My father-in-law, Roland, was a true gardener and fine carpenter. The above picture of a bowl was hand-carved by him out of the stump from an old rose. I believe it was the root of the old plant.
I remember spending beautiful summer days at his yard around hollyhocks, Iceland poppies, plume flowers, camellias, and alstroemeria… Just to mention a few.
Every fall, Roland would grind up the old plants and add them to his mulch pile. The earth in his garden was rich and yielded the best-tasting fruits and vegetables.
One summer, he grew so many boysenberries that we had them for salad and dessert. The berries were served by themselves as a salad. Then at the desert time, my mother-in-law stuffed homemade cream puffs with the berries and topped them with whipped cream.
He planted an orange tree by the curbside and every spring we’d bring home loads of the fragrant fruits. The peels of the orange were sticky with natural sugars from the fruit. We had to eat over the sink because the oranges were dripping with juice. To keep up with consuming the oranges that were produced, we had to make fresh orange juice often. Yes, spoiled we were.
The funniest thing about his gardening was what my parents said regarding his corn on the cob. He waited for the water to boil on the stove, then he harvested the corn from the backyard and tossed them into the pot. My parents had never had fresh sweet corn-like that and afterward insisted that Roland cheated by adding sugar to the pot of water.
To this day, my house and yard are full of memories of him. From the hand-carved bowls and figures to the plants I plant and the mulch piles I build… As I’m writing this, I’m enjoying fresh salad from the winter garden. Once your garden and eat from what the earth yields, you are never the same. I’m so thankful for Roland who taught me how to garden.