How does your garden grow?

Since early in my childhood, I've loved gardening. My career choice should have been gardener. I don't know why that didn't happen. Life got in the way I suppose. Growing up, I had a neighbor lady next door who was quite elderly, but had lots of spunk. You will learn that I like people with lots of spunk. She gardened every day in her huge iris bed which was between our two houses. I helped her. Mainly, I pulled weeds and sometimes, she let me water. It is one of my fondest memories. She would talk to me about her deceased husband, about her only daughter and granddaughter and how much she missed them. They lived in Paris, Texas and only came to see her about once a month. She always fed me lunch--usually tuna sandwiches. She had cats and I often wondered if they ate the same tuna or if we were eating theirs. :-) I would always do the lunch dishes and I loved that she used Ivory liquid. I can still remember that smell. She made homemade Sake and threw the fermented rice in the yard for the birds. You can imagine the result. She had ancient birdbaths and taught me a love and appreciation for all things in nature. She was my first real best friend and I was devastated when she died. I'll always be grateful for her friendship and I'll always cherish it. Every time one of my irises blooms, I think of her.

I lived next door in the house with my grandparents. My grandfather loved gardening too. He had vegetable gardens and even before I met the lady next door, he would let me tag along as he tended his garden. I ate tomatoes right off the vine. He always acted mad, but I knew better. He wore straw hats and overalls most of the time. He could grow just about any type of vegetable in his garden and my grandmother would cook it up. Amazingly, most of the time it was fried. Go figure. Her fried okra was to die for. She made fried squash, fried potatoes, fresh green beans with new potatoes, cucumber and onion salad, the list goes on. She made biscuits at almost every meal-a couple of  times a day. She made gravy almost every day. Oddly, even though she made pork chops, meatloaf and the like, I wasn't much of a meat or fish fan back then. I guess you could say I was pretty much a vegetarian. I would eat only what few bites I could get away with and scarf up the veggies. On the rare occasion I went out to eat, I ordered hamburgers with no meat.
The only thing out of the garden I didn't care for were beets. Hate 'em to this day. Yuck.

I'm sad to say that I didn't especially pick up my grandmother's talent for making houseplants flourish. I do much better with the stuff outside. My houseplants tend to just gather dust, shrivel up and die. I don't know why I can't remember to water them before it's too late. It's a mystery.

My yard now is almost total shade. I've had to adapt since I only knew sun gardening when I moved here. Shade gardening is a challenge, but one I've enjoyed. Plus, it's a hell of a lot more pleasant to work in the shade than the blazing hot, 104 degree living hell that we inevitably have here in Texas about this time of year. Yeah, I like summer, but I'm about done this year. I'm ready to buy some pansies with their cute little faces and kiss this mofo of a summer goodbye.