When I was growing up, my dad (a teacher who had summers off) always planted a large vegetable garden.
As his tomatoes, beets, carrots, and other vegetables multiplied, he would often take pails of produce around the neighborhood as gifts to other families. I helped with planting and weeding, although my main role was taking care of the flowers decorating the garden.
Enjoyment of gardening
Ever since then, I’ve always enjoyed gardening. Being outdoors with the smell of dirt (to me it smells good) and the bees buzzing gives me a sense of calm and peace.
When our children were young, we, too, had a vegetable garden. However, it got to be too much work to keep up with the weeding and harvesting — plus two of our neighbors had gardens and liked to share their produce with us. We decided to give up the vegetables, but we still have flowers and maintain our fairly large yard.