When I was six, my father led me to the side of our rented house and gave me my first lesson in gardening. We were planting tomatoes, and I learned about spacing, staking, and exposure. Years later, I still plant tomatoes. ‘Better Boy’ has replaced ‘Burpee Big Boy,’ ‘Beefmaster’ has replaced ‘Beefsteak,’ and the cherry tomatoes now are named varieties ‘Juliet’ and ‘SunSugar.’

The gardening lessons of my childhood have stood the test of time. I have definitely branched beyond tomatoes, but many of the vegetables and flowers I now plant, I first experienced growing in my father’s garden. When I was eight, we moved to a new home, which is still in the family. The somewhat larger garden there has been home to flowering trees and shrubs, a larger lawn, annuals and perennials, a couple of fruit trees, and a larger vegetable garden. Everything from asparagus to zucchini has been planted and harvested, though there has not always been a direct correlation between seeds sown and produce harvested; alas, the garden has taught so many lessons in this regard.

Indeed, throughout the years, horticulture has taught so many lessons. I learned biology, whether relating to the plants I was growing or the pests that challenged the harvest. I learned a bit of arithmetic, whether from counting seeds or space devoted to a crop, whether from calculating germination rates or yields, or whether from measuring the height certain tomato plants grew relative to the stakes used to rein them in place. I learned some chemistry, whether relating to the Nitrogen, Phosphorous, or Potassium in fertilizers used or to the oxidation that occurred when metal and dirt combined with a bit of moisture to leave a rusty edge on a tool. I even learned some Latin, as well as some English, some history and some art, as I studied plants and their names, their backgrounds, and their use.

The garden has also taught me many life lessons. I learned a great deal about the senses and each sense’s role in defining the moment. There is nothing sweeter than the feeling you get from moving warm, friable soil around a plant with your bare hands and tasting the fruits of your labors a couple of months later! I certainly learned about patience. And humility. About risk and reward. I developed friendships through the garden as well, whether it was the neighbor who worked in a local greenhouse or one of my dad’s business partners, who was a landscape architect by training.

The garden has made me appreciate both Mother Nature and nature, the force, and the surroundings. I learned about cause and effect, about effort expended and harvests reaped. There was indeed a great satisfaction achieved when my mother asked if there was something in the garden she could use for dinner and I had something to contribute. Gardening also taught me about heritage, whether relating to the derivation of the cultivars I now use, the tutelage of my father sharing those first gardening lessons, the first vegetable and fruit cooking lessons shared by my mother (e.g., pumpkin pie filling made from my own pumpkins, which eventually led to a pie after hours of cooking down the pumpkin flesh), or even the Sedum plants that my father’s mother contributed to the garden, which still bloom every August into September.

Gardening has indeed provided a lifelong reward. It was something my father first shared, and over 50 years later, our weekend phone calls often still include a few minutes of conversation about what each has planted or harvested, what has bloomed early or late, and whether the past week’s weather has helped or hurt the garden’s progress. It’s easy being passionate about gardening, when I consider, in its own little way, the garden has provided so much beauty to the neighborhood, to the homestead, and especially to life.

Happy Summer!