I began my gardening education when I was 10 years old. I picked up a seed catalog my dad received in the mail and got the idea that I wanted to plant a garden. My parents were both busy working to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table so they never had time to help me with any of my crazy ideas. However, they deserve a special word of thanks from me and the badge of saint hood as they never discouraged or disallowed my continuous crazy projects. Even the time when I took over the family swimming pool to raise fish, and built a 30 foot high wind mill to pump and filter the water so that I did not have to use electric. But back to the garden; they gave me a small patch of yard and said go to it. Even then I knew that I did not want to eat anything that was grown with chemicals. So before organic gardening or getting off the grid was popular, I was on the path without knowing it.
Now, I don’t remember those early gardens anymore as they were a long time ago, but I do remember that they got bigger and bigger as the years went by until I was using half of our backyard by the time I went to college. Our property was just under an acre. Those early gardens must have been fairly successful though as I do remember eating those fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and zucchini and selling the excess on a TV tray in our front yard. As for the windmill, well it worked great for about a month but I do remember the heart break of coming home from school one windy day to find it crashed to the ground.
This page would not be complete without giving credit to the person who has had the greatest impact on my gardening methods. Sometime early in my garden education I found a wonderful book called "Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book". It has guided my gardening methods ever since. This web page gives you my experience in gardening using the no-work garden technique that Ruth Stout tault me many years ago. Thanks...Ruth