My grandparents' food and flower garden

My grandparents on my mother’s side were German, and lived in a small village on the outskirts of Berlin. So many people alive today never knew the kind of life my grandparents had, so I’d like to describe their house and their land. They had I’d guess about a half an acre, that was narrow across and ran so deep that from the house in the back you could not see the street. All the houses had high metal fences surrounding their property, with gates in the front, but this was by no means a gated community type thing. Rather it was an “old Europe” type thing where people could farm even within a somewhat urban setting. Not far down the road were golden wheat fields, with wonderful wild blue bachelor buttons (cornflowers) that would spring up within the fields.

My grandfather “Opa” was a carpenter. My grandmother “Oma” was the green thumb. Their half an acre was a veritable miniature garden of Eden. There were fruit and nut bearing trees throughout the property. They harvested for their own use and for sale on the market cherries, hazelnuts (filberts), plums, peaches, apples and others I probably didn’t notice as I was only there twice, both times during summers. There were fruit bushes everywhere, and I remember mostly the gooseberries and the currents. One of my jobs was to pick the currents each day to make bowls of them for dessert after dinner. We’d sprinkle them with sugar because they were tart. Their gooseberries were sweet, though you did not eat the skins, but you squeezed them out like grapes. There was a chicken coop with about six chickens, who were my playmates (until one of them ended up in the pot for dinner one night, ugh, the reality of pet vs. dinner ha ha.) The chickens went totally crazy for the white waxy berries from some sort of shrub that grew along one side of the property, so I’d pick those too for them as a treat. They also had two rabbits in a hutch. I liked to play with the chickens and the rabbits so much that Opa had to build a little chicken wire enclosure for me to sit in with my day’s playmates. The chickens were a rich brown color, and I still remember how soft and velvety their feathers felt. In the morning I’d go and collect any eggs that they laid. They ate a grain mix that had tiny bits of dried fish in it that they totally went berserk over… they loved those tiny bits of fish and would dive for them squawking and competing to get to the fish bits first whenever I scattered the grains for them. There was a potato patch in the front of the house, and a squash patch in the back, so I would dig for potatoes (and give away food to neighbors, to Oma’s irritation ha ha.) When the hazel nuts were harvested they filled one of those old fashioned wicker market baskets, and they’d last throughout the year, unless I was visiting, when they’d not likely make it through the summer as I munched on those highly favorite treats!

And every inch of the garden that was not used for food plants was filled with flowers. Until she became old and invalid, Oma just worked magic (the magic of hard work and a green thumb) on planting every type of beautiful flower. I remember mounds of orange and yellow nasturtiums. There were pink, white, yellow, orange, red and purple flowers everywhere. She had flowering bushes, mounds of flowering plants, and also individual flowers throughout, often planted among piled up rocks. She, like most farming families, had great “rock gardens” along the path that led from the road to the house. For those of you who haven’t had a farmer in the family, I’ll explain that the rocks come from preparing the ground for farming. When a farmer first marks out a plot of land to plant, he or she has to go through the property and remove the stones and boulders that would interfere with farming. That’s one reason why a lot of farm houses have stone fences, stone foundations to their barns and houses, and rock gardens. Throughout the centuries in every country where there is hard and stone filled soil, you can recognize just by looking where the first farmer’s “harvest” was stones, as they prepared their site for farming and building. As an aside, one of my favorite “chores” when I had my own house was to rebuild and repair the old stone border that created a gardened terrace in the backyard, but I claim no special talent or patience with its upkeep! It was fun when I actually motivated myself to do so, though it ended up being too big a job for just one person to do well. And I should have used some dabs of concrete as erosion made that whole area unstable.

Anyway, Opa and Oma’s garden was so full that there was only a tiny section of actual lawn! Just the portion of land right in front of the house was lawn, probably about 10 by 30 feet in size. Opa had a great little goldfish pond in a rock garden, where the pond was a galvanized tub sunk into the ground. Nothing fancy but it was one of the sweetest and most enjoyable sites. Thankfully Opa and Oma did not share the craze for garden gnomes, though they did have a couple. I don’t like them at all; I’m more a “statue of a deer in the front yard” kind of person. Or a pink flamingo. Definitely not gnomes! When we visited the gnome/garden shop I bought a glazed statue of a German shepherd. I still have it and love it.

And one of my total favorite things about the house was the backyard vineyard. It mostly consisted of a few rows, and also the vines that grew over the back of the house. The windows from my bedroom opened right in the middle of grape vines and I totally loved that. I had my Barbie dolls and would sit in the window and play with my dolls in the vines. My Barbie, Ken, and Skipper dolls had to learn how to up grape vines along trellises ha ha. I missed having dogs terribly both times I was there, but especially the second time when Oma was ill and surly, and my mother spent a lot of time seeking the fermented form of the grape vines in town, if you get my drift. My dad had died before our first trip to Germany, so I missed him a lot too. He was the dog guy in the family; he just was crazy over dogs. Not a cat guy, nor was I. So when I missed my dog (who was in the kennel in the US eating pounds of raw hamburger brought by a family friend) what did they do? Get me a cat, of course. It was handy to them because there was a litter nearby. But the cat was already grown up and not affectionate to me (or anyone) at all by the time they gave it to me. We had to establish the hierarchy (one swing of the cat around inside the chicken coop did that) because being scratched up by a cat who didn’t want to be adopted was hardly my idea of fixing a broken heart about my dad and my dog lol. The cat ended up staying on and kept Opa company after Oma died, so that was fine. Just don’t pretend someone is doing something for me when it’s not for me, if you know what I mean.
My stupid brother did the obligatory locking me into the chicken coop knowing I was afraid of the big black spider that was in there. That was the first and last time I ever entered anywhere without “securing my exit” and having recourse to a baseball bat. You military folks will know what I mean.

Anyway, I’ve never seen a yard and garden as fine as my grandparents’, since that time back in 1962. I got to see my mother and Opa on ladders harvest the cherries and take them to market (I didn’t get to go along though, drat) for extra money. I’ll tell you, there is nothing like eating fruit and vegetables every day that is grown by your own hand, or at least locally. A lot of people who grown their own tomatoes know what I mean. Later I would grow my own tomatoes, squash, dill, cucumbers, peas, beans, and cosmos (flowers) for the dinner table. Oma had a cellar full of her own canned goods. While I never went that far I did teach myself how to make strawberry jam, concord grape chutney, pickles, and canned whole tomatoes (yum.) Everyone ought to give it a try if you have a chance. There’s so much that is to be alarmed about with the dirty food that is being imported into our country, instead of being grown on its own. When I was growing up I’d walk in the fields and see the actual sweet corn that we’d eat in a few days. You knew where it came from and you knew what was put on it, or not. We have a crisis now in this country with having surrendered the cleanest and best food production system in the world to countries with low or no standards. For example, I love strawberries and always check that they are locally grown. The ones I buy here in Mississippi are grown in Louisiana. And you want to support your local countrymen and women, do you not? Up in New York state my brother has classmates that still operate their family farms. I’d stop by and buy their produce at their roadside stands. It’s healthier, tastier, and cleaner. Remember – you are what you eat!