Who do you get your Green Fingers from?

[BarleySugar]

My Dad was a smallholder, and I used to have to help pull leeks, plants spuds, pick strawberries etc, which generally I hated. However in our garden we were all given a patch for ourselves, and Mum used to let us pick out packets of seeds from the catalogues. I loved it, I grew mainly flowers, and was over the moon when I was 'promoted' to a bigger patch under the old apple tree. I had an old preserving pan with a goldfish in, he survived about 5 years in that, it was sunk into the garden.

I think I can say the enjoyment came from Mum, with Dad it just seemed to be cold, hard work. I've always grown things though in all of the houses we've lived in, we are on our 7th. This is the first garden I really designed though, all the others just 'grew' from what was there already.
I've tried to get the children interested, but as they are getting older the enthusiasm has waned. I'm just hoping with a firm gardening background, they will rediscover it once they get places of their own.

[miffy]

I am passing on my enthusiasm for gardening to the children and their families now, i have enrolled our school in the Duchy scheme for organic gardening in school and also with the spud council and the rhs scheme, we now have raised beds and fruit bushes and grow spuds too. One of the highlights for me last year was watching their three year olds faces when we tipped out our black bins and there were potatoes inside, they thought it was magic. We also hatch eggs with them and again they gasp when they see the chicks hatching. Nothing beats passing that onto kids, hopefully the gardeners of the future.

[sharonr]

I think all schools should have gardening lessons along with needlecraft, woodwork, metalwork and cooking. They should also have a greenhouse and a veg garden to encourage children to grow their own.

[Glutton4...]

I hated gardening (carting weeds) as a kid. But my folks were always relatively keen, but didn't grow Veg until recent years. My Mum's parents grew their own veg, and I can vividly remember picking Strawberries to eat with cream and sugar, shelling peas and eating most of them raw, helping Nan and Granddad gather veg for dinner. My Mum's grandparents were farmers, and had a kitchen garden and chickens. Long before my time, but I feel quite strongly that it's in my blood.

When we moved into our last house, 11 years ago, I had a garden of my own for the first time, and got hooked. From that, I then got involved in the Landscaping industry, and progressed from shrubs to edibles. Runners and Toms so far, but hey, this year will be a challenge - I can't wait!

I've wanted to keep Chickens for as long as I can remember, too.

[Glutton4...]

I am passing on my enthusiasm for gardening to the children and their families now, i have enrolled our school in the Duchy scheme for organic gardening in school and also with the spud council and the rhs scheme, we now have raised beds and fruit bushes and grow spuds too. One of the highlights for me last year was watching their three year olds faces when we tipped out our black bins and there were potatoes inside, they thought it was magic. We also hatch eggs with them and again they gasp when they see the chicks hatching. Nothing beats passing that onto kids, hopefully the gardeners of the future.

And they're shutting your school? - they should be shot!

[miffy]

Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind, i have the means, longbow and arrows, silent but deadly!!
Most of the children in our school do not have access to a garden they live in flats/maisonettes or their gardens are full of mess from stray dogs and cats or even worse discarded needles so for me it was a priority that they had somewhere to garden.
I don't know what they will do now, it is just too sad to think about.
Planning to do the same thing at my new school as they don't grow veg there yet!!
Can't bare to think about Friday when i leave there, i am going to miss them all so much.
So sad.

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

I grew up in the 70's - poor. Grew our own veg and salad stuff. So did my uncle and aunt. In fact, most people grew their own foodstuffs then. I went Swinton Primary School and we all had a little patch of garden to tend, churned our own butter, grew sprouts - I loved my primary school So, I think my green fingers are green from necessity. Now, I grow because I developed a love for it.

[Rhona]

What a nice idea for a thread!

My parents were both mad about GYO and we grew up with a big garden full of fruit and vegetables, and lots of chickens. We were more or less self sufficient, and it was just the way of life we were used to. There was a gorgeous little summer house in one part of the garden, which we sisters used as our 'little house' and we had our own little vegetable plot outside that too. We used to to help in the garden, feed the chickens and gather eggs etc.

When I was older, I didn't reject it all, but certainly wasn't interested in GYO for years. Then, slowly, it all crept back up on me and here I am!

I am slowly morphing into both of my parents I think, but don't mind at all. I'd love our little ones to have the kind of childhood we did - my big sis bought our baby girl her first watering can as a Christening pressie!

[HayleyB]

My Grandad (maternal) had a couple of lotties and would grow all our veg, my Mum also is very good with flowers, I'm the only one of 3 sisters who grows anything.

[burnie]

My surname translates into English as a cross between farmer and gardener and my Dad inherited his love of plants,his family business was a market garden.I have to admit helping in our large family garden when I was little was like a punishment ,when all I wanted to do was go fishing.
Of three brothers I'm the only one that into growing my own veggies though.

[lavender lou]

i got my green fingers from my dad and grandad. My dad's sister also loves her garden and has got an allotment. On my mum's side there was only my great grandfather that loved is garden and also grew veg.
As a child i always remembered going to grandad's and helping him in the garden and also helping my dad in the garden.
I also remember my dad growing tomatoes in every window sill in the house and then putting them in the greenhouse when they were big enough. And of him and my auntie going in the garden and pinching all the pea pods and eating them!!

I've grown up with vegetable gardening and loved it, and like my dad says we were eating organically before it was even thought off!!!

last year was my first year of growing my own veg and to go in the garden and pick the veg that your going to eat that day is the best feeling in the world i think.

My OH nephew helped me last year and is always ringing up and asking me is it time yet to plant, and i said wait till it gets warmer, and the other day he turned up and said 'it's warmer today so that means we can plant today' bless him.

[Mikey]

I got mine mainly from picking my nose, however since I've started gardening they tend to remain an ingrained brown, as I refuse to wear gloves.

It doesn't really matter how you found eden, as long as you work hard to stay there.

[robD]

My Dad had an allotment when I was a kid. I used to hate being 'dragged' down there. Oh how he laughs now I have the two plots! My maternal grandad has a 3.5 acre 'garden' where he grew everything from strawberries (that we used to sell out the front of his house) to potatoes. He hardly uses any of it now (he's almost 92), but my Dad has his 'allotment' there now, and the family orchard is there that we raid every autumn (which also doubles up as the family pet cemetery!) My grandmothers ashes are also buried there.

On the other side of the family, my paternal grandad also had an allotment and also worked on a farm as soon as he left school (early 1900s) until after the Second World War. His ancestors, back to late 1700s, were all farm labourers too.

I think it was probably somewhere in my blood

[SlugLobber]

I think all schools should have gardening lessons along with needlecraft, woodwork, metalwork and cooking. They should also have a greenhouse and a veg garden to encourage children to grow their own.

I was thinking about this yesterday. In times when schools are trying to cut down on expenditure, it would make so much sense to have NVQs in horticulture, using the school grounds as the course material!

As for my Green Fingers (hmmm, work in progress, I think!). I honestly have no idea. I grew up in a Single Parent Family with a back yard (this is where I grew spuds in a container in the front palisade), not a garden. Even when we did have a garden, my Mum and Uncle never bothered and it was me who tried to mow the lawn about three times a year! My whole lifestyle is a mystery to my family! I reckon I was swapped on the maternity ward.

[Lizzy]

My lovely Dad, who died just over a year ago. My Brother, Sister and myself each had our own small patches of garden when we were little and we grew flowers. My Dad used to grow all our vegetables. I now have two plots on my local allotments and I love it. I love trying unusual veg. and always on the look-out for anything different.

Liz