In Grandma’s Garden
When I think of my grandma, and I say this with the utmost respect and awe, I think of dirt and dill. The yield she got out of her tiny garden was mind blowing. And it forms many of my fondest childhood memories.
We’d have many conversations about good dirt and bad dirt. One had to have good dirt. Very important. Good dirt was created by composting and tenderly cultivating the garden throughout the year. Take from the garden, put back in the garden. Several years after she has passed, I can still vividly see her hardworking hands holding a handful of rich, dark dirt. I can smell the fresh scent of it mixed with the aroma of onions and dill. The sensory experience of her amazing Hungarian cooking didn’t start the second you walked in the door of the house for a visit, it started weeks before in the garden cultivating the food for the meal for that visit. If it was winter, the experience started months before when she took fresh vegetables and pickled countless jars of pickles, beets, peppers and relish.
Luisa Windischmann
There was no better way to insult my grandma than to bring her fresh cut flowers. Why would anyone kill a flower before its time? Take it from the soil when someone else could still enjoy it? The rule in our house was that when visiting, potted plants as presents were the way to go. If it had roots and was in dirt, it was safe. It still amuses and delights me to know that her connection to the earth was so strong that this energy carried over to what we brought her for Mother’s Day and Easter and just becauses.
I believe the experiences we had as children stay with us and being in my grandmother’s garden, feeling the dirt in my tiny little hands, absorbing her lessons and knowledge is a part of who I am. Craving fresh vegetables is a part of my being because she instilled in me the love of being actively involved in the energy of the food that I eat. I still delight in encouraging others to try kohlrabi. To this day not many people know what it is. When I was younger, kids would ask,”You’re eating karate? How do you eat karate?”
The garden was a complete sensory experience – feeling the moist dirt in my hands as I tugged vegetables into a huge basket, smelling onions and dill mingled with roses and fresh cut grass, watching birds and animals nibble on sunflower seeds and leaves – and laughing hysterically as my grandpa shooed them away. And to this day, every time it rains, I can still hear my grandparents chime, “Well, it’s good for the farmers.” Rain was always a nourishing blessing, never a curse. And it wasn’t eating that was the most important part of my visits – the entire food cycle was vital and fun. I felt just as proud to take scraps out to the compost as I did bringing vegetables into the house. Subconsciously I knew every part of the process was nourishing the garden – and me.
I don’t feel the need to visit my grandma’s tombstone often because her energy is in a nourishing garden, in fresh picked vegetables, in the air, in the smell of dill at a farmers’ market or beautifully scented wild roses. But when I do go, I would never think to bring fresh cut flowers. She would be mad. I bring instead a large sprig of dill and the scent wafts over the beautiful grounds. I figure if an animal nibbles on it or carries it away she would be thrilled.
