My first garden was my grandmother's. She had been an actual farmer, born in 1911 to a Black sharecropping family in Collin County, Texas. She felt it was important that her grandchildren learn how to work the soil and learn how to grow food, so we spent a lot of time doing just that.
What I didn't know was that in the front of the house, the neighborhood was descending into the horrors of the crack cocaine epidemic. This was Grandmother's contribution to us needing to have an outdoor life that was sheltered from the foolishness that would destroy the lives of nearly all of my peers. Instead, we grew up growing nasturtiums, geraniums, roses, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, strawberries, blackberries, apples, and even the occasional bell pepper (although the climate is really too cool here for peppers). I learned how to trim hedges and trees and how to dig out invasive plants and weed the soil. This also gave me the beginning of my now life-long love of nature and the outdoors, and started me as a forager, because blackberries can be found all over Northern California, and arbutus strawberry trees, ornamental plums, fig trees, currant bushes, and the occasional peach tree grow on sidewalks and in the parks!
Fast forward all these years; I now have Grandmother's old backyard, and the soil is exhausted of calcium as I found out last year ... but it is nothing that some dry milk, old Tums that Grandmother left behind, and some oatmeal won't fix so I can grow her favorite things: organic tomatoes. "These taste like tomatoes are supposed to taste like!" she said to me when I presented her my first crop as a teenager. It had been hard, all those years in the big city, and with the commodification of food ... but, something that had brought her a living and brought her grandchildren a safe space at last had made full circle ... and the calcium of those old Tums will yet support one more crop of her favorite things.
Crack cocaine versus gardening? I know what I'd chose. You know, it strikes me that gardening is so darn hopeful, community minded, meditative and therapeutic, good for gut health etc - it's exactly what the kids need. I wonder how many communities would be different if there were gardens at their centre.
What a wonderful woman your Grandmother was, giving you a love of gardening that would last a lifetime, and that ensured she lived on through your own green thumbs.
Can I ask though, from this ignorant Aussie, what are old Tums?
A beautiful piece of writing that reminded me of my own Nana, who passed on her gardening love to me. I think it might skip a generation though - my son is a city boy who moved to Melbourne at first chance he got. Saying that, his fiance and brother in law are really keen on urban permaculture and he's being forced to bottle tomatoes, fetch garden supplies and dig garden beds in city backyards against his will. One day, I know, he'll be planting tomatoes with the best of us.
Tums are a calcium-rich chewable antacid ... Grandmother left a lot of them behind ... Dad thought he was going to use them, but then we discovered what was really going on with all our digestions (insufficient veggies, bad food combos) and so didn't need them any more!
Oh wow there you go!! Here they are Rennies or QuickEze.
How much innocent wisdom our ancestors keep, in the kindness of the grandmother's cultivation was her natural instinct for the preservation of life and the very rich teaching for her lineage. In spite of the fact that the things around were, with a twisted interest, her sowing gave you nourishment and love for the organic, what a good story. Thank you for sharing
Grandma did keep you guys safe from the invasion of cocaine. And you guys growing up around growing and sprouting plants made all the difference. Today, you have been able to recreate the same lifestyle and your grandchildren will learn from you as you did from grandma. β€οΈβ€οΈ
It is so unbelievably awesome when things come full circle!!
I've heard that out of date yoghurt is the biz too - not only for calcium but for adding probiotics to the soil generally.
Good to know! I bought my potatoes that year some time with sour milk, although it was too late to save them, so this makes good sense!
How interesting! Lovely tip!
I also inherited my green thumb from my grandmother! Maybe it skips a generation. How did you know your soil was calcium deficient? Old Tums, eh? I'll have to keep that mind.
You know your soil is calcium deficient in a few ways:
It will grow dandelions that will out-compete everything else (they have a long taproot that will grow deep down to get what they need, and bring it up)
Every time you try to grow a Solanum member of the family (tomatoes or potatoes) they stop growing, go yellow from the bottom leaves, and then suddenly die. Poor things literally starved to death -- they have high calcium needs!
Thank you! Based on this, it seems like there is still plenty of calcium in my soil... for now.
It is so nice to have inherited your grandmother's garden.
Never met mine so I love this idea of it, my grandma was also had a garden but after I was born, nothing was left.
Consider this ... to SOMEONE, you may someday be the person that leaves the legacy ... don't know if you are into gardening, but, it's just a thought...
I have a bunch of things I will love to leave behind so this is a great thought, thank you.
Beautiful story and you always have such a great way of narrating your stories!
Your grandmother was clearly a wonderful and very wise woman!
There is a whole philosophy behind gardening, it is not just planting seeds. It is also personally growing and creating powerful connections with Mother Earth! Amazing way to protect you and keep you away from the unpleasant parallel reality that took place in front of the house...
And the story closes with a full cycle! Have the most amazing time (and the most amazing tomatoes) in this garden @deeanndmathews!