I've been feeling a little gloomy for the past couple of days. The weather picked up and now it has packed in again. Our flower and vegetable gardens are once again sodden, my seedlings have told me they're too cold and it feels like everything I have got enthusiastic about is on hold.
However I lay in bed last night and reminisced about my parents gardens and I started to feel a little spoilt and precious.
Mum and Dad nurtured gardens in some difficult places. They both came from families who gardened so they were always going to follow that path. Dad was in the NZ Army and when he was posted to Singapore for 2 years (where I was born) they established a vegetable garden there, which is not easy in the tropics. I'm not sure exactly what they grew but I know locals were quite astonished at what they managed to grow.
They returned home to Waiouru and then Burnham and Christchurch where they had very productive vegie gardens and then it was back to Waiouru where I spent most of my childhood. Their vegie patch was amazing even though the growing season was quite short.
The photo's are of my 3 brothers (and me in the lower one). They were obviously in Cubs and - to earn their Gardening Badge - they each had a vege patch of their own when we lived in Christchurch - you can just see it behind them. This would have been taken circa 1965.
I love that Mum and Dad gave us their legacy of gardening.
So I'm not going to moan about the weather, I'm just going to appreciate what I've got and who gave it to me.
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