Out of small and simple things

I'm trying to remember accurately. Did Mom truly love to garden? Gardening is super hard work: planning, ordering seeds, starting seedlings, cultivating the ground, fertilizing, digging, furrowing straight rows, planting, transplanting, dusting for bugs, covering for frosts, thinning, replanting, watering, weeding, harvesting ... ! Add to this endless list the enormous challenge of involving four unwilling children in each of these steps, teaching them to plant, weed, water and harvest. 

Did she love it? Are you crazy? Actually, I think she did, believe it or not. Dad built her the most elemental of greenhouses.

Mom and Stephanie

I love this snapshot of Mom with Stephanie in front of her tiny hotbed where she was growing seedlings for the garden. She had already started the process of teaching the next generation.

I well remember her excitement each winter at receiving the Burpee Gardening Seed Catalog in the mail. Perhaps pouring over the pictures of lush green plants when outside her window snow was still falling was part of the attraction. She would study every picture and dogear corners of pages with things she wanted to try. 

This must have been where she learned about kohlrabi. I recently read an article titled, "14 Vegetables You've Probably Never Heard Of". Number four on the list was kohlrabi, but I knew about it because it grew in our garden in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Have you tried it? It's really good.

Kohlrabi

In the book of Alma, we read, "but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass ..." Mom must be so proud of the the great things that have come from her small beginnings.

Dad's Archer greenhouse

Dad built a very fine greenhouse to the side of his Archer home. Wouldn't Mom be thrilled! Cleo has carried on the tradition of planting and sowing. This photo shows some of her labors through the windows. The flowers in front probably had their beginning during the waning winter months inside the greenhouse.

    








Kevin developed a thriving business based upon Mom's gardening lessons. Many family members have been employed at his Sunnyside Gardens in Idaho Falls. 

Kevin and Marilyn are now serving a mission which involves caring for the lands and gardens at Adam-Ondi-Ahman, which is believed to be just outside the Garden of Eden.

While they serve, their son Aaron and his family carry on the work at Sunnyside Gardens back at home. Oh, how I'd love to send these pictures of their marvelous greenhouses to Mom. She would frame them for sure.

Sunnyside Garden greenhouses

Mom not only loved to plant vegetables, she loved to cook them, preserve them, and eat them. She shared that love with her children. Each summer I looked forward to joining Mom and her cousin Rosemary Humphries on their excursion to Northern Utah to pick cherries and peaches to bring home to can. Our traditional summer family vacation was visiting our cousins in Fruitland, Parma and Ontario, where we spent a portion of the time harvesting and canning fresh corn. On evenings when Dad wasn't going to be home for dinner, we could count on a delicious meatless meal of vegetables, such as fresh green beans or peas from the garden. 

Sandi's blog about the joys of eating vegetables

The small and simple things taught in our home and garden grow in other ways. Sandi has studied extensively about plants and vegetables. This has become the focus of her career and she shares what she has learned in her job as well as on a blog at http://plant-your-plate.com/.

We are all so thankful for the small and simple things learned at our mother's knee, which was often found kneeling in her garden.