The garden as family member, visible toward the right back. Photos marking family events and visits always took place in the yard. My grandfather’s hunting dog is visible behind the trellis. 1969.
Among the Bowmans, the garden is part of the family. Any Sunday dinner was ended with “a walk to the garden,” a trip to check on the vegetables’ progress. I laughingly continued this tradition in my 450 sq. foot Manhattan apartment, my mother and I squeezing past my bed to get the the window sill where I keep pots of flowers, herbs, miniature cucumbers (a tasty variety known as Patio Pickle), and a strawberry.
At my grandparents’ house, this meant a huge patch of corn, rhubarb, asparagus, pole lima beans, green beans, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, yellow squash, raspberries, and other items since forgotten. Gardening was a summer activity; I never remember my family planting (or eating) winter squash, kale, or other greens (see my post on Winter Gardening here). My grandfather kept the vegetable garden and my grandmother chose showy flowers for beds near the house – the garden mirrored their personalities. Irises and Portulacas. He always wore a white t-shirt, khaki pants, and a feed cap when working around the house and yard. The garden was surrounded on 3 sides by woods, set back from Chapel Road outside Havre de Grace. Tinkling aluminum pie tins futilely attempted to scare the deer. Sometimes shelling from nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground would break the silence. Evenings were spent with aged baskets of beans to snap and limas to shell. I didn’t care much for the task or its yield.
Evans Family House, Webster, outside of Havre de Grace MD. c. 1920.
Roses were transplanted from garden to garden, a maintenance of heritage. My grandfather moved a pink rose from his cousin’s house, once home to my 3rd great grandparents, in Webster. My mother has since transplanted it to Carroll County.
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