Three of my four grandparents were farmers. My mom spent her early years on a farm and thereafter was an avid gardener. Once my father retired, he too became a gardener. He went overboard with it, dragging Mom into an expanded 1-acre version of her garden.
As farms go, an acre isn’t much, but for a vegetable garden, an acre is a lot. A square acre is 209 feet on each side.
He also planted separate areas for dwarf fruit trees, grape vines, raspberries and asparagus.
Growing stuff in the dirt seems to be in my blood. Being lazier than Dad and Mom were, I’ve not recently aspired to having a vast garden. In the early years of our marriage, my beloved wife, Marsha, and I had two gardens — a small kitchen garden next to the house and a 40-foot square garden for beans, beets, parsnips, radishes,