Stories Rattling Around in My Mind: The Blessing of a Green Thumb

Christmas is over and a New Year is begun. On the west coast of Canada, where I live, thoughts will quickly turn to spring. Indeed, as I am out walking nearly every day, I find myself looking closely at the gardens I pass by to see if any crocuses or early daffodils are peeking out. The coming Spring reminds me that my Mother was blessed with a green thumb. She had the knack of growing things.

Mother grew up on a farm near Bruderheim, Alberta, a town east of Edmonton founded by Moravian pioneers fleeing persecution in Bolshevik Russia but all were welcome. The eldest of eight children, her lot fell to helping in the kitchen and working in the garden as well as caring for her younger brothers and sisters. That early experience helped her in her garden when she had her own family to look after.

When I was growing up in Edmonton, most houses had a vegetable garden in the backyard. Our house, on 102nd Street had not only a backyard vegetable garden but also the entire front yard planted in potatoes. Mother always claimed that the soil was not good enough to grow anything else but our neighbours were able to have nice green lawns so I suspect that the real reason was that she had four hungry boys to feed.

When we moved to the West End, my older brothers were gone and the first year we lived in that house we still had a vegetable garden in the back but there was a large flower bed and a nice green lawn that only Mother could mow in the front of the house . The next year, she eliminated the vegetable garden, except for one small bed for growing tomatoes, and began planting her much loved flower garden in earnest.

She liked to tell the story of how one of her prize tomatoes mysteriously disappeared. It happened during the time that the stucco on the house was being replaced with aluminium siding. One of the workers greatly admired the tomatoes he saw growing in the garden so he became the likely suspect. On the last day of the job, the workers packed up their equipment and left. Later that evening, Mother discovered that the largest of her prize beef-steak tomatoes was missing. It had fallen victim to finger blight but there was no way to prove who was the guilty party.

Mother joined The Edmonton Horticultural Society and for many years she won first prize for her begonia display and other prizes for her roses and gladioli. People from all over the city came to visit the garden and she made many friends. It was a sad day for her when old age forced them to sell the house and move into a seniors apartment. She claimed that working in the garden was the best cure for arthritis but the day came when the knees just wouldn't bend. The people who bought the house were not interested in gardening and not long after they moved in, all the flower beds were replaced by lawn. We never allowed Mother to drive by the house again.