhouse caring for my "babies".

When I was in elementary school we livied in a house that had a low stone wall at the end of the driveway. My mom use to plant red salvias on top of the wall every year. We would sit on the wall on warm summer days and pull the middle piece (the anther?) out and suck out one small drop of necter. My mom never said a word about all the red flower parts laying on the driveway!

You are probably all too young to remember the "Victory Garden" that the government encouraged families to plant so that food could be sent for the troops and the starving folks in Europe. When I was a kid, we had a sizable one and we grew tomatoes, carrots, string beans, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi and potatoes in the rich, rich Long Island NY soil. My Dad would make and can tomato relish. Every time he did, we would have an air raid! I don't think I have ever tasted veggies as good as we grew then and the garden gave us a sense of participating positively in the war effort.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, my friends and I had a favorite 'hangout spot' at a nearby corner. The house on that corner belonged to the Goldberg family, who had twin girls. Mr & Mrs Goldberg were very strict and wouldn't allow the girls to play with us (apologies here for being politically incorrect, but the reason was that girls weren't allowed to play with non-Jewish children... and none of our group was Jewish, in fact the Goldbergs were the only such family on our street so we rarely even saw the girls outdoors... I know it sounds awful but remember, this was the '50s). But right at that corner of their front yard was a group of HUGE honeysuckle bushes. They were the only honeysuckles on our street, and they smelled SOOO wonderful! We'd 'taste' them too, as we'd sit on the curb at the corner, hang out, and wait for whoever else in our group of friends would be able to come out and play. The great thing about that corner was that everyone could see it from their house, so you'd know just by looking out your window who was outside and who wasn't. This became especially important to us gals as we got a little older and wanted to see if a particular boy was there yet or not! ;-) The sad part, though, was that every so often we'd see one of the Goldberg girls watching us through a window and you could tell she was just dying to come out and play with us but "wasn't allowed".

To this day, whenever I smell honeysuckle it takes me right back to those summer days, evenings, and nights growing up with my childhood friends. I was so thrilled to find honeysuckle already growing in the yard of the house I recently bought!

mom was gardening and she wanted to teach me how to grow stuff. She gave me a tiny pebble looking thing and got me to put it in a 4" flower pot, cover it with soil and water it every couple days. I nursed the thing for I dont know how long and I was completely amazed to find a huge radish under the grassy bits that has grown from the pebble looking thing. It was like seeing magic!

I raised carrots one year and decided to sell them door to door to make some money (I was five). I had this tremendous marketing scheme. My small carrots sold for a nickel a piece, my medium size carrots sold for a dime a piece and my two large carrots sold for $5 a piece. I didn't sell the $5 carrots but I got a lot of smiles.

My dad gave me my own plot of ground for my own garden from the time I was five years old. I've loved gardening ever since.

My great grandmother gave me the gardening bug when I was 3, she had this terraced area right next to the house as you are going up the steps. There she grew all sorts of yummy herbs and pretty flowers. I was in charge of gathering a handfull o'this and a sprig o'that for whatever meal she was getting ready to cook. Sadly, neither of my great aunts nor my cousins are *green* thumbs and they turned the terrace into a seating area. The good news is there are still wild blueberries, raspberries and wild camphor (sp),dandelion and other plants I know are edible though I have no clue what most of them are.